World Cup 2026

[The Sultan]

My casual guess would be most of those guys you mentioned went to an academy at an early age. The US has nothing like that (travel is its own beast, regardless of the sport).

If the US had ever had a megastar, I think that would inherently help the sport here tremendously (including development).

Yeah our youth development infrastructure just isn't there. The best U.S. soccer player of all time, whomever that is, is nowhere near the level of the best player of all time from dozens of other countries.

[21Jumpstreet]

Yeah our youth development infrastructure just isn't there. The best U.S. soccer player of all time, whomever that is, is nowhere near the level of the best player of all time from dozens of other countries.

Maybe. I feel like the infrastructure is there, and it's killing the development. Coaches are killing development. Parents are killing development. Money is killing development. College soccer is killing development.

The best players are out there, they are playing on the futsal courts in the middle of a city or in the parks, they aren't spending $3000 for a spring season. Our club actually started implementing street soccer and find a flat wall and get in 10,000 touches a day. Still doesn't replicate the free flowing, wake up everyday with a ball at your feet. Where we grabbed a basketball and dribbled all day, everyday, other countries do that with a soccer ball.

My preference is to do away with the bigger, faster, stronger mentality and shift nearly entirely to technical ability. A lot of the "athletes" fizzle out, technical ability always wins in the end. For me it's the NYC point guard who grew up on the playground. Give opportunities to the young players who stand out in the parks. If we want to win, we have to find those kids.

[Uncle Rico]

Yeah our youth development infrastructure just isn't there. The best U.S. soccer player of all time, whomever that is, is nowhere near the level of the best player of all time from dozens of other countries.

This is correct

America's youth sports programs are a disaster. 

[tower912]

The USMNT played Begium twice in 2026.  Once in a friendly, once in the world cup.  Belgium won 5-2 and 4-1.   I sense a pattern.

Congratulations to Belgium on two well played games.

[muwarrior69]

Only two shots on goal???

In the whole game???

That is why I find soccer/futbal boring, but that is just me.

[MuggsyB]

We're a country of 342 million.
Even if 90% of our top athletes went to other sports, that leaves a bigger talent pool than a majority of WC teams, including about three times more than Switzerland, Belgium and Portugal, twice as much as the Netherlands. Add to the fact that we have massive resources at our disposal, and this excuse doesn't really hold.
Also, many of our top athletes don't have the body types/skills to play soccer. LeBron James and Myles Garrett aren't built for soccer.

I don't see that much of a correlation between the population of a country and its success in Futbol.

[Uncle Rico]

I don't see that much of a correlation between the population of a country and its success in Futbol.

It's youth sports and the cost.  We're eliminating access to a portion of the population.

[pbiflyer]

It's youth sports and the cost.  We're eliminating access to a portion of the population.

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.

US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.

So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.

Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.

Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.

They will not.

https://x.com/aakashgupta/status/2074387188079595648?s=61&t=jsIZllSIAp6Fe-FmvZNVnw

[MuggsyB]

It's youth sports and the cost.  We're eliminating access to a portion of the population.

Well that needs to be addressed.

[MuggsyB]

Perhaps someone could be hired to identify elite diminutive athletes?

[tower912]

Come up with a workable 5 point plan to completely revamp youth sports in America.   A far more worthy endeavor.

[The Sultan]

I don't see that much of a correlation between the population of a country and its success in Futbol.

Besides the youth sports issues outlined in this topic, I would suggest it might be easier to identify and train  athletes in smaller countries where there isn't as much competition with other sports.

[Billy Hoyle]

This actually highlights why US soccer will not be good for the foreseeable future. Our best athletes always went to a sport that paid more. And now with NIL money, there is no way a talented athlete is going to choose soccer over baseball, basketball or football.

ah yes, the trusted "LeBron James and Kevin Durant and every all-star American in every other sport would dominate soccer" memes. We all know how many 6-8 260-pound soccer players there are on the pitch, right? No way Lionel Messi could get around Kevin Durant in the open field and certainly that shrimp Haaland wouldn't be slipping any shots past Bam Adabayo, amirite? And if Mike Trout can hit home runs can you imagine how he'd be as a striker?

If only Peter Crouch had chosen basketball instead. He could have been as good as Kobe becuase he's 6-7, and basketball would be the top sport in England.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Political intervention is political intervention. Can't pick and choose when it suits you buddy

LOL. Willfully ignorant.

Except you aren't really willfully ignorant, you know your argument is beyond stupid but you are willing to make it anyways.

[Uncle Rico]

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.

US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.

So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.

Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.

Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.

They will not.

https://x.com/aakashgupta/status/2074387188079595648?s=61&t=jsIZllSIAp6Fe-FmvZNVnw

It's partly why basketball and baseball have opened the doors to international talent/teams being better than their American counterparts.  We just have a huge historical lead in those sports but if baseball and basketball had the same historical arc as soccer participation, we'd have similar issues.

Not apples to apples, of course.  Basketball is unique in the ease at which it can be played in gyms and on outdoor courts but the way it's managed at the youth level in competitive settings, well, it's not conducive to teaching the game or developing players.

[CreightonWarrior]

Perhaps someone could be hired to identify elite diminutive athletes?

elite diminutive? doesn't exist

[pbiflyer]

ah yes, the trusted "LeBron James and Kevin Durant and every all-star American in every other sport would dominate soccer" memes. We all know how many 6-8 260-pound soccer players there are on the pitch, right? No way Lionel Messi could get around Kevin Durant in the open field and certainly that shrimp Haaland wouldn't be slipping any shots past Bam Adabayo, amirite? And if Mike Trout can hit home runs can you imagine how he'd be as a striker?

If only Peter Crouch had chosen basketball instead. He could have been as good as Kobe becuase he's 6-7, and basketball would be the top sport in England.

Yeah, because everyone is 6'8" that's why there's so many more basketball camps than soccer camps and advanced basketball programs than soccer programs.
The infrastructure for those chasing the dream isn't going to change.

Well, unless you like socialism:

Now presenting 24/7 soccer fields in the city that never sleeps.

Find your next late-night game at nycopenplay.com.

https://x.com/anniefortruth/status/2074111728007381306?s=46&t=wj-kQtLCLPNb9xDTKbHRvQ

[MuggsyB]

ah yes, the trusted "LeBron James and Kevin Durant and every all-star American in every other sport would dominate soccer" memes. We all know how many 6-8 260-pound soccer players there are on the pitch, right? No way Lionel Messi could get around Kevin Durant in the open field and certainly that shrimp Haaland wouldn't be slipping any shots past Bam Adabayo, amirite? And if Mike Trout can hit home runs can you imagine how he'd be as a striker?

If only Peter Crouch had chosen basketball instead. He could have been as good as Kobe becuase he's 6-7, and basketball would be the top sport in England.

I'm no expert but I don't think Maradona or Messi would have much of an issue putting LeBron or Durant on skates. 

[MuggsyB]

elite diminutive? doesn't exist

That's simply not true.   

[Pakuni]

I mean, all of those heights or weights are far below the national average for male height and weight. That pool is becoming less and less of a great lake and more of one of Minnesotas ponds.

Nope.
The average height for an American man is 5'9".
The average weight is 199, because we're a bunch of fatsos.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

[MuggsyB]

Nope.
The average height for an American man is 5'9".
The average weight is 199, because we're a bunch of fatsos.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

My weight hasn't really fluctuated more than 5-7 lbs since I was 20.  I wonder why people have so much trouble with discipline and exercise?  You're right, we're way too fat as a society. 

[Pakuni]

My casual guess would be most of those guys you mentioned went to an academy at an early age. The US has nothing like that (travel is its own beast, regardless of the sport).

If the US had ever had a megastar, I think that would inherently help the sport here tremendously (including development).

Yes, exactly.
The U.S. has plenty of young males who could excel at soccer and, odds are, eventually one of them would become a global superstar. It isn't a matter that the American Messi or American Mbappe is playing basketball or football instead of soccer. We just lack the developmental infrastructure to push those athletes to the next level.


There's a reason so many promising young American players are hurried overseas at an early age.

[MuggsyB]

Yes, exactly.
The U.S. has plenty of young males who could excel at soccer and, odds are, eventually one of them would become a global superstar. It isn't a matter that the American Messi or American Mbappe is playing basketball or football instead of soccer. We just lack the developmental infrastructure to push those athletes to the next level.


There's a reason so many promising young American players are hurried overseas at

Mbappe can apparently run a 40 in like 4.14. 

[Pakuni]

I don't see that much of a correlation between the population of a country and its success in Futbol.

When you have more people, you have more potential top athletes.
Of course, other factors like wealth, development structure, interest in a given sport, etc., also matter. But just in terms of raw materials to work with, you'd rather start off with a talent pool of 20 million to choose from than 2 million.

[JWags85]

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.

US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.

So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.

Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.

Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.

They will not.

https://x.com/aakashgupta/status/2074387188079595648?s=61&t=jsIZllSIAp6Fe-FmvZNVnw

FWIW, that account posts nothing but barely researched AI slop.  Not that its fully untrue (the academy structure and pay for play in the US harms elite soccer development here without question), but just worth taking with a grain of salt.

Besides the youth sports issues outlined in this topic, I would suggest it might be easier to identify and train  athletes in smaller countries where there isn't as much competition with other sports.

This is a big point that is worth mentioning as much anything else.  Even as popular as basketball is in parts of Europe, soccer is still the sun and the moon for the vast majority of the population.  And you have, usually, 2-3 premier clubs (with their academies and youth system) at most in the smaller countries, so identifying the unnaturally gifted prospects, who largely only dream of soccer, and guiding them to best youth set-up is much easier than the scale of the US.

Ive mentioned before that my work colleagues/friends in Belgium live in the same town, Boom, where Lukaku grew up.  He's the same age and was in primary school together with one of their daughter's until their teens.  Before he was 10, everyone knew he was a star and he would be going to Lierse (the best club in Antwerp at the time, Royal Antwerp has made a revival lately but was crap back then), just a matter of when.  And then to Anderlecht if he continued to play at the level he was.  It was just a given.  Not whether he would opt for basketball instead or go the college route or whatnot.  If you're a super talented soccer player and you want to pursue it, this is the path, done and done.