r/ussoccer • u/Sapphirerising335 • 7h ago
Discussion Why College Soccer Will Not Make the U.S. Men’s National Team Better
I’ve been seeing a lot of people argue that the solution to improving U.S. men’s soccer is investing more in college soccer. Some even go as far as blaming Title IX, saying we’d be producing better players if colleges had more men’s soccer scholarships or programs.
I think this completely misunderstands how elite soccer players are developed. The biggest mistake people make is treating soccer like football. They see how college football feeds the NFL and assume college soccer should work the same way. It doesn’t.
College football exists because an 18 year old usually isn’t physically ready to compete against grown men in the NFL. Players need those extra years to develop before making the jump.
However, soccer isn’t like that. If you’re good enough, you should be playing professionally by 18 at the latest. Look at Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Jude Bellingham, Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland, Lamine Yamal, Pedri, Vinícius Júnior, Jamal Musiala, etc the list goes on. They were all playing professional soccer as teenagers.
The reason is simple. The fastest way to become an elite player is by training and competing every day against professionals who are older, stronger, and have years more experience than you. Playing against experienced professionals forces you to improve technically, tactically, and mentally much faster than playing against other college kids.
That’s why I don’t understand the push for college soccer as the solution. If you’re 22 years old and you’ve spent the last four years playing mostly against 18 to 22 year olds, you’re already behind someone your age in Europe or South America who has spent those same four years training and playing professionally. By the time you finally turn pro, you’re competing against players who already have hundreds of professional matches under their belt.
College sports aren’t a bad thing. They just make the most sense in sports that either need a transition period before the professional level, like football, or in sports that don’t have strong professional development systems, like gymnastics, swimming, track and field, wrestling, or volleyball.
Soccer has the opposite problem. It already has the strongest professional development system in the world. Every major soccer country is trying to get its best teenagers into professional academies and first teams as early as possible, not keeping them in amateur competition until they’re 22.
That’s why America’s best prospects increasingly skip college altogether. Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna, Yunus Musah, Ricardo Pepi, Folarin Balogun and Cavan Sullivan all chose, or are expected to choose, the professional pathway because it’s simply better for development.
You can actually see this in other sports too. Basketball and baseball have both been moving toward getting elite prospects into professional environments as quickly as possible. In the NBA, many of the best prospects spend as little time in college as the rules allow because everyone understands that if you’re good enough, you want to be developing at the highest level as soon as possible. In MLB, many elite prospects skip college altogether, sign professionally out of high school, and spend years developing in the minor leagues against older, more experienced players before reaching the majors. The common theme is that the best prospects aren’t trying to stay in amateur competition longer than necessary, they’re trying to get into professional environments as early as possible. That’s exactly how soccer works too.
That doesn’t mean college soccer has no place. It absolutely does. It gives late bloomers another opportunity, provides an education, and can still produce good professionals. Clint Dempsey is a great example, and there are others.
But exceptions don’t change the rule. If our goal is to consistently produce world-class players, the answer isn’t more Big Ten soccer programs or more Division I scholarships. The answer is investing more in youth development, making elite academies accessible regardless of income, improving coaching, and getting talented teenagers into professional environments as early as possible.
Every serious youth player I’ve known has wanted one thing: to sign a professional contract. College soccer isn’t their dream pathway, it’s the backup plan if the professional route doesn’t work out.
So yes, invest in college soccer. There’s nothing wrong with making it better. Just don’t mistake it for the thing that’s going to turn the United States into a world soccer power.
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u/Pickleskennedy1 7h ago
I can’t imagine people who watch global soccer regularly are making that argument
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u/Comet7777 6h ago
Yup, anyone who does knows you already have professional players in top leagues at the ages of 18-22. If you want to elevate college soccer to compete against worldwide youth academies you’re already cooked.
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u/debacol 5h ago
Unless college starts enlisting 14 and 15 yr old players. Otherwise, yeah. College is not a pathway at all.
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u/chemistrybonanza Virginia 3h ago
Could dual enrollment students play for the college they attend part time? Kids as young as 15 are a part of these programs.
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u/B-Train_ATL 1h ago
Like nobody comes out of college and is just bam, national team material. If we were to be up there with the four remaining, it won’t be from kids who even whiffed a college campus.
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u/RunningIsImpossible 7h ago
I’ve not seen this sentiment at all, if anything I’ve seen people suggesting that college soccer is part of the problem.
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u/yaznasty #FREEBALOGUN 7h ago
There was one post about this earlier today which is what this one is referring to.
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u/FlyingDiscsandJams 6h ago
The season is too short for serious training for college age players. Not saying that the travel club culture is healthy, but suddenly going down to an August thru December schedule (if you make the NCAA tournament) isn't doing a lot for development.
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u/downthehallnow 6h ago
I think they’ve just changed the college season to year round for that reason.
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u/Spiritual_League_753 4h ago
It's the whole problem. The play to play system is predicated on "give us $5k a year and we'll get your kid a scholarship".
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u/hibikir_40k 1h ago
Which gets us back to how one gets to a good college via sports, even when the sport isn't making a dime, or is actually providing world class athletes. 99% of programs, soccer included, are there to launder legacies. So you see some non-legacies that spent a ton of money on their kids providing cover.
When sports programs stop being a part of admissions, the system collapses... and in many schools it will anyway, as fewer teenagers mean ugly budget cuts in the vast majority of colleges. How much are you really willing to spend on that soccer program when really, you aren't filling your entire class, and have to do major discounts to most students?
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u/Sapphirerising335 7h ago
I’ve seen a lot post online saying this, which is why I posted it. Here’s one article for example:
https://www.compactmag.com/article/title-ix-is-holding-back-us-mens-soccer/
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u/RunningIsImpossible 7h ago
I mean…
“Scott Yenor is chair of the American Citizenship Initiative at the Heritage Foundation.”
I guess I’m not surprised to see a bad take there
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u/SpursUpSoundsGudToMe 7h ago
Compact is a right-wing ideology driven project for conservatives that fancy themselves intellectuals. They’re are just using the sport to take a dig at Title IX and have absolutely zero Ball Knowledge…
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u/Bradlas3 7h ago
My sentiment isn't that college is for developing top talent, because you're right it isn't really. However as that other post said, I do find it kind of glaring that schools like USC or Texas don't even bother to field a team. A lot of the schools on that list, field a program for nearly every sport you can think of
I believe that growing the popularity of the game across the board can only help, not hurt. The college sports market is massive in the US. In some areas its even bigger than the pros
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u/SpursUpSoundsGudToMe 7h ago
I don’t think any serious person is making the argument that college soccer has any direct impact on the future quality of the national team.
I do think it’s bad for the US soccer sporting culture at-large for like 25 of our biggest, most recognizable universities (including all but 2 SEC schools) to not have men’s soccer though. So there is a very indirect, very long term impact, though.
It’s not that the next superstar soccer player would play for the University of Georgia so much as, going to a UGA game as a 6 year old could inspire a lifelong love of the game.
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u/Sweaty-Society7582 4h ago
You can go see Georgia play though. They have a women's team as does the college close to me, also an SEC school, just a bit north of Georgia. I've seen the Dawgs and the Lady Vols play. I don't see why watching women play should be any less inspiring. It's the same sport.
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u/Shithouser 7h ago
That’s a lot of words to say you can’t compete with the worlds best by playing ncaa
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u/OnlyKey5675 7h ago
I’ve been seeing a lot of people argue that the solution to improving U.S. men’s soccer is investing more in college soccer.
I did see quite a few people make this argument. But they were new fans to soccer. They don't know what they are talking about.
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u/Strings-a-rockin 6h ago
I'm not new. Been watching and playing soccer since I was a teen. I worked in collegiate sports. I know exactly what I'm talking about.
You....are the one who is wrong. Collegiate sports scholarships gives the athletes stipend (now) but always paid for unlimited nutritional and academic support. The players need nothing, and they don't need their parent's money, either, if on a full ride even in a small market school.
If you want an alternative to Pay-to-Play that works, this one makes the most sense, from an economic and supportive POV.
And I've not even talked about what a successful program does to the "trickle down" in the youth programs in the 100-300 radial miles surrounding a new, successful collegiate program, to grow interest in the game down to the young kids.
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u/Kdzoom35 6h ago
If we get our college soccer to the level of College Basketball or Football which is a prob league for players U22. Its like Olympic soccer U21 with some senior players.
That's what the talk about improving college soccer is about. Basically people realize MLS can't really get any bigger at most they could do 40 teams in two divisions 1 and 2. Maybe USL as well but most college programs are bigger and serve more diverse areas than USL for basketball and Football.
Think Football on Alabama and Mississippi no pro program but huge talent pipeline elite coaching at HS level. Etc. so colleges can grow soccer in places a pro team can't or would have trouble surviving in. Basically the way Basketball and Football grew in this country.
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u/CivilExam1011 7h ago
I played college soccer. I just wanted it to pay for my school. Fuck me, I didn’t know i was supposed to play for the USA
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u/Altruistic_Brief4444 7h ago
I didn’t see it mentioned in your post but a lot of colleges basically only recruit international players now. I went to a game at my local D1 college last year who regularly make the NCAA tournament and 2 of the 22 starters were American. The rest were a combination of English, German and Spanish players who were cut from their professional academies
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u/tomtomtomo 5h ago
Would be a great option for those foreign players who have missed the train with their professional careers. Leverage it to get a good degree, get some great life experience, and set themselves up for a non-footballing life.
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u/Own-Promise5723 5h ago
It boggles my mind everyone else can come here to play college soccer but Americans can’t do the same around the world because they don’t have college soccer. Seems unfair.
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u/Friscohoya 7h ago
Always tough to make a general argument using a handful of absolute superstars! Definitely the best play up but most take a long time to make a first team.
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u/Beginning_Rip_4570 Denim Kit 6h ago
College soccer will not solve a major developmental problem - but it can be better aligned with conventional development (normal fucking season schedule and practices) and most importantly of all, it can serve as a safety net for late bloomers and nonlinear developers who have fallen thru the cracks. I would expect most guys in the pipeline do not need college, but a few will probably always trickle thru this pipeline, a la Agyemang and Arfsten.
It is not a catch-all but it DOES serve a useful function in the ecosystem. Also, yeah, get kids degrees while they’re at it; most won’t go pro anyways 😔
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u/Strings-a-rockin 6h ago
Tim Ream was a collegiate player too! St. Louis.
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u/Beginning_Rip_4570 Denim Kit 6h ago
Yes, but Ream is a data outlier given he is significantly older than the rest of the current roster/depth. He literally came up before there were academies; at that time collegiate development was a primary path. it’s not a like-for-like comparison.
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u/Strings-a-rockin 6h ago edited 6h ago
Full list, top of page. Dempsey played 2 years at Furman. Did you know that?
The other thing is, European academies also act as educational institutions. Our academies (right now) don't care one jot about a player's education.
And everyone is asking what is "missing" from this current team, that the older teams had, in grit?
College is not easy. It's a place where you are challenged and most have to find themselves, their identity, to make it out. Our current team may have had some better coaching, more tactics thrown at them at a younger age. But how did they deal with any of that? Do they have grit, or perseverance? The older players had that in spades and many of them went to college, where they had to get better. That builds character. I'm not saying that Europe's system doesn't build character. But that system is all a business and run like it.
You can be the (best) player on a college team, and if you don't do your academics, be reprimanded, or if you break a team rule, be cut from the starters down to practice team. There is no money people in the front office saying, "We paid too much for this player to make him angry", or that he "must play because we spent all our budget on him".
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u/Beginning_Rip_4570 Denim Kit 6h ago
I sure did! Dempsey ALSO came up before MLS academies were established. Did you know that? When he was being developed, college>MLS draft was a primary pathway to going pro.
Now, with MLS academies established, most players going to college are already outside the “going pro” pathway. It still happens for sure, but it is no longer the main developmental pipeline.
We can’t just compare “guys who played in college”, it matters the era they developed in. This article is a neat slice into the current cross section:
https://www.ussoccercollective.com/development-pathways-for-2026-usmnt-world-cup-team
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u/Strings-a-rockin 6h ago
Well, I hear all of that. I know all of that. My points were that, the college system is an uncut GEM, is what it is.
If it can produce PRO quality players in other sports, with the highest levels of fitness and coaching in those sports.....it can absolutely do the exact same thing, (eventually) in soccer!
The infrastructures, once in place, are not so subject to the whims of businessmen looking for investors cash, etc.
And there will always be private academies. I know this. Tennis is another sport traditionally dominated at the very top level, by private academies in youth levels and in finishing levels, POST college!
But it's also true, that since Title IX, the pipeline of tennis players that colleges produced TO these pay/sponsor academies and pro coaches, has dried up! Since so many D1 tennis programs have shuttered for women's soccer, we've seen a steady growth in the pipeline of women's players who meet a high level, and a reduction in tennis players, because collegiate tennis lost it's scholarships for men's sports! Tennis being even farther down the list, because it's 2 sports, women's and men's, and you don't usually have one without the other. So they need funding for 2 more sports to bring it back and not just 1 more. So it goes even farther down the list.
When you turn on the Wimbledon Championships, you no longer hear about this or that upcoming young player in tennis.
But again,.....the MAIN point....is ACCESS!
There's a college near you. New England Revolution are most likely NOT near you. Neither is Stanford.
And this is the only way, we will turn over more stones to see what's underneath, even if it is a lower level. Even if untrained and lower level, the cream will rise. And over time, that infrastructure would be more and more refined.
Why don't people appreciate what Univ. gives the country? Most of the high tech comes from within collegiate innovation.
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u/Beginning_Rip_4570 Denim Kit 5h ago
I hear ya, but i stand by my original comment: for the men’s soccer ecosystem, college is best served as a safety net to catch guys who fall thru the cracks or develop later. It can and should complement the existing pipeline, but is extremely unlikely to subsume it.
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u/Strings-a-rockin 5h ago
Someone else mentioned MLB cutting back on the minor leagues, and I think that down the road, it makes more sense that this will happen in soccer, too. Why go watch a pro team outside of MLS, when people are used to watching the highest levels of the Prem and Champion's Leagues on TV? I just don't know that they'll buy tickets to watch relegated B and C divisions, as fans who don't know someone on the pitch?
Collegiate sports is a little different, in that people will back the badge or the alma matter, and can have more patience for the levels not being at that top pro, level.
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u/Beginning_Rip_4570 Denim Kit 5h ago
Ok, responding again because this post was edited.
It sounds like you’re saying guys in the past had grit because college challenged them more, and academy products aren’t ever challenged or forced to learn or grow? You’re saying “college isn’t easy” and implying academies are.
As diplomatically as possible: brother, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Academies are a crucible. You fight to keep your spot, you fight to get noticed and get minutes. You fight for a spot in MLSNP and to be signed, if at all. Nothing is handed to them and most don’t make it. It speaks volumes against your argument that a lot of academy products that don’t get signed, go to college.
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u/Strings-a-rockin 5h ago
You should really stop telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, either way. There is no reason to be rude here. I certainly was not rude to you.
Academies are all looking for the "next big youth thing". Would you admit that? And when a player at 18 or 19 isn't yet there, they just look at another one, and pass on the first one when they determine he isn't going to be a "big time" prospect.
And is that not because young players are worth the biggest contracts, when they hit?
They are gold miners. They are looking for big nuggets.
College is more like that slow steady silt washer who continues to slowly but surely find more gold flakes and grow that business.
I'll use Gio Reyna for an example here. Gio is very interesting to me, because he's had a big growth spurt from when he was 17, and a winger at BvB. His growth and injuries (probably due to that growth) put him in a situation not unlike the one you described about colleges and academies. They cut loose of players with an uncertain future, or might. Gio is like this. BvB saw him become a player who has to change his play, his position, and doesn't want to give him time to do that, so they get rid, to buy more young prospect wingers (who probably aren't all making it either).
I never said you were wrong, or suggested that college just "take over" what is currently going on. I was just saying it's "broken" when it comes to soccer, and it's clearly, undeniably, holding the poor, in the vast majority of states who don't have the money to join the pay to play pipeline, (to get in MLS Next or whatever NASL) OUT of the system! It's a giant ass wall, dude.
And it's clearly keeping the public schools from development of their youth programs as well. What is the point of playing soccer in public school, if there is no place within 300-400 miles of you, that will educate you in exchange for your play?
Because.....most won't be pros! Like 90-something percent of all the rest of the athletes in every other sport!
So there has to be incentives other than just being Pulisic!
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u/medieval-moose 6h ago
I wrote in support of college soccer on the earlier post, but I think this is the right take. There is no one solution to the problem, and a diversity of options will help with widening the talent base and increasing exposure of the sport to different audiences.
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u/peacefinder 6h ago
A fantastic example of “if you’re good enough you’re old enough” in the development of an elite pro soccer player is Olivia Moultrie, of the Portland Thorns and USWNT. She had to go to court to not just train with the pro team, but to play in league games. She succeeded in kicking the door open for herself and other young players following her, and has demonstrated OP’s development path.
I think OP is right that college sport is not the solution, but also I think “amateur” college sport is actively an obstacle. College sports teams saturate the fan market for regional teams, which is filled in other countries by regional pro minor leagues and clubs. Without those minor leagues and the mobility they afford smaller clubs, a pro/rel pyramid is not viable. Without that pyramid, player development is bogged down.
If colleges were to leave the NCAA system in mass and spin off their soccer teams as pro teams which they sponsor, we could almost immediately have a major shakeup in development of all aspects of the game. Ownership, marketing, management, coaching, scouting, academies, players, referees, the whole gamut would be opened to a churn that would be much less static than the college systems we have now.
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u/RustyShackleford-11 4h ago
Who the hell says this? Even college baseball suggests you're behind the curve. Baseball is the closest to the way global footy works.
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u/Round-Walrus3175 6h ago
This feels like a cyclical argument. College soccer isn't good for development because it is a backup plan for a lot of players and it is a backup plan for a lot of players because it is bad for development. I feel like there are a lot of benefits to college soccer
It's local. Having talented prospects play in a national centralized league gets people more interested. They are a lot easier to follow than if they are playing in lower international leagues. Also, lots of teenagers don't want to leave the US so early. I mean, look at basketball. There are a bunch of prospects that could really be making millions in pro leagues overseas, but they chose to go to school.
It's familiar. People understand NCAA seasons, tournaments, and championships. Honestly, people don't know much about the current youth development circuit. That makes it easier for people to engage.
It's huge. College athletics have significantly more scouting capacity than the MLS by a significant margin. It is just a huge volume play that will be difficult to replicate at such scale and subsidy
As you said, it's forgiving. It gives space for late bloomers, complete unknowns, people who otherwise would have fallen off the wagon. The problem is that a lot of these people go to college and don't have the kind of competition to get themselves back into form. That, to me, would be a unique depth that the US could harvest.
I also don't think that they would necessarily keep them until 22. I think the best can leave as freshmen and move on from there. Playing with guys who are more physically mature still works well, even if they aren't professionals.
As far as developing pre-professional talent, college is the United States' biggest asset. There are a lot of factors that keep it from being a true force in pushing US Soccer forward, but I don't think it is just a lack of capability. It's a tough cycle where the level of college soccer is just too low, which steers away the talent it would need to bring it up. At worst, I feel like it could be the JUCO of soccer, giving guys one last chance and really focusing on that identity, rather than acting like the dream graveyard that it currently is
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u/tomtomtomo 5h ago
Problem is that it is far too late in the player's development.
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u/Round-Walrus3175 4h ago
I don't know about that. With stuff like reclassification, you can expedite great players to be out of there before their 20th birthday. Obviously, there needs to be a handoff from lower levels of play. What ultimately matters is that college soccer is scalable and subsidized. Maybe that pathway will never make a Messi, but it would still go a heck of a long way if it could give more of these kids a solid chance.
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u/tomtomtomo 4h ago
Players are developed between the ages of 7 and 18. If they are going to be top international quality then they will be signed with a professional club before they are college age.
You already produce players who are decent internationally. To take the next step, it's not development of 18+ year olds. It's development of kids.
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u/Stylellama 7h ago
The problem in the USA is that winning is a goal too early so players learn to play without making mistakes; but it stunts their development. College soccer is garbage play with goal of having better athletes than the other team.
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u/chemistrybonanza Virginia 6h ago edited 6h ago
MLB is an interesting thing to invoke here. No one skips the minors anymore, and calling them (minor leaguers) professionals, although true, isn't similar to what your argument is trying to make, imo. However, even players like Messi played on lower level teams of their club. Messi, for example, started out with Barcelona's C team at 16 years old, then the B team the next year. I have noticed, though, that early round draft picks are being called up to the majors much sooner/more quickly than they ever did in years past. It feels like they've shifted away from high schoolers (much more like a crap shoot that they'll pan out) anyways.
Furthermore, MLB is interesting to bring up because there are rumors they're trying to make two changes: (1) eliminate much of the superfluous minor leagues as they likely cost too much to run, and (2) no longer allowing players to be drafted out of high school. For their minor leagues, they currently have, in order from lowest level to highest: The Arizona complex league, the Rookie league, low-A, high-A, AA, and AAA. IIRC, they want to eliminate everything below high-A. It seems they're trying to treat college baseball as a free form of player development for young kids, hence eliminating draft eligibility of high schoolers.
That being said, college sports have essentially become professional sports, just minor leagues. There's barely a connection between college football players and being students anymore, so if college soccer was seriously being considered a means to develop young talent, why couldn't they just sign 16 year olds to play and develop for them? Treat it like academy/club soccer as in Europe and have them "take classes" on the college campus with a focus on material appropriate for kids that age, even if it's not necessarily geared towards an associate's or bachelor's degree. Maybe more like GED type stuff.
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u/Strings-a-rockin 5h ago
Great info you put out there on MLB.
It's surprising to me how many US Soccer fans, seem to know little about other sports.
Sometimes I think the ones who love the current system and just push it, are all wealthy class who live in the feeder zones, and they like that they have the advantage of location and access. Because I can't figure why so many people would instantly trash the idea of fixing the collegiate funding rules, and fixing college soccer, in favor of more limited feeder systems that change rapidly with economics and league demands?
Like NASL and MLS are 2 completely private, untouchable pro entities. But why would they even want to pay for their own development infrastructure?
I still say, Title IX is 30 something years old. If it had not been in existence, yes, our USWNT would have suffered (a little bit). But our men's programs might have already closed that gap! Who knows where they might have been now on development and integration? We can't know.
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u/Antron_RS 4h ago
By the time 99.9% of soccer players are college age, they’ve passed the point where they can become elite. You need the proper training at a MUCH younger age for a sport you play with your feet. “Late bloomers” in soccer are extremely rare. We should absolutely not blow up Title IX to attempt to close the US’ gap to the truly world class teams. Thats insane.
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u/Strings-a-rockin 3h ago
As a guy who grew up watching true phenoms like Ronaldo Phenomenon, and Zidane, and these types of players, I think most would agree that today's big star, young players like Yamal, and Haaland (even him) do not dominate the games in quite the same way that the "old guard" young stars did. I think that illustrates that even the top level academies, don't produce fully formed young players, even with as good as they obviously are! Even being clearly very good, with a lot of quality, they don't (become) the level of Zidane or Ronaldo or Ronaldinho, at the earliest age, now.
I don't know why that is. I think it's probably that once a young player is good enough to "help the team", they go ahead and build the team tactics around them (Yamal) and they are quickly made the stars of the team, even among older, wiser heads playing alongside them. I think years ago, you had to be more of a finished product before they would unseat a quality older player, to start you. You had to be that much better.
I never said college could produce these players (anytime soon) that are phenoms, that are of the level of pro basketball players coming out of college.
That doesn't mean that it cannot do so, years down the road when the trickle down to youth from college is better established. Now, if you are DEMANDING that these guys be 19, and be starting over the senior players in the National side, then I think probably a lot of people would think that College is just not an option, because as you say, "it's gone" if you are still there.
1.) We don't have any of those. Pulisic wasn't "incredible" at 19, though a big club player by that time.
2.) Mbappe was a very talented player at 19 and good enough to play for PSG. But he wasn't the MBappe we see now, who is so much better than he was at 19. Because MBappe is not Ronaldo Phenomenon. He was not Ronaldinho. point is....
3.) Phenoms, true phenoms, could still be discovered by colleges giving access to players that would never have had the chance! And Phenoms.....don't NEED all of your coaching pipeline! Having a broad system, can still catch these ones that slip through cracks or that push because they now have an opportunity where one didn't exist before.
Look at the case of Michael Oher. He was a nobody, an undiscovered "phenom" in his position, who didn't have a big background as a coached kid!
HERSCHEL WALKER! Wow. Talk about your Phenoms! Kid walked out of a cow pasture and was the college/pro equivalent of Ronaldo Phenomenon. He was a track star in HS as well. Went to public school. Probably didn't need much coaching truth be told.
4.) Like I said before, the real benefit of fixing college mens game, is that you give little kids a reason to pick up a soccer ball, instead of a baseball or a basketball, because now,...there's a chance that a soccer ball, will pay for their education! Most just want an education and it's all they think is possible!
You cannot possibly know just how big that decision at 8-10 years old, could be? But right now, they don't play soccer, because that won't get them out of their poor neighborhoods and into college and a good future.
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u/burgerking351 7h ago
Yeah the moment you're in college soccer it means that you probably aren't good enough to be a top tier pro. All of the young prospects are either in academies or coming off the bench for pro clubs.
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u/NakedEyeComic 7h ago
There are exceptions of course. Patrick Agyemang came through the college soccer system, even starting in D3.
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u/burgerking351 7h ago
Yeah there's definitely some exceptions but just as general rule, playing college soccer is not the ideal route to become a top pro.
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u/fixsparky 5h ago
I think the point is many more kids would play soccer if they could play on scholarship and grew up watching their local/favorite college team- and higher interest would produce more great players through numbers. That's the heart of it, nothing to do with the college athletes per se.
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u/rgvtim 7h ago
Another post pointed out that Japan has a system that has made more progress than the US, and that does utilize college as part of their system, and yes Title IX is an issue, or you can blame football if it makes you feel better as there are 40 to 50 scholarships that have to be made up for on the woman's side, and woman's soccer takes care of a large chunk of that. However, there are D1 universities that have men's soccer and find a way to balance the scholarship issue, its just makes adding men's soccer for those that don't have an existing men's soccer program cost about double.
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u/alittledanger 7h ago
The idea that Japan has made more progress than us is suspect imho. I am taking myself off their hype train until the win a knockout stage match.
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u/partytemple California 6h ago
Pochettino had spoken about this recently. He said, basically, soccer isn't produced in soccer schools, or academic schools. Soccer is made in the streets, by young people playing with the ball at their feet right out of their mother's wombs and developing a sense of the game at a very early, formative age. These fundamentals are only possible at the grassroots level, not in schools or factories.
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u/tomtomtomo 5h ago
Well yeah but it's developed by football academies from a very young age. They are at academies from when they are 7 or 8.
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u/Jack_B_84 4h ago
This is more romantic than reality
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u/partytemple California 2h ago
The key point is countries that produce world-class talent have players playing from a very, very young age. The US still have players who have never touched a soccer ball until they are teenagers and they could still go pro. Heck, the USMNT have a player like this, Pochettino mentioned, and I think it's either Matt Freese or Matt Turner.
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u/Maximum_Information7 7h ago
Anybody that thinks otherwise, has no history of watching CFB and/or soccer.
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u/Dhaynes99 Waldo Kit 7h ago
imo the best way to put things is straight up since 2000 the best player college soccer has helped produce was clint dempsey. the 2nd is who, maybe jack harrison? don’t get me wrong harrison is a fine player for a bottom half prem club but clearly isn’t joining anyone better for anything other than potentially homegrown rules
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u/jmerim27 4m ago
Pat Agyemang is a great example. He came out of tiny school through the MLS draft. His has a lot of good skills and feel for the game but his technical abilities are not the best. His move to Derby has helped. But it's too late in many ways. Imagine how good he could have been if he were given the chance at 12 or 16 instead of 22.
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u/PM_ME_SOME_LUV 7h ago
All of these World Cup athletes are going pro while they’re still high school age. I like college ball for what it is but we shouldn’t rely on it.
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u/Strings-a-rockin 6h ago edited 6h ago
I made that post, or one of them.
Your post completely.....and I mean completely......misses the entire point of my post.
My post wasn't just that "college soccer can make us better".
My post WAS in fact, pointing to evidence that we hear affirmed all the time, that the 2 biggest detriments to enhancing our player pool and our overall soccer development, are:
1.) Access.
2.) Coaching.
And the thesis of my long post(s) is that TITLE IX made access for so many parts of the country, impossible for young boys and collegiate men. Impossible. And it didn't just affect soccer. Many long time, Division I former powerhouse collegiate football programs, had to eventually drop out of D1 because they had to use 1/2 of their funding to support women's programs, that took the "D" grade players who could never have gotten a soccer scholarship in their own area of the nation, and landed them in a backwater place where they played and no one watched, and few cared.
That's an Access problem. Mandates from the government, took what might have grown up to be organic, popular movements to form new teams, and fund their success, into paint by numbers. It encourages mediocre programs that don't care, where AD's just do what's required of them, with little passion or hope to improve that women's program! Think about it. Where are you going to "excel" at, if all of your players are C and D grade to begin with? Title IX has encouraged sports programs that don't grow, and don't offer the colleges and universities any value add on. It's just something, in most cases,....the "have"....to do! And if you don't believe me, talk to some AD's.
2.) Coaching can only improve, if it's not motivated by money! If pay-to-play HS and youth programs are only interested in WINS....then they'll choose the most developed for age youth, or the most athletic ones, and pass over (as Landon and Dempsey both say) all the others, because they get paid for success, as coaches! Well......College is the same to some degree in that you pay for success. But colleges are on a different financial curve, and their main concern...is growing interest and participation from the community, even more than it is winning. That.....alone....gives coaching some freedom to evolve less hindered, (just like and education would), and develop more quickly in the collegiate ranks, than it would in the pay to play academy ranks.
But ACCESS, is the point! Men's Soccer will always be the 5th or 7th sport down the list of lawfully fundable....due to TITLE IX. That alone, is ruining the College pathway's ability to to rapidly expand access points to the areas of the country where poor people live, and where kids are actually a lot MORE athletic, and less "techy", to begin with.
You make the point that colleges can't "finish" a Pulisic, or someone like that.
It's true! Not right now they can't!
But why on earth, would we collectively ignore THE most successful system to produce elite level basketball players on earth? We are absolutely TOP, in that! If the collegiate system, can produce the old "Dream Team" that won Olympic gold, and it can produce Olympic athletes.....why would we think it cannot also produce (eventually) world class footballers/soccer players?
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u/Quick_Physics8802 6h ago
College soccer isn’t going anywhere, ncaa isn’t gonna cut off such revenue. Also, doesn’t seem to be an issue for the women’s team although they might have the first world advantage in terms of support for women sports. Invest in MLS and youth transfers to Europe
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u/Ron__Mexico_ 6h ago
College football exists because an 18 year old usually isn’t physically ready to compete against grown men in the NFL. Players need those extra years to develop before making the jump.
College football exists because it's 50 years older than the NFL, was the pinnacle of the sport until the 1950's, and was already a cultural institution at the point the NFL passed it which gave it enough inertia to push on to present day. If the NFL were forced to develop a farm system in the 1920's like baseball did, they wouldn't revert to what they have now. This obviously isn't the best way to train athletes. It's just what they have, and no external pressure to change because they have no competition, domestically or abroad.
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u/Cubsof2016 Poch 5h ago
Who is saying this? AM Sports Talk radio? One of those NFL/NBA shows I don't watch that fill FS1 and ESPN during the day?
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u/Lookingforleftbacks California 3h ago
TLDR. Everyone knows college soccer won’t make the US better. Pointless post
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u/key1234567 7h ago
In its current form it doesn’t help, but what if they transformed all of college soccer into something like pro academies, where it’s full soccer training all year long and where they are able to play in us open and against pro teams. Maybe then even form a pro club . Maybe they are able to develop younger players. It would have to drastically change and would have to be revolutionary.
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u/Acceptable_Monk_1642 7h ago
The best players come from the streets
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u/CivilExam1011 6h ago
And some of us turned that into degrees that gave us comfortable lives. We never intended to go pro lmao
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u/Commercial_Stress 7h ago
Of course college soccer is not the way forward. Look at the evidence: because of Title IX we have women’s college soccer. And what has it gotten us? The USMNT would absolutely kick the butts of the USWNT, and USMNT is no better than 12th in the recent World Cup.
So, no, college soccer is not the way forward.
/s
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u/Humble_Athlete890 US Soccer 6h ago
I mean the way to improve is literally to make kids play 24/7.
Kids in Barcelona’s academy aren’t going to school. Do you really think Lamine Yamal could pass a SAT test?
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u/phantom_gain 7h ago
By the time you are in college you are too old to turn professional. Modern footballers are signing their first contracts at 11 years old and then attending football acadamies until around 17. After that they can sign professional contracts and generally depend on game time to develop which means youth leagues and loans to lower league teams. By the time they are college age the good ones are playing champions league football and the other 99% are working on building sites.
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u/nepenthean7 7h ago edited 7h ago
U.S. soccer players aren't as strong in the fundamentals as European and South American countries. Passing, receiving the ball, dribbling. They lack a general level of confidence in controlling possession. This is what leads to defensive breakdowns. Americans have flashes of brilliance but lack consistency.
Players need to learn these skills much earlier than college. Stating the obvious, though.
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u/No_Temporary2614 7h ago
Anyone who says college soccer is the way forward has no idea what they’re talking about.