This guy makes an excellent point about our talent pool

He makes some excellent points I think. Hopefully this cup will turn help its popularity grow.

A 10 million dollar salary cap sounds like a dream. Let's hope it happens.

The new TV deal certainly helps with the salary cap, or at least I hope it does.

On to the article itself:
It's well written but the bottom line is that we need to be able to develop talent here. I think Jozy is our Lukaku. If we were actually able to nurture his innate talent and impressive physicality, then we would really have a complete footballer.

All this talk of losing out on Lukaku-like athletes is misguided, because even if they played soccer here they wouldn't become Lukaku. Also, the author makes some very questionable points:

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The drop-off from player 5 to player 50 is negligible.

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This just isn't true. According to ASN's 100, Fabian Johnson is #5. At #51 (and also playing RB) we have Jonathan Spector and at #53 we have Tony Beltran. Negligible drop-off my arse.

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We have the depth of the elite teams, but we lack the transcendent player(s) that pretty much every other World Cup finalist brings to the tournament.

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No, we don't. The fact that we were picking between Terrance Boyd and Wondo for our last striker position proves that.

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The talent exists, but at the current moment, soccer hasn't had access to it.

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The talent exists, but even if soccer had access to it and we could somehow convince the inner city kids to play soccer, it doesn't matter. We can't develop them here. To its credit MLS is doing better, but no academy here in the US - MLS, Bradenton, or other - can compete with the cash and expertise available to top European clubs.

I mean, shite. Let me put it this way: two of our best players at this WC were born and raised in Germany (FJ and JJ). 3 of our 5 goals were from German-Americans who trained exclusively in Europe. How many American soldiers have had kids with German women? A lot, but that is a small, tiny little portion of our population compared to the population in the US. Yet this teeny, tiny talent pool of solider-babies we have in Europe produces players of the likes of John Brooks and Julian Green, FJ and JJ. We rely on these players because they are Americans with athletic ability who have grown up in a society that knows how to culture soccer talent.

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Our players are middle of the pack in terms of athleticism.

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I would argue we are one of the more athletic teams.

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Every country still alive in the World Cup has a player, or players, that are farther from the mean than the U.S. assuming a normal distribution

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Which teams currently still in the cup are objectively more athletic than we are?

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a society that knows how to culture soccer talent.

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This is exactly what we don't have, and unfortunately we are probably many decades away from having it. Hell, we may never have it here. And that's the reason it will always be a struggle for us to win games consistently in international competitions.

It's actually quite amazing though that in this country where we have 3 major sports that completely and totally dominate and overshadow soccer, we are still able to field a US national team that can compete admirably against the rest of the world where soccer is clearly the dominant #1 sport. It's amazing really. But in the past 20 years, other than more Americans watching and getting excited about the big games, the product on the field hasn't changed that much. Our results haven't changed that much. And the results won't change until youth development changes. And I'm not confident that will change dramatically enough in my lifetime.

What's impressive to me is how well we've done given the disparity in monetary investment in soccer compared to the other sports, in the absence of a soccer culture. Surely Costa Rica doesn't spend more on soccer than we do, but they have a culture that breeds players left and right since every kid there has a ball at their feet since the day they can walk.

In ways soccer's problems are no different than other sports. How many football coaches do I see trying to convince the 6'4", very athletic forward that there isn't a future in basketball for forwards that height. But football, on the other hand, someone that height and that athletic, could make an outstanding receiver or DB or LB or whatever.

Soccer's not much different. Somehow they have to sell themselves to the kids that soccer is a viable option. How do they do that? Dunno. Don't think playing overseas is the answer. That's too remote for the athletes at age 14, 15, or whatever. Only the athletes that are already diehard soccer fans are aware of them and you already have them. Increasing pool of athletes means tapping into the kids that aren't necessarily die hards. I think to get a larger number of the young athletes to consider soccer, the success has to come from home grown teams. Whether it's the US team or more importantly the MLS. The kids can SEE those teams. They don't see and probably can't even pronounce the teams overseas. I think the MLS is the key. And I'm just talking its popularity with kids. If they can invest into training, all the better. But just its popularity will help convince kids who wouldn't have considered soccer to give it a shot.

Bottom line is numbers. The more they can get to play at an early age and stick with it, the larger your pool of potential future stars.

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I have long said that we need a way to convince the 5'7"-5'10" guards playing high school basketball to switch to soccer; or even better, reach the younger players who are destined for that height range. The list of NBA players under 5'11" is extremely short ( 8 players according to this list), so they stand little chance of ever making money playing basketball. Despite that, most of them are athletic, skilled, and good decision-makers on the court.

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BINGO!

Yet, our current US soccer coach is building his team based on size and strength. That's the only thing that bothers me about Klinnsmans approach. To really tap into America's vast talent pool, we have to show the under 6' athletes that soccer is the choice for them. You can be 5'7" and be extremely successful in soccer with almost no limitations based on your height. No other sport gives you that opportunity. That is a big part of what we need to be selling to our youth.

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No doubt the monetary discrepency is another amazing factor. But your CR example just goes to show how much the culture factor trumps everything. Somehow we need to develop a love of the game in our youth. Until that happens, we will always be behind the 8 ball. I'm sure we all have many stories of kids we know who have dominated youth soccer only to quit at a certain age to focus on Baseball, Football or Basketball. That ain't changing anytime soon.

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I think we are just getting out of the grassroots phase of the sport in this country. The small investments that have been made have produced a decent product, now hopefully we will continue to see an increase investment in the game. I honestly don't see an issue with cultivating a love of the game, a kid plays a game, they love it or move on to something else. Where I think the US is different, is with the availability of so many sports, there will be a longer period of experimentation and choice.

What that means is that full development for a lot of our players will come at a later age, say 22 or 24 as opposed to 17 or 18 like with other countries. That in itself isn't a good thing, but it's not necessarily all bad either. Heck when I moved south for school most of the people I talked to didn't even have a team at their high school; availability to play the game is still maturing here.

I like to think that where we want to be as a soccer nation is a 50 year investment that we started in 1994. We got the world cup and revealed the game to a bigger audience for really the first time. Like any good investment you look for quality incremental growth, big surges of a golden era would be great, but you have to develop smartly and evenly. We are doing that, we just need to keep at it.

Its simple, go play for a small school and get a shot at not so great money compared to other sports or say frick it and become a kicker and bask in the glory of college football and or the NFL. Financially, choosing other sports make more sense.