Off Topic: Soccer and NASCAR

[froot loops]

Yeah if there ever is a time to change the things that chemiclord is talking about, it is now. Get rid of Gulatii, get someone in their with better ideas than entrusting the whole operation to a guy like Klinsmann.

In some ways getting knocked out can be the catalyst that getting in on a tie yesterday wouldn't have been. If they would have squeaked in, this nonsense would be forgotten. US Soccer has pinned so much hope on MLS but that league has helped Costa Rica and Mexico at least as much.

If they want to change the development system, they will have to spend cash on that. That is the under reported fact, they try to do development on the cheap. They need something similar to when Steinbrenner dumped a lot of cash into the USOC. But as chemiclord points out, there is a lot of institutional inertia to keep the status quo.

[Marko69]

You guys can fall back on US Football, Ice Hockey, the two incredibly shit BBalls when the soccer doesn't work out. We need to head North and toss our cabers!

[chemiclord]

You guys can fall back on US Football, Ice Hockey, the two incredibly shit BBalls when the soccer doesn't work out. We need to head North and toss our cabers!

And that's actually Problem #1 with US Soccer.

It's probably #6 in national presence behind NASCAR, despite Froot's insistence that it's the next big thing and on the rise. It gets the scraps of the talent pool to begin with, and thanks to the shitacular "pay to play" nature of youth soccer, it doesn't take advantage of those scraps on top of it all.

It's going to be at LEAST another decade before soccer makes any serious headway, and that's presuming that the dwindling youth football pool keeps getting funneled towards soccer instead AND youth soccer programs actually decide to take advantage of it rather than bury those kids on the bench because Blakes Dillinger VI's parents dropped $100k in the program's coffers.

[froot loops]

What sport would Messi play in the US?

[froot loops]

It's not like Basketball, Hockey and Baseball don't have the pay for play issues. Every youth sport is expensive.

[chemiclord]

It's not like Basketball, Hockey and Baseball don't have the pay for play issues. Every youth sport is expensive.

In other youth sports, "pay to play" is controversial, and gets a lot of ire.

In youth soccer, it is invited and expected and embraced. But you'll continue to be willfully obtuse about the difference, as is your idiom.

In Froot's world, US Soccer is doing everything right, but I guess a decades long series of completely unpredictable and unfortunate circumstances keep it second (and now third) tier.

[CGVT]

Bullshit. You obviously have no kids playing youth sports. Pay to play as you call it is the norm across the board

[froot loops]

Bullshit. You obviously have no kids playing youth sports. Pay to play as you call it is the norm across the board

Exactly, if your kid is into sports and successful, pay to play is the standard. I have 3 kids playing youth sports, I know. What a terrible take.

The funny thing about chemiclord's take is he married it to something I didn't say, it's time to clean out the administration and start spending. If you miss the World Cup, you have failed.

[froot loops]

If you want to do anything in baseball or softball, it's pay to play. No exceptions.

If you want to do anything in Hockey, it's definitely pay to play.

If you want to do anything in Basketball, it is pay to play. AAU and tons of expensive camps.

Volleyball, same thing.

What world do you live in where this is different? Football is a little different because you don't have to start until much later and it is more high school based, but you have have 7 on 7 leagues all year for skill position players.

[CGVT]

In this area football is just as bad.

Rec leagues are where the kids that either aren't serious or not good enough to be on travel leagues reside. On top of travel teams and costs, if a kid has any potential at all, parents are paying for individual lessons in all sports. I think that is part of the reason kids are specializing so young. The days of kids movie f from sport to sport as the seasons change end at about 8 years old

[froot loops]

Yep, my daughter was really good at softball but not so into it that I would want to spend thousands of dollars and every weekend in the summer. we had some friends who have daughters that play and their season ended the first week in August and tryouts for the next year were the next week. My daughter quit softball for a couple years because there was nowhere to play unless she wanted to do that travel league stuff. She plays in high school now but the stakes are incredibly low.

I can imagine down there the youth league football is much bigger. In this area youth league soccer is king.

[FVD]

Until they start a relegation system with MLS, there will be no serious consequence for players to develop and improve in that league. It seems that when our national players come home to play in that league, they regress.

The pay to play system doesn't seem to work either. There needs to be better scouting at the youth level and better academies, even club run ones, are needed. There's a lot of talented kids out there that are getting missed.

[froot loops]

I think you are seeing some movement on the US based club academies, but outside of Yedlin, the current squad has no players of note who started out in a club based academy in the US. That does have to improve. Even Yedlin had to leave to go to Europe because he would have stagnated in MLS.

[Panoptes]

Soccer rightly has a negative stigma attached to it here in the states.

As a sport, it's lame. Most athletes do NOT want to be attached to that stigma.

[froot loops]

Coming from an accomplished athlete like yourself, that's saying something.