American Style of Soccer (football, European, league, English)
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Pass, dribble and move, eh???...;-)....You know come to think of it we can pass and move real good. But I'd say 'dribbling' and learning to take pressure while on the ball could be worked on.
The US could have the best of all styles of play. We should have a strong defense, a wicked dribbling samba style midfield and a crazy good attacking force. We are not there yet but in a few more years we will develop into one of the best teams out there.
Until we do the following we are never going to make that next step to producing elite players:
-remove barriers to entry for pro career. Among these is abolishing the draft for MLS. When you force an 18 year old kid from Texas to start his pro career in Canada don't be surprised when it takes him two years to adapt to his new country, new culture, and being away from family. No other country does this for a reason.
-add a promotion/relegation system to the pyramid. Pro/rel means more clubs, more clubs means more youth academies, more youth academies means more availability of free training for youth players. Pro/rel also means more competition. Competion increases quality. The franchise system limits growth of clubs. By limiting growth of clubs you are limiting the spread of soccer culture and you are limiting opportunities.
-invest in inner-city soccer infrastructure. In successful soccer nations soccer is a working class sport. In America it is a sport played by the middle class and upper class.
-invest in inner-city soccer infrastructure. In successful soccer nations soccer is a working class sport. In America it is a sport played by the middle class and upper class.
I believe all sports are middle to upper middle class thing in America. That's the market and that's the demographic. Basketball being the lone exception.
Soccer is working class all the way. The upper crust in soccer crazy nations don't even really appreciate it as much and prefer tennis and rugby.
I agree that soccer should start at the basest level. Soccer is a pretty much upper middle class sport in terms of where all the opportunities and best resources are.
You know it is too bad that money somehow interferes with the cream rising to the top so to speak. I'd figure that it's incumbent that the US soccer 'bureaucracy' has to be set up in such a way to really enable those who have talent and want to excel in the sport by putting the required work to have that dream fulfilled. Thing is we're such a gigantic country and real good athletes in soccer can get 'lost'. I don't think other countries have this issue.
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