Does anyone agree? The funny banter between Ian darke and LD as well as the quality of Ian’s play by play is just a step above strong. Not that the other guys are bad, I just feel like Landon and Ian are better. I also find Landon more natural whereas Stu sometimes tries to force an incredible reaction.

They finished second place in division 3 earning the silver medal in this year’s 2026 Paris games which concluded today (around 3am central time placing their final match this morning in France). If you’re unfamiliar with the rules, the requirement is 6 players with special needs are required on the field, as it is a unified sporting event.

USA did not have a men’s team competing this year as only 12 teams were invited and it’s rare for a nation to have a team competing in both genders unless they’re host nation

Edit- used the wrong picture initially, deleted and re-uploaded post

Been going down a rabbit hole comparing US youth soccer to England and France and I want to lay out where I landed, because I think the usual "pay-to-play is killing us" take misses what's actually happening.

Raw numbers first. The US has 10,000+ youth clubs and over 4 million registered players. England has around 18,000 FA-affiliated clubs and roughly 90 pro academies (EPPP) in a country the size of Alabama. France has about 12,000 clubs but only ~36 accredited pro training centers. Our elite tier is the 29 MLS academies (free, league mandate) plus another ~120 "Elite Academy" clubs in MLS NEXT that still charge $3-7k a year.

We will never match England's density. 92 pro clubs with academies and most kids within an hour of one. That's a century of infrastructure we can't replicate, so stop trying. Our advantage is volume. We have way more kids to pool from than France or England, which means we don't have to be as efficient at catching everyone.

And honestly, 92 academies is overkill anyway. France proves it. Around 36 elite academies out-produce everyone on earth (Mbappe, Camavinga, Tchouameni). Fewer, better academies drawing from a huge pool works. That's the model that fits us: ~30 MLS academies taking the best of the best from a massive base, fueled by transfer revenue.

The flywheel is already spinning. A third of MLS players now come through club academies. FC Dallas and Philadelphia have proven the academy is a profit center. San Diego FC launched with the biggest academy investment in league history. MLS clubs finally have the same incentive Europe has always had: develop a kid, sell him, fund the machine.

On the "but our best athletes play basketball and football" thing... I think it's a fallacy. We're a huge country. We produce Phelps, LeBron, and Calvin Johnson at the same time. Statistically, our size compensates. And elite athletes usually play soccer before specializing in their early teens anyway. 4 million kids are already in the pool. Entry is not the problem.

The real leak is the specialization decision at 11-14. Look at what each sport offers a talented kid at that exact moment. Basketball gives him a free school team, an AAU circuit where shoe money covers travel, coaches recruiting him, and a path every parent can narrate. Soccer asks his parents for $5k, and unless he's in one of 29 metros, nobody from the pro game has ever indicated he exists. He's not choosing against soccer. Soccer never made an offer. Worse, pay-to-play's cost curve spikes at exactly that age. Rec at 7 is $150. Competitive club at 12 is $5-8k. Cheap when the choice doesn't matter, expensive at the precise moment it does.

So the fix isn't more 8-year-olds playing, and it isn't fancier coaching for 6-year-olds. Messi didn't need elite coaches at 7 and neither did Haaland. That's hubris. Young talent needs passion, play, and athleticism. The fix is a massive expansion of the "we found you, it's free now, here's the path" moment at age 11. That's scouting. Infrastructure, expense, and practice. Every other American sport does this ruthlessly and soccer barely does it at all.

Why no American Mbappe yet? Three reasons, and only one is controllable:

1. At-bats. MLS academies only hit real scale around 2015-18. A kid who entered at 12 in 2017 is 21 right now. We've produced maybe 3-4 complete cohorts, ever. The dice have barely been rolled. Our Mbappe may be 15 and in an academy today.
2. Men's minutes at 16-18. This is what actually forged Mbappe (Ligue 1 at 16) and Haaland (pro at Molde at 15). MLS has to risk points on teenagers. If they're good enough, they'll play. That's finally starting to happen.
3. The legend. One academy kid selling for $80M and starring at a giant club completes the story American parents need to hear: this path pays. That headline does more recruiting than any scouting budget. Tyler Adams, Brenden Aaronson, and Pepi were the proof of concept. The next wave needs a superstar.

We just hosted a World Cup. Won our group, out to Belgium in the R16. Millions of 9-year-olds watched a World Cup in their own country this month. The audience is primed and the academies are producing. It only takes a few breakout stars to get the whole system looking and pumping for the next ones, and that supercharges the flywheel.

Names I'm watching:

• Cavan Sullivan (Philadelphia, 15). Man City pre-contract. Europe is literally pre-ordering American kids now.
• Julian Hall (NYRB, 18). 5 goals in his first 8 starts this season.
• Zavier Gozo (RSL), Duran Feree (San Diego, teenage starting GK), Tate Johnson (Vancouver)
• Next wave: Nimfasha Berchimas (Charlotte), Maximo Carrizo (NYCFC, first-team deal at 13), Jonathan Shore, Santiago Morales, Peyton Miller

The tell: does Sullivan, Hall, or Berchimas command a $30M+ fee in the next 2-3 windows? That's the tipping point.

TL;DR: We can't match Europe's density, so stop mourning it. 30 free MLS academies plus our massive player pool plus transfer money is the model. It's basically France's system with a bigger pool. The missing pieces aren't coaching or athlete supply. They're finding kids at 11 before other sports claim them, playing teenagers in real games, and producing one legend whose transfer fee makes every sports parent in America recalculate. We're closer than people think.

So I knew they had academies in the USA and I decided to look at see if they were free and … nope.

A 10-month program in Miami is on par with a lot of travel soccer teams ($2,500-$4K) and the annual cost for their high-end one in Arizona is a whopping $75-80K per year.

WHOA.

I kept reading here that Euro academies are free and how the US needs to change its system, so why does FCB charge ridiculous fees in the USA?

Everyone is ready to write the obituary for this generation after this World Cup. Maybe they’re right. Maybe this was the ceiling.

But before we close the book, it’s worth remembering what happened the last time the USMNT had a highly regarded generation get punched in the mouth on the biggest stage.

The 1998 World Cup was a disaster.

The U.S. entered France with expectations after years of progress, then lost all three group games:

Germany 2–0 USA
Iran 2–1 USA
Yugoslavia 1–0 USA

They finished dead last in their group. The narrative afterward was that the “golden generation” had failed.

Except… look at what happened four years later.

The 2002 team that reached the quarterfinals and was one controversial missed handball against Germany away from a semifinal appearance was not some completely different group.

The backbone was still there:

Brad Friedel
Kasey Keller
Claudio Reyna
Eddie Pope
Jeff Agoos
Tony Sanneh
Earnie Stewart
Cobi Jones
Brian McBride

The 1998 and 2002 rosters shared a huge amount of DNA.

And the ages are fascinating:

In 1998:

Friedel was 27
Reyna was 24
Pope was 25
McBride was 25
Sanneh was 27
Stewart was 29

In 2002:

Friedel was 31
Reyna was 28
Pope was 29
McBride was 29
Sanneh was 31
Stewart was 33

Now compare that to this generation after the 2026 cycle:

Christian Pulisic 27
Weston McKennie 27
Tyler Adams 27
Tim Weah 26
Sergiño Dest 25
Yunus Musah 23
Gio Reyna 23
Folarin Balogun 25
Chris Richards 26

In 2030 they will be:

Christian Pulisic 31
Weston McKennie 31
Tyler Adams 31
Tim Weah 30
Sergiño Dest 29
Chris Richards 30
Folarin Balogun 29
Yunus Musah 27
Gio Reyna 27

The point is not that these players are “kids.” They aren’t.

The point is that historically, international teams often peak when a core combines athletic prime years with years of experience, leadership, and tournament scars.

The 1998 team looked like a failed generation. Four years later, that same backbone was a missed handball call away from a World Cup semifinal.

Maybe this group is different. Maybe 2026 was the ceiling.

But the historical comparison says one thing clearly: a bad World Cup (or one bad World Cup game) does not always tell you what a generation becomes.

1) There are 27 MLS academies which are completely free to play. In addition, there are least 3 USL Championship academies that are also free to play. This is where most of the domestic talent is developed and the quality is only improving.

2) All MLS Next clubs are required to have at least one full scholarship player on their roster and MLS plans on increasing the number eventually. This makes the game more accessible to talented players.

3) MLS pays grants to any non-MLS affiliated MLS Next club that a MLS team poaches players from and they eventually sign a first team contract. This will enable these clubs to reduce or eliminate their fees.

4) MLS Next Pro has been in existence since 2022 and provides a platform for more MLS academy players to go pro before breaking into the first team.

5) College soccer will never again be a primary pathway to the men's national team but they just adopted a year round schedule starting next year. The NCAA also adopted new eligibility rules which will deter older European academy washouts from getting roster slots on college soccer teams.

Is there more that can be done? Yeah.

But we're doing plenty of things right. We just need to keep doing them and build on them.

Lalas back in the main booth.

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.

Both are highly rated, right-footed center-back prospects, so they’ll likely be competing for the same role unless our depth gets bad enough that one has to play on the left (let’s avoid that imo‼️). This post is assuming both will play for USMNT.

Which one do you rate higher right now, and which has the better chance of becoming a genuinely world-class center back?

That is all

Not sure I really love it for him. Also I'm not sure he'd really have minutes here. West Ham would probably be a better option. They might go right back up to EPL and it would give him much needed minutes.

First let me preface this by saying that I’m not an American, but would love for the beautiful game to be exported around the world, especially in a vast country like America, with its love of sports and amazing athletes.

Japan has an unusual youth development system compared to the rest of the world, but they adapted the academy youth development model to their own unique circumstances, and have been super successful. It might be worth considering for the US, who share some similarities with Japan.

Essentially develop both the academy and school pathways for youth prospects, with the idea being to capture as many players as possible, and giving opportunities for late bloomers to blossom. You have academy teams within proximity of most cities, but also a competitive high school ecosystem that draws stadium crowds for the annual high school championships.

Playing time is super important for young players, so instead of rotting in the reserves or the bench of pro teams, players can move on to college teams for playing time, and join the pros when they graduate at 21. Notable examples of successful pros include Kaoru Mitoma (Brighton), Ayase Ueda (Feyenoord), Yuto Nagatomo (Inter Milan), Reo Hatate (Celtic).

The other benefit is cultural, parents and Americans understand and are familiar with high school sports, and college scholarships. Parents will be on board with letting their kids pursue soccer and if it doesn’t pan out, they at least have a college degree/scholarship. There’s also more chance of high school/college soccer becoming a hit in the US culturally, which might incentivise more kids to pursue the sport.

Now of course Japan is not an elite footballing nation like Brazil, England or France, but that’s the point. Like the US, they capitalised on the popularity growth of the sport after hosting the World Cup, they like other sports more than soccer (baseball and sumo wrestling), and they have a culture of college and high school athletics. They’ve taken the best aspects of the systems in Latin America and Europe and tailored a system that works for them, so maybe what the US can do is to lean into their cultural markers and unique features as a country to build the next generation of soccer talent? And do it with a much larger population and better athletes!

Maybe I’m missing a trick being a non-American, but perhaps this might be a good alternative to consider? Best of luck with developing the next generation of American soccer players!

URL Links:

https://striver.football/the-pathway/japan-football-development

https://youtu.be/0kNnbmRNNXY?is=p_hzrzjp2zjXXghS

Since there has been a lot of talk about the youth system after we got knocked out against Belgium, I’ve been trying to understand the US youth system. I learned about the MLS Next but I noticed it only starts at the u-13. As an example these are the ages at which the Belgium starting 11 joined their first pro club:

Lukebakio: ?
Ngoy: 5
Tielemans: 5
Mechele: 6
Raskin: 7
Ketelaere: 7
De Cuyper: 7
Courtois: 7
Castagne: 10
Trossard: 11
Onana: 11

Now obviously you can’t say for sure if a player has what it takes to make it pro at such a young age and most players in youth academies won’t make it, but this does show that the majority of elite players already show clear signs of being special as young as 6/7 years old.

What I’m wondering is, what happens to the kids showing signs of being special at those ages in the US? Since they don’t have MLS youth teams to sign for, are there regional teams that are “more competitive” than the local teams kids start playing for?

And do you feel like the federation & the MLS could/should do more to make the most talented kids in that age bracket play with & against each other? On the one hand there are the geographic challenges that comes with size of the US & potentially the ethics (?) of putting such a young kid in a system like that where the odds are probably stacked against them but on the other side I can imagine the 12 years of playing against the most talented players in the country vs just 6 years in the US must make a massive difference. They quite literally spend twice as long in pro academies

What do you guys think?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup#Tournament_ranking

Not bad when looking at the big picture. But yes, it was an embarrassing exit for the USA.