If England get knocked out by Ecuador they will not be questioning the validity of their grass roots selection systems.They will place the blame where it belongs, with Sven.
But my point is that England is a tiny country compared to the US, yet they have 80 full time pro clubs and, 100's of semi pro teams and leagues, then local Saturday and Sunday amateur leagues. When you have all these teams scouting around for players, the talent will get discovered.
In the US this place is so huge and you only have a dozen or so pro teams and some semi pro.
There is not a real network out there looking for the talent. In England there is no Olympic Development because they don't care about it and it is not a route to a pro career.
Here, High School kids want to get into a college and then college kids want to go into the MLS. There are few kids out there who forego the latter high school years and college to have a chance to play. Jonathan Spector did it. But in England if you waited until you were 18 or 22 to get spotted it's probably too late.
