The World Cup will conclude its month-long spectacle today with powers Italy and France vying for arguably the most sought-after trophy in sports.
Thousands of miles away and, at times, seemingly thousands of steps behind, the players, coaches and administrators of United States soccer will join an estimated billion others worldwide watching the drama unfold.
Will the U.S. ever be on the other side of the picture? How long will it be before a country swarming with athletes, sponsors and resources can consider itself a viable threat to the world’s game?
According to those in just about every strata of soccer in the U.S., the Yanks will always be outsiders until major changes are made to the systems that develop their players – from young kids to the budding professional.
In three World Cup games last month, the U.S. national team showed flashes of the fighting spirit that carried it to a historic quarterfinal finish in 2002, but enough shortcomings to recall the last-place finish of 1998. The U.S. was outclassed by the Czech Republic, unable to outfox an exhausted Italian squad and outdone by a determined Ghana. Playmakers such as Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, Claudio Reyna and Brian McBride had just one assist among them.
“Americans are very talented athletically, very strong physically and very well organized, but they have not yet caught up in the individual technical development of the best teams in the world,” said Dr. Bob Contiguglia, a Denver resident and president of the United States Soccer Federation from 1998 until March.
Donovan has no arguments.
“Blatantly, yeah, they are,” he said Friday of players lacking in technical ability. “There’s probably a ton of reasons, but one is, in my opinion, when you’re growing up, there’s not enough emphasis on it.”
Contiguglia, who still holds a consultant’s position with the USSF board of directors, believes soccer coaches, athletes and parents must modify how they define success, especially at the younger levels, for the U.S. to have a fighting chance against the top soccer nations.
The numbers game
Supporters of U.S. soccer like to measure progress by how far the national team has come since 1990, when it finally qualified for the World Cup after missing the previous nine tournaments.
Major League Soccer didn’t begin play until 1996, ending a 12-year drought of a national outdoor league in the U.S. The rebirth of soccer domestically was a requirement imposed by FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, for the U.S. to host the lucrative World Cup in 1994.
Just about every country draws athletes from long-standing leagues, some more than 100 years old. Most of the teams in those leagues are backed by soccer academies that groom players from their early teens and have a wealth of ex-professionals to turn to for coaches.
The USSF has a residency program set up for its under-17 national team in Bradenton, Fla., where players get high-level instruction and complete their school at Edison Academy. The USSF and MLS have a ” Generation adidas” program that encourages young players such as Freddy Adu to begin playing professionally.
But these programs affect very few athletes, considering there are 3.5 million youth players registered with the USSF. The USSF estimates there may be as many as 14 million people playing soccer nationwide, a huge number when one considers that Portugal, which advanced to the World Cup semifinals, has a population of about 10 million.
Without the professional academies, local club teams and colleges are where most U.S. players sharpen their skills.
“It’s amazing we’ve come as far as we have without doing things the way everyone else has,” said Jim Moorhouse, USSF director of communications.
Many blame that lack of infrastructure in the U.S. for a lack of creative play, exposed last month in Germany.
“You see lads that light up MLS week in and week out, and when they got to Germany they looked like little boys in a man’s game, and it stood out a mile,” Colorado Rapids winger Terry Cooke said of the U.S. national team.
Cooke turned pro at 15 with Manchester United, one of England’s top clubs. He remembers days filled with simple training that refined the fundamentals of the sport, which he sees missing in a lot of U.S. players.
“It’s important to get the young kids at an early age learning soccer drills and learning more about the game,” Cooke said. “When you’re a young kid, you obviously absorb so much and you learn a lot quicker. As you get older and develop more as a man, your body changes and it’s hard to develop the technical side.”
Tom Goodman, general manager of the Fusion Soccer Club in Denver and former national director of coaching education for U.S. Youth Soccer, has seen a lot of changes since soccer participation took off fewer than 20 years ago.
Players here are progressing, he said, but the U.S. isn’t producing the kind of superstars littering other countries who can make magic out of half-chances.
“I want to say players have gotten better, but as I look around I don’t see a whole lot of real creative players,” said Goodman, who ran his first soccer club in Connecticut in 1987.
That mentality is poles apart from what Goodman sees on the pitch with five-time World Cup champion Brazil, a team renowned for its dazzling players.
“Every player on that team can probably solve the problem by themselves if they had to,” Goodman said.
A paradigm shift
Contiguglia estimates the USSF has about $50 million in its coffers, much of it from the 1994 World Cup. Contiguglia would like to see the USSF use some of that money to reward coaches and clubs for producing skilled individuals worthy of the national team programs, regardless of how many tournaments their teams win.
“There’s too much emphasis on winning,” said Donovan, who in his youth played for the now-defunct Cal Heat club. “No one cares who wins the under-12 state championship.”
Donovan remembers practicing for hours as a kid, dribbling through his classmates in the halls, shooting after school or kicking the ball against a nearby wall. Important to Donovan was that no one made him do it. He was driven solely by a love of the game.
Contiguglia believes that shift in priorities would have a profound impact and make players at every level better, especially the great ones who dream of playing professionally.
MLS commissioner Don Garber spoke in Denver this spring about the need for his league to get involved with coaching at the youth level. The Rapids have begun their soccer academy under the guidance of assistant coach John Murphy. FC Dallas just formed an alliance with a local soccer association that has more than 70 teams.
“For the long-term future of the sport at the federation level, as well as the MLS level, we have to integrate the professional with the youth system,” Rapids general manager Jeff Plush said.
Youth programs run by professional clubs will concentrate more on the individual, Plush said, because they could one day wear a uniform for the senior team. Winning tournaments would not be the goal.
“That whole philosophy is imperative for our players to get better and for our national team to get better,” Goodman said.
