The "What If" USMNT of 2012

[SoCalJoe]

BTW, Joe. What if Dave Henderson struck out instead of homering in game 5 of the ALCS in 86? But then again, what if Henderson had caught the ball earlier in the game instead of knocking it into the stands? Hmm.

anyway, I'll agree with Joe on Bielsa. He would be wondering what to do about the backline as well. I read this post on Bigsoccer about the USMNT the other day and about sums up my feelings on the coaching situation and the team's future.

Perhaps it is a lost in translation thing. To me, pressure and defense are not different discussions. Pressure is one defensive tactic.

As far as whether Klinsmann will succeed in transforming the style of play to the style he has described publicly, I hope so but have my doubts. Not just because of him, and his staff, and the many grievances I think are too harshly outlined by some here, but because I fail to see the talent to play that style of soccer. Not now, and not in the next 4-5 years, at least.

I have mentioned this before, but I see a country's youth teams similar to a college football team's draft class. Elite programs re-load regularly with both quantity and high quality. The US has done neither in recent years.

Since I have watched, the the U17 and U20 teams have underwhelmed. US coaches, after assessing domestically developed talent, pin their hopes on a kid from Norway, or Mexico, or Germany. In my experience, this is not how elite countries build. The world's elite develop domestically.

What do Germany, France, and Spain, the favorites in this year's Euros, have in common? Years of intense domestic development focus. Mexico is better than the US now, and will widen the gap in the next 3-5 years to the point where I think the US will be hard-pressed to keep points at home. They too have focused on domestic development. Brasil in the middle of an intense review of its development practices. I expect them to regain their elite status.

The US is in its infancy of development overhaul, but it is moving too slowly to keep pace with the competition. The focus seems to be on organization, when it needs to be on coaching development and turnover.

The US could hire Bielsa, Mourinho, or any number of US coaches, and I think its current and near-future talent level would have it at about 25th-30th in the world overall. Good enough to make the World Cup. Lucky to do much more.

So no. I do not think Klinsmann will transform this team by 2014. I do not think Bradley would have, either. Or any other coach for that matter. The US is what it is, a workman-like team whose two more special players are on the wrong side of their careers. To its credit, the US's workers are getting better. But the game changers are not there, and I do not see any in the pipeline.

I truly hope I am dead wrong.

What if the author is right? All joking aside, I find myself agreeing with much of the post.

Dave Henderson? Kevin Durant? Add Diego Forlan and the officials that screwed the Seahawks in the Super Bowl and all the bases will be covered.

[HatterDon]

Of all the sad words of tongue and pen,
the saddest are these: What the #@$#@ happened to the USMNT?

or something like that.

[Clevelandmo]

Perhaps it is a lost in translation thing. To me, pressure and defense are not different discussions. Pressure is one defensive tactic.

As far as whether Klinsmann will succeed in transforming the style of play to the style he has described publicly, I hope so but have my doubts. Not just because of him, and his staff, and the many grievances I think are too harshly outlined by some here, but because I fail to see the talent to play that style of soccer. Not now, and not in the next 4-5 years, at least.

I have mentioned this before, but I see a country's youth teams similar to a college football team's draft class. Elite programs re-load regularly with both quantity and high quality. The US has done neither in recent years.

Since I have watched, the the U17 and U20 teams have underwhelmed. US coaches, after assessing domestically developed talent, pin their hopes on a kid from Norway, or Mexico, or Germany. In my experience, this is not how elite countries build. The world's elite develop domestically.

What do Germany, France, and Spain, the favorites in this year's Euros, have in common? Years of intense domestic development focus. Mexico is better than the US now, and will widen the gap in the next 3-5 years to the point where I think the US will be hard-pressed to keep points at home. They too have focused on domestic development. Brasil in the middle of an intense review of its development practices. I expect them to regain their elite status.

The US is in its infancy of development overhaul, but it is moving too slowly to keep pace with the competition. The focus seems to be on organization, when it needs to be on coaching development and turnover.

The US could hire Bielsa, Mourinho, or any number of US coaches, and I think its current and near-future talent level would have it at about 25th-30th in the world overall. Good enough to make the World Cup. Lucky to do much more.

So no. I do not think Klinsmann will transform this team by 2014. I do not think Bradley would have, either. Or any other coach for that matter. The US is what it is, a workman-like team whose two more special players are on the wrong side of their careers. To its credit, the US's workers are getting better. But the game changers are not there, and I do not see any in the pipeline.

I truly hope I am dead wrong.

Stuff like this always cracks me up. I would like to know on what basis people say things like this. How are they such experts on what the US is doing differently from other countries. Are they journalists, US coaches, foreign coaches that have access to what is going on in programs around the world.

What do Germany, France, and Spain, the favorites in this year's Euros, have in common? Years of intense domestic development focus. Mexico is better than the US now, and will widen the gap in the next 3-5 years to the point where I think the US will be hard-pressed to keep points at home. They too have focused on domestic development. Brasil in the middle of an intense review of its development practices. I expect them to regain their elite status.

How is the US not focusing on domestic development? We started a pro league 16 yrs ago which is actually surviving and growing. The Bradenton academy was started. It was a success in developing players like Landon Donovan, Demarcus Beasley, Michael Bradley, etc. This academy has now been modeled and expanded to include 78 US Development academies across the country. US soccer has control over much of what these academies can and cant do. US Soccer regularly observes these academies, rates them biannually, and pushes them to improve. US Soccer and MLS started Project 40 and Generation Addidas to encourage promising players to enter the pros at a younger age. US Soccer standardized and published guidelines for youth soccer across the country. This and more has all happened in the last 16 yrs and I'd say that qualifies as pretty damn intense. Show me one national soccer federation who has done more. Maybe Japan or China, but certainly not Brazil or Mexico. Does 16 yrs and all of that qualify as us still being in our infancy of our development overhaul?

The US could hire Bielsa, Mourinho, or any number of US coaches, and I think its current and near-future talent level would have it at about 25th-30th in the world overall. Good enough to make the World Cup. Lucky to do much more.

This statement is a manifestation of how Klinsmann has successfully lowered so many's expectations. Look at our last three World Cups - 2002) reached the quarterfinals with the potential of the semis had the officiating been better 2006) Did not advance out of the group but drew with the eventual WC champion. Could have advanced had the officiating been better (Lorrionda is infamous in Uruguay for officiating irregularities, bogus penalty on Gooch) 2010) Won our group and perhaps wouldnt have lost to Ghana if the team was not so exhausted from overcoming bogus officiating and conceding early goals in the group stage. Can you look at these WC results, advanced out of group play 2 out of 3 times, and honestly say we were lucky to get those results? Because at the time, everyone thought we were unlucky to only get those results. I do agree that our talent level currently puts us around 25 - 30th in the world, but we were not lucky to get our last three WC results. We got them through good coaching and inspired play. Somehow, now that Klinsmann is our coach, who the coach is has suddenly become irrelevant, nothing can be done to overcome our lack of talent. Well, the rest of the world and all the best club teams across the globe dont think coaching is irrelevant, they think it is necessary to get the most out of what you've got.

I have mentioned this before, but I see a country's youth teams similar to a college football team's draft class. Elite programs re-load regularly with both quantity and high quality. The US has done neither in recent years.

This makes no sense. "Youth teams" by their very nature "re-load" regularly so we are at least doing that. And everyone seemed to agree the amount and quality of our talent was improving until the U23s failed to qualify for the olympics.

The real problem with our soccer is the 18 - 23 age. The best domestic option for most is still college. MLS has never had an adequate reserve league and frankly the Adu's, Agudelo's, Shea's and Salgado's have not shown the maturity that their college counterparts have developed. And NASL and USL are not in the business of developing youth talent; plus who is going to give up college to play for a second or third tier team that draws 500 fans. We also dont have a mega club like Barcelona, Ajax, or ManU that is going to attract children from around the world so your domestic players are training and competing reguarly with the best. Face it, the big clubs of the world are developing the world class players not the national football federations. These clubs put children in a professional environment often to the detriment of the 98% that never make it in the pros. The day the US starts doing this is the day I will no longer care.

If the US has done anything wrong recently it is moving away from Bradenton. You get the best results by concentrating all your talent. What we need is a Bradenton in every region of the country and academics has to come before soccer.

[Clevelandmo]

I'll add some more what ifs, what if Adu had made an impact at Benefica.
What if Chandler hadnt injured Omar Gonzales.

And what if so many hadnt drunk the Klinsmann kool aide

Which reminds me of one of my favorite college bands from my Houston days

[AggieMatt]

Good counter arguments Mo. There's a lot of info there to think about. I admit, I don't keep up with it enough to know what the problem is or how to address it. I just know that it's becoming clear that as we lose players from the most recent wave of USMNT regulars, we don't seem to have much in the way of replacements. That tells me we're dropping the ball somewhere in finding and/or developing talent. Or maybe we just got lucky on that last wave and are settling back to normal.

Or maybe we just need more futsal.

[DCHeather]

Mo, the us boy youth teams haven't been meeting expectations for some time now. They didn't even qualify for the U-20 World Cup in last year's Concacaf tournament held in April (while Bradley was the head coach of the USMNT, so you can't pin the blame on Klinsmann). They lost 1-0 to Guatemala in the knockout stages. In 2009, they finished 3rd in the group stages at the U-20 WC and lost 3-0 to South Korea in their final match. And the U-17 boys didn't make it out of group stages in their WC in Mexico last year. (Edit--my bad, they made it out of the group, only to get knocked out by Germany 4-0)

While we may be spending a lot of money on youth development in soccer, we don't have a whole lot to show for it. MLS was a good start for sure and has helped along with starting Academies affiliated with the MLS club's is starting to help. But I can't help but agree with the Bigsoccer poster's point about our development thus far. So far we have two really good player's beginning to enter their final years of playing and a lot good worker-bee players. We have needed to recruit players that were developed outside the US to fill in holes and still haven't developed a real "game changing" player. Right now it feels like the youth development system in the US is like the DC public school system, a lot of money thrown about but diddle squat to show for it.

I agree that college is still the best thing for players aged 18-21 to get playing time. However, there's still going to be kids that do not want to go to school no matter how beneficial it may be to them. Not every kid is suited for college, and if they don't want to be there to get an education then they shouldn't waste their time there. College shouldn't be for the sole development for professional athletes, it should be there for the education and learning skills to be productive members of society. (despite that's mostly about taking kids, err parents, money these days)

[jumpkutz]

What do the most successful countries, i.e., Brazil, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc., do?

[Clevelandmo]

Heather, I have no idea how much money US Soccer is spending on youth development or whether those recent youth WC results represent atypically bad ones for the US. My point is that the US has done a pretty intense overahaul of the youth development system. I would wager it's more intense than what the other countries mentioned in that Bigsoccer post have done. The world class players of today were developed by professional clubs not the youth coaches in their nation's football federation. Ajax is a factory of world class youth soccer players not the Dutch national youth teams. Only a handful of our MLS clubs are even able to provide free training for their top prospects. We dont have a decent reserve league because MLS doesnt have the money for one. There is only so much US soccer can do, especially in such a large country.

For the 18 - 23 age range, the money and the facilities are at the 300+ colleges and universities that have soccer programs. That is just a fact. Maybe the U20s arent doing well because too many of them are floundering on some MLS reserve side that only plays about 8 - 10 pretty meaningless games a year. I understand that college isnt for everyone. My point about academics is for the 18 and under ages. Academics needs to come first at this age group, the way it does with high school athletics. You need to maintain your grades in order to play for a US academy team. This is not happening right now and it is a mistake that will have an even greater impact now that US Soccer has decided to prohibit academy players from playing with their high school teams. Only 1% of players ever make the pros. It is not right to take advantage of a kids dreams and not expect them to get an education so they have something to fall back on. They will be better soccer players if they are well educated anyway. The Generation Adidas program has shown that the players who had at least some college are more likely to have a successful pro career.

While I agree that college shouldnt be for producing professional athletes, that's the way it is for every sport except baseball. There is big money it it and I dont see that changing. Is not just the facilities; it's where the best coaching is. The Ohio State football coach is highest paid public employee in all of Ohio by a long shot. Plus at 18 - 23 you still dont know if a kid will have what it takes to make it in the pros so I think we should feel some responsibility to encourage them to continue their education.

[DCHeather]

What do the most successful countries, i.e., Brazil, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc., do?

Have their little ones play the game in the womb.

[Clevelandmo]

What do the most successful countries, i.e., Brazil, Holland, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc., do?

Their clubs have youth academies that scout and develop youth players. From what I've read US soccer traveled around the world to see what the top soccer nations do to develop youth players. They developed the current US development academy system based upon what was successful with the Bradenton, FL academy and what the top soccer countries do. The problem is a lot of these academies have very little in the way of resources. At our Cleveland area academy all the coaches have day jobs, luckily for most of them that is coaching at a local university (yet another reason our college programs are important). US Soccer's requirements about the facilities you need to have to be an academy are pretty high. Our club has to rent these facilities and it isnt cheap and therefore contributes to fees that are prohibitively high for some players. Also, I dont know what it is like in the rest of the country but in Ohio clubs in general do not scout and recruit. Being an academy improves this because the academies do eventually draw most of the best players, but you still cant get the concentrations of talent that you would see at a famous club like Ajax. And our academies certainly dont attract players from other countries who could raise the average level of play. On my son's team there is a kid (11 yr old) who had offers from Dynamo Zagreb and Pachuca to sign with their academies.

[Clevelandmo]

Another new development with the US soccer landscape is that US Club Soccer was started in 2001. It is a youth system under the USSF but separate and different from US Youth Soccer. It was started by a former USSF guy on the belief that clubs are the best places for developing youth players. They felt too much time and effort was spent governing youth soccer rather than focusing on growth and what is best for player development. US Youth Soccer, and the state federations under them, are too much about rules and too little about just letting kids play soccer. My youngest son has played on teams under each organization and our experience is that US Club Soccer is far superior when it comes to player development. The clubs are allowed to play out of state, switch their rosters around in order to insure competitive matches, and basically do what is in the best interests of their teams and players. US Youth Soccer is about control. Some of that need for control is well intended, or instance to keep things fair, but some of it is not.

Theorhetically, based on what has happened in the US in the last 15 yrs, our player pool and talent level should be on the rise. Sorry for all the writing but you guys know this is a subject I really like talking about.

[jumpkutz]

What if we'd stuck with Bob Bradley?

[DCHeather]

What if we'd stuck with Bob Bradley?

We would not have seen Mo call Klinsmann the anti-Christ?

[jumpkutz]

What if we'd stuck with Bob Bradley?

We would not have seen Mo call Klinsmann the anti-Christ?

Ha! Wait. What if he really is? Nahhh.