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How is a kid from Akron without his dad suppose to afford that...
Serious question to fellow Americans.
The last couple of days all I hear from ex-players and american pundits is this "pay-to-play" system that they so badly want removed from US soccer culture...
you basically have to spend 2500 in 4 months just to be in a soccer program in the states?
So soccer is basically a sport for the spoiled middle class and rich Americans....
That's way too much money for a 4 month program.. is ridiculous.
Last edited by apalisoc_9; 10-16-2017 at 01:35 AM.
How is a kid from Akron without his dad suppose to afford that...
Someone doesn't know how the market place works.
Because soccer has always been a sport here for upper-middle class suburbanites with households headed by busy body helicopter parents looking for an "activity" to put their unathletic children in so they grow self-confidence. Soccer is the sport a kid will gravitate toward here when he's struck out one too many times in Little League and is too scared/small to play football. A legendary King of the Hill episode satirized this dynamic brilliantly.Serious question to fellow Americans.
The last couple of days all I hear from ex-players and american pundits is this "pay-to-play" system that they so badly want removed from US soccer culture...
you basically have to spend 2500 in 4 months just to be in a soccer program in the states?
So soccer is basically a sport for the spoiled middle class and rich Americans....
That's way too much money for a 4 month program.. is ridiculous.
We aren't one of those third-world countries that gravitated towards povertyball because it's cheap to play. Nobody in America other than illegals and wealthy suburban liberals cares about povertyball.
doesnt explain their tiness. The US have more Soccer players than there is people in trinidad. Not to mention they have billions of dollars in resources. Way more resources than a country like Belguim.
its seems like one of the core problems of soccer in the states is that its become a business. That ridiculous amount of money to pay for programs with bad coaches.
the FA doesnt do a good job of spreading the resources equally or even effectively. They know with their current structures, programs make ridiculous amount of money.
The MLS has to carry the burden here if it wants the US to produce talent as much as mexico does. Accordingbto MLS, teams are gonna set up academies now...
I wonder how the American public would take it..Its probably going to a watered down academies..Some of the academies in europe do borderline illegal things in the US.
It's cultural. All those players we have playing are casual players who don't take the game seriously. It's considered an activity here like running. I think I've told you before on here once that I wouldn't want us to "get good" at soccer. The model all good soccer countries use is identifying kids when they're 6-8 years old and then specializing them to the game through an academy system that is run like a professional training camp. I've always been against sports specialization and a sporting mono-culture (i.e. a country where one sport is vastly popular than others and is the only sport kids want to play seriously. This is partly why I have some resistance toward the NFL. It's dominates the sporting culture morning, noon, and night).
Because there is no reason for half of them to take seriously. The ones that do end up as proffessionals although poor in quality because of poor coaching do Care about the game a lot.
Thats the problem with a pay to play system. Many American sports do it too, but not at the level soccer does it that it becomes financially impossible for most parents.
What motivation does a 15 year old wealthy kid have? He knows hes got a job lined up. Its almost an impossible sport to play in the states for lower class peopple.
NBA, MLB are both pretty popular in the states. Ive never once felt the NFL dominating over both these two sports combined.
Practicing skills at a facility will only get you so far. For the US to get good at soccer, prospective players would have to move to a soccer country to hone their skills against other quality players. I suppose US soccer can start scouting local parks and schools for young talented Latinos and the like, but they would still need high level compe ion to compete against. One of the reasons I've heard as to why Mexico can't take that next step in the game is because they're stuck playing in crappy CONCACAF, and they're 150 million populated country who is soccer mad.
Meanwhile, a kid who is pursuing baseball, basketball, football, hockey (in Canada) plays against the best from day 1.
Yeah, NBA and MLB and even NHL are still popular, but the media here is usually 80% NFL/20% other sports. NFL regular season games shouldn't be getting higher ratings than playoff basketball and baseball. But I'm old school in that regard.
If you want a decent to good analogy, look at billiards. Snooker players can wreck most 9 ball players because they have to be more precise in everything to compete, so they aim small, miss small. Then you have a guy like Efren Reyes who played on his front porch, but he played against guys like Bustamante and people were falling over themselves to get a crack at him. American players play cute, powerful breaks, lots of cue ball movement for effect, three rail shapes instead of a simple draw off a single rail because it shows their skill. The same guy probably couldn't make a long shot on a 12' regulation snooker table but the snooker player see's the holes on 9' tables like 55 gallon drums.
I'd think soccer is like that.
So povertyball is actually richball in the US?
2500 in 4 months isn't considered "rich" in this country. I understand in yours it's akin to being Bill Gates.
But I thought all you needed was some rocks and a ball.
What the OP doesn't get is that youth clubs are relatively expensive south of the border, too. The difference is that there are more soccer nuts (often drug lords) who sponsor the elite young talents.
The money isn't for the equipment but for all the food parties and "I won too" medals.
How can that be? I thought this was povertyball. Next thing you are going to tell me is that soccer is the sport that more money moves all around the globe.
Black folk prefer basketball and football because thats what college and pro recruiters order their society to
Not much money for recruiters in soccer yet
It just takes too much effort and money to bring up a black/brown kid from child to soccer player much more than it takes to a basketball/football player. And less money
Its all about money and recruiters who dictate what sports black/brown ppl play
cacs want to keep it expensive to keep out the elite talent(latinos and blacks)
Totally false and a fantasy
If there was money in it hoods would play soccer.
Its all about recruiters and the sport business that dictates football, fatball and bball first the rest usuallygo to track, tennis, swimming tbqh
smh this thread, let's put an honest assessment of the proper football situation in the USA.
1. the us had great results and actually played ok (sometimes even decent) football under klinsmann. To reach the knockout stages of a WC you need more then luck. So there is definitely talent to work with.
2. even with all the corruption there is a lot of money in this sport already. And that 4+ billion tv deal will come when the current one ends and permits negotiations.
3. the world cup final drew 26.5 million viewers in the US alone, more then the '15 finals (lebron win vs gsw, GREAT ratings) .. so it's a very popular sport, second only to american handfootball, and this is without counting undo ented hispanics.
4. the sport is increasingly popular with younger audiences, being now comparable to baseball in raw numbers. see this: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/shane...b_9730440.html
5. you can't win with supersized players in this game and you don't need super-athletes to win, so all the race baiting with big strong athletic NFL/NBA nigs is pointless, as a completely set of athletic traits is desired (low center of gravity, fast feet, resistence training stamina) which is common in many genetic groups.
So the sport is quite alive an well, has a great market, sufficient $$$ going that way, it doesn't need elite athletes, is widely played especially by kids, needs almost zero resources to be played (two ing rocks and a 10$ ball) ... that's a great foundation in going forward.
The problems in proper football in America are the following:
1. key programs (NT, federation, MLS, youth programs) are ran by corrupt incompetent people.
Athletes are developed instead of intelligent players, there is no long term system development and training, coaches are changed too fast, clubs don't divert money to growing kids, scouts look for the wrong values, there is little federation accountability for mistakes.
2. the public is uneducated and brainwashed on #1 hysteria.
It is unwilling to accept that football in a very contested sport where winning once/twice is a lifetime is success. It can't appreciate tense tactical standoffs as it is conditioned on action/action/action. A society that can't appreciate the beauty of silence and motionlessness tbh can't truly appreciate football.
3. good football requires collaboration, interchangeability and selflessness, qualities rarely emphasized in american sports/society where it's always about "my turn" and "me". That's why american/english football goes a lot towards stars taking turns, while Spanish football can do tiki-taka with the equivalent of the dream team.
1 is solvable but 2 and 3 will take a generations. These things will keep America from becoming a decent team for a long time tbh. That's reality sons, the greatest trophy in sports will have a 0% chance to come to America till 2070+ at the very earliest.
This was unbiased as possible tbh.
"Tense tactical standoffs" sounds a lot like what povertyball fans refer to as "boring" in baseball. It's also funny how povertyball is supposedly great because of "the beauty of silence and motionlessness," but baseball is awful because "players just stand around and don't do anything."
son, they really stand around and do nothing.
You just can't appreciate "the beauty of silence and motionlessness."
Women's povertyball is popular here, compared to other women's sports at least and the USA women's povertyball squad has been the best in the world
Guys here don't want to play povertyball, it's just seen as a pastime and social activity so I'm not surprised you have to pony up for the clubs. Why do you think the stereotypical upper class married white woman wearing a fancy sweater is called a "soccer mom"? The sport just isn't taken seriously here, it's good for women but nobody takes male players seriously here because they're seen as the inferior athlete compared to football, basketball, swimming, track, tennis and even golf
Lmao not mentioning fatball ^
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