The academy system is extremely overrated in terms of what it is trying to accomplish. I don't think it is going to make the usmnt that much better. Coaching has an impact, but I think it makes far less of one then it is made out to be. If you look at our other sports, it is easy to see why the superstars are superstars. They have a ton of natural ability and worked their butt of as a kid, playing 6 plus hours a day in practice and on their own, the majority of the time spent with no coaching. Pickup games, by themselves, etc. If I coached LeBron James as a kid, he would still be in the NBA even though I have no basketball coaching experience. Same goes for Kobe. An example we can relate to for South Carolina is Sammy Watkins. His story is well known now. He came from a terrible neighborhood and to stay out of trouble would often go to his local field and run routes by himself until it got dark. The theme you'll find with most of our top athletes, regardless of sport, is the insane amount of work they do on their own. I'm not talking a Sunday pickup game, I'm talking 3+ hours a day.
The problem soccer has in this country is that it is an elitist sport. If you don't have money you aren't playing. Kids who have money don't work anywhere near as hard as kids from the inner city who see sports as a way out. Until we start attracting inner city kids we are never going to be a soccer power. Just isn't happening regardless of our coaching or setup. Superstars aren't made by good coaching they are made by amazing natural talent and hard work. You can't teach either. If anything our setup is hurting our chances of turning into a power. A lot of top players drive 90 minutes each way to a 90 minute practice. So they play 1 hour and a half and waste 4 and a half hours to do it. The last thing they are going to want to do when they get home is go to a local field and play on their own. Heck even if they did they wouldn't have time unless they don't care about academics.
It's a bad problem to have and it's very hard to fix. Basketball and football get all the attention and huge salaries so the inner city kids are always going to go that route. Until we start pulling a few, we won't be a soccer power regardless of how hard we try. Not to mention football and basketball are free to play, not pay to play.
But if you have two kids of identical talent, and one trains 90 minutes 4x a week with Mourinho or Sir Alex Ferguson and the other trains 90 minutes 4x a week with your average American coach and then plays 4.5 hours a day on his own 7 times a week, I'm betting the mortgage that the average coached kid is going to make the better player. That's the real problem with American soccer IMO.
Last edited by TSO; 02/13/12 01:13 PM.
