Jurgen Klinsmann's next task should be to smash the American system
United States are unlikely to punch their full weight on the world stage as long as the domestic structure of the game is so flawed, unequal and anti-competitive
By Liviu Bird, World Cup nation: USA
5:52PM BST 02 Jul 2014
Until the player development system in the United States receives a major overhaul, the nation of seemingly endless resources and population will continue to fall short of its immense potential at the World Cup. That system, not a lack of talent or one coach at the senior national team level, is what holds the USA back from winning.
Before taking over as United States manager, working as a television analyst for ESPN during the 2010 tournament, Jürgen Klinsmann spoke about the development problems.
“You are the only country in the world that has the pyramid upside-down,” he said in his post mortem on the US’s World Cup exit against Ghana.
“You pay for having your kid play soccer because your goal is not that your kid becomes a professional soccer player – because your goal is that your kid gets a scholarship in a high school or in a college, which is completely opposite from the rest of the world.”
The pay-to-play system still persistent at all levels of the American youth game is immensely crippling. Without money to pay for club fees, coaches, uniform costs and travel, players from lower-class backgrounds and immigrant families are often left behind. Equal opportunity still does not exist for anybody who wants to play.
In the US Soccer Development Academy, which was instituted in 2007 to encompass the nation in a higher level of competition at the oldest youth age groups, pay-to-play is slowly being eliminated, particularly among Major League Soccer clubs.
Still,
youth clubs have no incentive for developing players for those clubs because they do not receive fees, in line with Fifa’s statutes on the transfer of youth players; the trickle-down effect from clubs that have money is nonexistent. The structure does nothing to reward excellence or punish failure.
At the highest levels, the pyramid is not only upside-down but also closed to all but a select few. MLS is a single-entity structure that allows no true free agency and places emphasis on carry-overs, in particular a reliance on the university system, from other American sports not subject to global forces, such as basketball and American football.
The discussion of instituting a system of promotion and relegation has become taboo to the point that suggesting it is a quick way to be labelled as an unrealistic radical. Instead of promoting competition and the arms race of player development that would follow, the league’s successes (and failures) are shared among all clubs, watering down the essence of a true football pyramid and never allowing ambition to flourish beyond the lowest common denominator.
Ironically, in a nation founded on ideals of free-market capitalism, the current system requires as little financial commitment as possible and discourages teams in the same league from competing for resources. American players at the World Cup are handicapped because they grow up in an environment not subject to the same forces of competition that forges players for their opponents.
Blaming the coach is shallow scapegoating that ignores the larger problem: by the time Klinsmann got his hands on the 23 players who wore the crest in Brazil, the majority had already been ruined.
Just before the World Cup, Klinsmann was handed a four-year contract extension that added the label of technical director to his duties. To this point, he has been outspoken about the changes that need to be made. Now that he holds the steering wheel, people in positions of support must let him make changes to the broken system whose product he is responsible for coaching.
Look no further than the team who knocked the US out on Tuesday for an example of the possibilities. With the profits from hosting Euro 2000, Belgium overhauled their development system to spawn the golden generation still kicking in Brazil. It can be done – and it can be done quickly.
The first step is for those in charge to buy into the real reason for change: footballing improvement, not economic windfall. Profits come as a result of the product on the field, but trying to circumvent the order will not win the US a World Cup.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/usa/10941624/World-Cup-2014-Jurgen-Klinsmanns-next-task-should-be-to-smash-the-American-system.html