or we could do that too. I watched this past world cup and I saw some holes in our game of possession. We almost lost too. PK saved us. We still are more physical and that alone might allow us to win, However, it's not possession like little Spain and other teams. I want us to be fastest, most physical and play great possession ball.
Spain, like most countries, has implemented a system that is best for it in the short term to be competitive in light of the overwhelming limitations it faces with youth soccer on the girls side. But that system also perpetuates its continued failure and inability to ever become a soccer power.
In Spain, very few little girls play soccer, and almost all of them give it by HS age because what is the point? There’s really no HS where you can be a “big deal” at school. It’s not a pathway to get into a better college or a scholarship. It isn’t a pathway to a career. There’s virtually no reason to play the sport into teen years, and certainly none worth playing it to the extent necessary to become a world class player. To overcome this massive disadvantage, Spain finds 20 or 30 kids in each age group while most kids who play soccer are still playing it and tried to turn them into the best soccer players they can be, and apparently makes it free as an inducement. But those 20 or 30 are never the athletes that come out of the 50,000 or more in the US who keep playing in each age group, nor are they players you can rely on to not choke. When you have 20 to choose from, you are forced to deal with kids with limitations that cannot be fully overcome even with the best technical training and skill that you can get out of them. You get a bunch of players whom you can turn into 10s in technical ability, but grow up to be 6s in athletic ability and 4s in intestinal fortitude. They’ll never compete with the likes of Lloyd or Ertz, rise from the US’s deep pool and might be 7s in technical ability, but are 10s as athletes and cold blooded killers.
There’s just no way that Spain will ever be able to be great for long, or probably ever. Maybe you get a Marta who carries a team but still can’t win a WC, or the Iceland men’s team which manages to make a WC before fading back into obscurity. But that’s not why Spain’s way of doing things is doomed.
Rather, their system perpetuates it’s continued failure because it does nothing to cause kids to want to play it. In Spain, there are maybe 4-5 girls in the entire country born every year who will eventually become mothers who might look at soccer as a potential pathway to something more than an little exercise until you’re 12. In the US, you have 10,000 every year who played college soccer and 100,000 who obtained some fulfillment playing HS. They probably sucked at soccer, but they had fun and that means they’ll encourage their kids to play. Then you add in the fact that virtually every girl in the US plays soccer when they’re little, and even the parents who never looked at soccer as a path to anything start to when they get educated by the 10s of thousands who do. From that, you get base of youth players that will never, ever be rivaled by another country. In other words, Spain’s system does nothing to change what holds it back, which is that so few people want to play it. If we act like Spain, we’ll eventually get consistent results like Spain.
When people rip on HS soccer, they fail to understand why it is an important part of the US’s continued success. It is important because it causes people who will eventually become mothers to steeled their kids to soccer because they enjoyed it. It causes fathers to steer their precious little girls that direction because that’s what we do in America, plus daddy also remembers that Jenny who played HS was the most popular girl in school.
I’ll say it again. The only thing that makes a great soccer power is that more kids play it and at a high level, they play it more often, and for a longer span of years. Everything you propose only helps level the playing field by taking away the one big advantage that sets the US apart.
Nothing like driving out to CO and having one coach stay and watch. Get the email and they say 25 came to watch. ((This was from a friend who shared with me the truth))
