re: US Soccer's lack of stars

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Our biggest issue right now is talent identification. Look at our Olympic programs. We dominate Olympic sports that have far less committed fan bases than our emerging soccer market, simply because we can throw out enough resources (read: money) toward identifying, developing and fielding medal-winning athletes. Relatively nobody cares about speed skating, fencing or swimming unless its the Olympics, yet we found niche athletes to crowd out the medal stands. Some of these sports have way more fans in other countries, but can't compete with our resources and advanced training.

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I don't think this is right. The question is whether other countries are A LOT more focused on the Olympic Sports than we are, and the answer to that is probably no in most cases. Where they are, we don't dominate, despite our resources.

The reason we don't identify talent is that people generally have not cared. Now that we are focusing on soccer, talent will be identified.
Case in point: I am a fairly athletic, 6'0 170' left-footer that played zero soccer after the 3rd grade (25 years ago). There was none to be played anywhere around me. None of my friends played it, none of their parents followed it at the national or club level. My kids, on the other hand, play soccer every day in the backyard. They're going to play organized for the first time this year at 4 and 6 years old and unless they want to stop, will not stop until they reach their ceiling. If they have the ability to become stars, they will be noticed and given that chance. My general story is being repeated all over the country in a million families.