re: Why Can't the United States Assemble a Championship Soccer Team?

There are lots of problems, but in a nutshell, here it is:

1. We have no soccer culture or history.

2. Kids grow up playing soccer as a youth sport (it's the most popular youth sport in the country) but then give it up in high school for football, basketball, baseball, etc.

3. The way we develop talent is terrible. The pay to play model (see: select/club soccer) eliminates A LOT of our soccer playing population (see: the poor, including a lot of our hispanic population).

4. We lack the technical know how of the Europeans. We don't develop our talent nearly as well as they do.

5. Our domestic league, though improving, is still young, as is our soccer academy system.

We aren't going to catch up with the world overnight. It will take a long, long time to get on the same level as the soccer powerhouses of the world, but the popularity of the sport is skyrocketing and I have no doubt that our teams will continue to be more and more competitive.