USMNT - ‘23 and beyond

sfidc3 said
Same, the strength is in the mids/forwards.....we don't have the adequate dominating CB's to play out of the back well....

Sorry, both these statements are demonstrably false, having been involved in youth soccer as a parent, manager, and AC I can tell you that there are plenty of parents willing to pay large sums of money for their kids to be on a travel/elite team.....where the US system fails is it shouldn't be the parents funding the team's it should be established Soccer clubs....because a lot of those kids aren't really good enough to ever play in a game but it's become a "status" thing among wealthy parents....

And, I'm not sure where you live, but in many of the larger metro areas around the country there are tons of pickup leagues, indoor/outdoor, mixed leagues, age determined leagues, etc.....my son who will turn 30 soon plays in 3 different leagues....

We have no idea how to develop players in this country because the current structure of youth soccer is an abject failure.....

I remember when a few of the elite clubs in our area established what they called "Academy teams" and they initially advertised that if your kid is good enough to make this team then it was free.....which was total and utter BS, they wound up costing parents thousands a year and folded, now they call them MLS next teams....it's a money grab/con......

I wasn't talking about it being a status symbol for wealthy families, I was talking about people in America in general. It's too expensive, and I stand by my point that there aren't built in 5-a-side courts or mini-pitches for anyone, regardless of the money their family has to just play the game having fun. Just about every public park with the space for it has at least one basketball court. School gyms and recess/lunch areas - Basketball courts. Even corporate gyms here build in basketball courts (nicer ones generally have raquetball/squash rooms as well). I also know of plenty of adult leagues and places for 16+ (unsupervised) to play pick up indoor/futsal but they aren't free to play and I don't know that it's particularly relevant to the concept of youth development. 23 is relatively old in top level soccer, not old as in your best days are behind you but old as in if you're not breaking in a top level team by then the chances that you ever will are diminishing by the week. There are of course some exceptions to that but they're rare.

I also wish we had a genuine academy system like other countries but I don't see it happening any time soon. I'll also say that I doubt the MLS/US Soccer system has enough clubs for it to make as big of an impact as it does in other well developed countries, even in the countries with the best clubs/leagues most of the talent still isn't developed at the top clubs academies but rather through smaller clubs or even a league or two down the pyramid. We have 29 MLS clubs and I'm not sure how many teams the "lesser" league has but I'm not convinced they have the money (or are willing to prioritize money toward it) to fund a professional style academy either.