What would it take for the USA to win the World Cup in my lifetime?
MLS needs to get over itself
(Football means soccer in this article, they are used interchangeably)
For the U.S. to win the World Cup in my lifetime, the goals of MLS need to change. All I hear is MLS is trying to be a top league in the world, and that goal is admirable. Realistically, it’s not feasible.
In the US, we’re used to having the top leagues. The NBA and MLB are the top leagues of international sports. They are also sports that we invented. Europe (England’s Premier League, Spain’s La Liga, Italy’s Serie A, France’s Ligue 1, and Germany’s Bundesliga specifically) is the NBA of soccer. When Spanish League Basketball reaches the talent and money of the NBA, MLS has a chance to compete with European football. The world recognizes Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, and Manchester United (to name a few European greats) as destinations, as dream clubs, as places top world footballers want to go. The world will never recognize Real Salt Lake, FC Dallas, and DC United in the same way. When a basketball player picks Real Madrid basketball over the Lakers, I’ll believe that Real Salt Lake can trump Real Madrid.
MLS has hope and incredible potential, however. If MLS was to the top European leagues what college basketball is to the NBA, MLS and the USMNT (United States Men’s National Team) would be much better for it. Here are my main points. (1) Kids in America need to STOP going to residential development camps in Florida, (2) need to STOP going to college to play soccer as a step toward professional success, (3) need to STOP seeing soccer as an athleticism over skill sport, and (4) need to STOP aspiring for MLS as a destination. Only then will we have players who can make a difference in world football.
(1) The USMNT residential development camp in Florida is a waste of time. If it wasn’t we’d have a player playing for at least 1 big club by now. Having grown up in Southern California, the passion of the fans at my high school soccer playoff matches was honestly more palpable than any MLS game I’ve been to, including playoffs. High school soccer is about pride and representing your city and school with your friends. It allows kids to be kids. If you’re a top footballer, you can expect your professional career to start at 18 years of age or younger. Why would you spend your 14th year through to your 18th year of life in a residential development camp away from home when 10 long years into your professional career you’ll be just 28? That’s a recipe for burnout. Instead, let the passion for the game determine who will be great, instead of trying to churn out greatness. People say, “Look at Barcelona, they have a development academy that is successful.” True, but Barcelona still bought Neymar, and Dani Alves, and Alexis Sanchez, and Javier Mascherano, and Alex Song, and continue to buy foreign players each year. If Barcelona’s system was so great, why is Iniesta and Xavi and Puyol the exception rather than the rule? Now, I’m not discounting the system that creates world class footballers, but remember they have youth teams for every age. The reality is most players who play football, development academy or not, are not going to be Xavi, or Iniesta, or Puyol. If the goal is to create professional soccer players in Europe and across the world, Barcelona is exceptional at it. But it’s the passion for the game that separates the professionals from the greats, not the system. If it was the system every top team would have a Barcelona player. Instead, every top team has a Brazilian or a few. At the end of the day, football needs to be in your soul to reach the highest levels of play. You have to love it. You have to consider yourself a footballer. It’s your life, who you are. It’s no different than the top of all sports.
(2) If a player wants to be a world class professional footballer, he needs to stop seeing US college soccer as a step along the way. Top players start playing for top clubs at a young age. 18, or younger if talent permits, should be the age when American players start playing in MLS, not college. MLS salaries would be much more justified, and the NCAA money issues plaguing other sports wouldn’t exist. By 22, top European talents are seasoned veterans while our MLS draft class is starting their careers at subpar MLS clubs (and probably not playing much). That doesn’t help. If MLS developed the model of being more of a “development league” for top European football, the rewards and growth of the league would be far greater. Imagine if there was an 21 year old star for Seattle Sounders who was American. Imagine if he played the last three years with Seattle and had the talent to play for Real Madrid. Do you understand how big for American soccer that would be? He would declare he was going to Europe like college basketball players declare they’re going to the draft. There would be Lebron-like “decisions” where players would pick between top clubs— will he go to Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Chelsea? The hype and anticipation would be through the roof. Sounders fans would watch their player in the European Champions League Final and turn around and support the next crop currently on the team. American youth would dream of lifting the MLS trophy and top European trophies like basketball players wish to win March Madness on the way to the NBA title. The knowledge that top young players will leave will create an urgency around each season, as clubs will hope to win the title before their top youngsters leave. The competition between teams will be who will create the best players for the future, instead of who can sign the most aging European and South American stars and mix that with mediocre American talent. And imagine every four years, the controversy and hype that will surround the US national team selection when the options are the prodigies in MLS mixed with the American veterans from Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Arsenal, etc. All coming together to represent their home— the US shirt. Magical. But before the magic, we need to understand the sport. Which leads me to…
(3) Every time I see an American soccer commercial or an MLS commercial it seems like we’re running up stadium stairs, lifting weights, and running up and down the field. It’s the American way. Biggest and most athletic always wins, right? But I wonder, where is the ball? I mean all that beastliness is great but none of it matters in soccer if you can’t get the ball. World cup winners Andres Iniesta, Andrea Pirlo, and Xavi Hernandez don’t strike me as athletic beasts, but you can’t take the ball off them, so all that athleticism will allow you to chase them for 90 minutes I guess. Lionel Messi is a soccer beast of an athlete and a very skillful player, but he’s 5'6". Would he have made it in America? People say, “Oh, if Lebron played soccer, we’d win the World Cup.” Well, not if the other team passes the ball around us for 90 minutes. I doubt in this 2014 World Cup that our USMNT will be out-athleticized (sp?) by any team we face. You can’t beat us in athleticism. We’re fast and we’re strong and we’re big. But if every time our defenders get the ball they kick predictable long balls down the field, none of that running and weight lifting matters. If the other team plays the ball around us, and we’re using our size, strength, and speed to get it back, we’ll be dead tired by half-time. Look at the Confederations Cup Final we lost to Brazil. We were up 2-0 at halftime and lost 3-2. Brazil didn’t expect us to be as strong and fast as we were, but they kept the ball for 90 minutes, and from the 50th minute on we didn’t have the legs to compete. The ball will always move faster than the man, and nothing in football is accomplished without the ball.
(4) It all comes down to this. Aspire to play for top European teams. Watch those players. As Americans we want to follow the American way but, newsflash, we suck at soccer. MLS teams can’t win the Concacaf Champions League in North America and MLS pundits say Europe is “supposedly better.” It’s laughable really. Residential academy graduates Jozy Altidore and Brek Shea have trouble playing for Championship (league below Premier League) caliber English clubs, yet they were MLS MVP contenders. At the end of the day, if MLS follows the world football development model that I propose, kids will aspire to play in MLS the right way. They will aspire to play in MLS on their way to a top European team. If they don’t make it to Europe, that’s fine, the quality of the league year after year will be better because the competitive model will be to develop world, not MLS, stars. Fans will get the club legends like Guillermo Barros Schellotto was with Boca Juniors, and still have the top talents, like Carlos Tevez, leave for top European clubs after helping satisfy fans by winning championships at home. Fans will also flock to stadiums to see the top young talent before they leave. The focus will be on skill, because we will soon realize that once you reach the top of the top around the world, everyone is athletic enough to compete at a high level in soccer. Not everyone, however, is skilled enough to play at the highest level. With the focus on playing for top European clubs, MLS clubs will develop our American youth rather than buy aging and outdated foreign stars to compete for a trophy nobody outside of the MLS bubble really cares about. We’ll buy those same aging superstar players with the aim of teaching our youth and fill our stadiums in the process. Our players will also learn from the best by watching and playing with the best, a luxury that European and South American players are born into.
This ends my rant. If the above happens, the US can win the World Cup. Will it happen in my lifetime? Yes. But will it happen with the current plan? No.
I’ve been thinking about this for years and I finally have a platform to voice my opinion. Thanks very much Medium and ESPN for this opportunity.
