Current US World Cup Game

[HelenaHandBasket]

that model works great, if all you care about is developing soccer players good enough to go pro and help fund your team. that's not the goal (no pun intended) of high school sports in the america. the u.s. high school system is more egalitarian, and gives kids the opportunity to try different sports, although sometimes there is a relatively small fee to help offest some of the school's costs. according to our friend gemni, kids in missoula might need to spend about $500 to play football, including cleats, etc... conversely, and again with gemni to blame, a teenage kid playing for a club in england pays at least $2000 per year.

i am going to have to side with the u.s. on this one.

Who said anything about high school sports. The discussion is about youth club soccer. Very few top female soccer players actually play for their high school team, even in the US.

 

[AZDoc]

I think I heard somewhere (maybe on the Landon Donovan and Tim Howard podcast) that the Euro model also has their "best" or "most experienced" coaches coach the lower levels. Feels the opposite here - seems lower levels are mostly coached by new or "volunteer" coaches.

I did not hear that. Very interesting. Makes complete sense though. You want to really coach up lower levels. The highest level is more game management and strategy type stuff. Cool info. Thanks for sharing that.

 

[nicktaber58]

that model works great, if all you care about is developing soccer players good enough to go pro and help fund your team. that's not the goal (no pun intended) of high school sports in the america. the u.s. high school system is more egalitarian, and gives kids the opportunity to try different sports, although sometimes there is a relatively small fee to help offest some of the school's costs. according to our friend gemni, kids in missoula might need to spend about $500 to play football, including cleats, etc... conversely, and again with gemni to blame, a teenage kid playing for a club in england pays at least $2000 per year.

i am going to have to side with the u.s. on this one.

Totally agree. Our youth development is far superior for all other sports... i find it obnoxious that youth clubs get compensated for kids they produce professionally in Europe. We don't have a system like that in America for any sport, that I can think of.. Kids should be encouraged to compete in multiple sports... it breeds more competitive and adaptable kids and athletes. and i think actually creates better athletes. The euro system breeds single sport athletes. Good for them, go win a world cup. But you've done a disservice to those youth. There is s a very small percentage f those kids that get to go onto play professionally, yet they probably were sold the story of focusing only on soccer.

 

[alabamagrizzly]

Down to the final 8. 6 euros, 1 African, and 1 south american.

 

[MissoulaMarinerFan]

Totally agree. Our youth development is far superior for all other sports... i find it obnoxious that youth clubs get compensated for kids they produce professionally in Europe. We don't have a system like that in America for any sport, that I can think of.. Kids should be encouraged to compete in multiple sports... it breeds more competitive and adaptable kids and athletes. and i think actually creates better athletes. The euro system breeds single sport athletes. Good for them, go win a world cup. But you've done a disservice to those youth. There is s a very small percentage f those kids that get to go onto play professionally, yet they probably were sold the story of focusing only on soccer.

For sure - the other main difference to that is for those other countries, soccer is the only sport they really care about competing in professionally - outside of the small handful that are really into basketball. US is pretty unique in that there is MLB, NBA, NFL AND Olympic sports. Other countries seems like soccer, olympic sports and mayyyyybe basketball.