U.S. Soccer Youth Development -- Part 2

In Part 1, I highlighted two issues that are critical to solve for successful youth development: 

1. Difficulty finding quality coaching; and the cost(s) associated with accessing quality coaching 
2. As a result of the first point, youth development is still built largely around upper-middle class white families.

So in Part 2, it seems important to spend some extended time on why diversity matters both in terms of the on-field results and in terms of creating a healthy, well functioning, national soccer federation. 

In terms of fielding globally competitive teams at each age group; including the senior team, developing players of diverse backgrounds is a non-negotiable. 

As I've previously eluded to, culture influences style(s) of play in very direct ways and sets the foundational or platonic ideal of what it means to be a great player. 

Mexicans and Germans, for example, have different--if not competing--epistemological concepts of greatness on the pitch. 

If you're unread in this subject area, I suggest starting with Johnathan Wilson's classic, "Inverting the Pyramid" as well as Franklin Foer's, "How Soccer Explains the World".

Given, then, that players from diverse backgrounds carry with them different basic understandings, based on core cultural values, of how to solve on-field problems integrating America's diverse soccer playing population into a coherent soccer "worldview" becomes a mission-critical objective. 

And, to be fair, under the direction of Tab Ramos there has been noticeable improvement integrating Latino players and styles into the American playing paradigm. 

However, the fact remains Latino players in particular are not well integrated, understood or valued in on-field terms within U.S. Soccer (to say nothing of lifestyle or cultural obstacles) -- particularly at the senior team level. Don't take my word on it. Read this excellent interview in SoccerAmerica. 

Brad Rothenberg, who's as qualified as anyone to speak on this subject, details the dynamic in very plain terms. In the most telling except (for me), Rothenberg says,

I’ve grown tired of watching our federation neglect this community. We didn’t do enough, not nearly enough, to keep him. And the worst part is that it will continue if wholesale changes aren’t made in the approach to finding talent in this community.The paucity of coaches employed by U.S. Soccer with an interest in Latino style of play is a problem. Tab Ramos isn’t enough. Bring back Hugo Perez. Jonathan wasn’t the first and will not be the last player lost to the national team until major shifts take place at the federation.

Not only does this ring true based on my personal experience as a youth coach in an exclusively Latino context, it lays bare the basic reality that U.S. Soccer is not trying to put the best possible combination of players on the field.

To put it another way, by not actively cultivating, training and financially investing in Latino players and coaches U.S. Soccer is acting in direct opposition to it's core mission.

(This seems to be a good stopping point, so I'll write Part 3 about the organizational aspects of diversity another night.)

More to come...

Jonathan Gonzalez and USMNT Youth Development -- Part 1

Jonathan Gonzalez shook-up what was going to be an otherwise nondescript January camp by letting it be known he's going to play for El Tri at the senior national team level; meaning he will be "cap-tied" to Mexico going forward. 

As this relates to Gonzalez, it's a big deal because he's an elite-level young player. The U.S. Men's National Team certainly would benefit from his skillset as a shut down d-mid as the current positional core group phases out prior to the 2022 cycle.

If you want to read more about the Gonzalez situation specifically, I suggest Steve Davis' piece in FourFourTwo and Matt Doyle's "Arm Chair Analyst" column on the subject. 

What I'm most interested--and have tweeted about extensively--is the underlying issue(s) US Soccer has within its player development paradigm relative to Latino players. Specifically, Mexican-American players. 

Two basic but critical structural issues to highlight:

• High-level coaching is extremely difficult to find and it's incredibly expensive to utilize. This is exact opposite of an effective strategy to develop the widest array of potential USMNT players as is possible; which one would assume should be the goal of US Soccer. 
• Youth player development is (still) built around white upper-middle class families. The stereotypes of soccer mom's exist for a reason. With the switch to a quasi-academy model in 2007 players need access to one of 197 affiliate clubs. These clubs need to fund their coaches, trainers, equipment, etc. to do that, they need enough players who can pay their full fees to offset the scholarship players. It's pretty simple, really.

There's more to each point, clearly, but the net-effect is that because of these issues there are entire communities disconnected from US Soccer's youth development project. It gets even worse when you realize that the communities which are being left aside are the talent producing ones. To put it another way, the "system" isn't designed for Mexican-American youth to be identified and/or developed by-and-large.

As a result, when a dual-eligible player like Gonzalez is available and chooses to play for Mexico, it's a huge blow because there aren't hundreds prospects lineup to take his place; which is a shame because there should be.   

More to come...