Hoping to Fill Gaps, U.S. Soccer Expands Its Programs for Young Players
By BILLY WITZDEC. 8, 2014
ARSON, Calif. — When Jurgen Klinsmann went to Florida last December and watched the United States under-17 team thrash its counterparts from Brazil, 4-1, a Brazilian coach told him how impressed he was with the American players. But he also had a question.
“How come once they’re done with that program, we don’t see them anymore?” Klinsmann said the coach asked him.
This is the core of a long-running debate in American soccer, one that Klinsmann, as coach and technical director of the U.S. Soccer Federation, has thrust himself into: For all the promise that American youth teams have occasionally shown, why has the United States produced so few world-class players?
The question, along with the competing interests of the American soccer industry, gained broader attention in October when Major League Soccer’s commissioner, Don Garber, sharply attacked Klinsmann for his repeated criticisms of the quality of M.L.S. and its players. Garber accused Klinsmann of undermining the league’s development efforts — and by extension the country’s soccer interests — by pushing young players toward professional clubs in Europe.
On Sunday night, Klinsmann joined the United States Soccer Federation’s president, Sunil Gulati, and several other top officials and offered the latest plan to close that talent gap by enhancing soccer development in the United States. The presentation, made to about a dozen news media members and released publicly on Monday, could have been titled “Growing Pains in the Birth of a Soccer Nation.”
It included measures that will increase the federation’s reach, like extending development programs to the under-12 level; adding two youth national teams to fill in gaps in the development system; and raising standards for coaches, partly through a partnership with Sporting Kansas City for a National Coaching Education Center. Scholarships will be increased for club programs affiliated with U.S. Soccer, in the hope of removing the pay-to-play barriers that sometimes keep children from low-income families out of the talent pool.
In an effort to better understand how the United States compares with countries like Spain, Brazil and the Netherlands, a consulting firm will be hired to assess the youth national teams and development academy clubs. In addition, U.S. Soccer is considering building its own facilities — it currently rents fields and offices here in Carson from the Los Angeles Galaxy’s parent company, Anschutz Entertainment Group, and lacks dormitories — or more modest satellites in different parts of the country.
Gulati said U.S. Soccer, which budgeted $53.4 million in operating costs for the current fiscal year that ends in March, had budgeted an additional 50 percent next year.
“Obviously, with all the initiatives, we want to push the envelope,” Klinsmann said.
Since Klinsmann was hired three years ago, he has emphasized increasing competition and the value of placing players in uncomfortable environments. For the national team, that emphasis has manifested itself in a more rigorous schedule for the first six months of 2015, a slate of games that includes exhibition games at Chile (Jan. 28), home against Panama (Feb. 8), at Denmark (March 25), at Switzerland (March 31), home against Mexico (April 15), at the Netherlands (June 6) and at Germany (June 10).
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But it is also why Klinsmann, in his role as technical director, has encouraged young American players to leave teams and programs in the United States, like M.L.S. and the short-season college system, to join clubs abroad. It is also why he has been critical of stars like Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley for leaving those environments to return home.
On Sunday, Klinsmann made it clear that he preferred players to be in the most competitive environments, but he acknowledged that going abroad was not for everyone. As Gulati pointed out, Klinsmann’s son, a goalkeeper, will enroll at the University of California next year.
And as an olive branch to M.L.S., U.S. Soccer has brought in Nelson Rodriguez, a longtime league executive, as a counselor for players who are deciding whether to play in college, sign with M.L.S., or head overseas.
The biggest problem in development, Klinsmann said, is that despite all the competitive options available for teenagers in the United States (M.L.S. academies, colleges or minor league teams), hardly any offers 11-month calendars. That, he says, leaves developing players with too much time off, and far behind foreign players their age.
To bridge those gaps in the schedule, Klinsmann said he would continue to encourage younger players to go to Europe and Latin America for short periods, even if it was simply to train — just as he does with established M.L.S. players to keep them from losing their sharpness during three-month off-seasons.
“It’s only a win-win,” Klinsmann said. “It’s a win for us because it shortens the off-season. Just broaden your horizon. If you can train one month with a Bundesliga or Premier League team, jump on it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/sports/soccer/hoping-to-fill-gaps-us-soccer-expands-its-programs-for-young-players-.html?ref=soccer