re: Can someone explain to me why our youth system is bad?

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My sons FCD teams had 3-4 scholarship kids every year that weren't paying a dime.

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Now imagine that if the whole youth team was on scholarships and no one had to pay a dime, and they got professional quality coaching from age 6 upwards. That's what it would take to reach European levels.

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No. The options listed in my post. If a player is good, he will 100% have free options on top level teams.

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That's assuming he lives near one of our few professional clubs, someone scouts him, or he can manage to make it to a try out. Don't pretend like any of those things are easy or guaranteed.

That's all true. And a problem that isn't unique to the US. Lots of large countries have that issue.

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Lots of large countries have that issue

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Like who?

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Why on earth would club teams let everyone play for free? Are coaches going to coach for free? Are fields provided for free?

Where does this money come from?

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omg this has been explained in detail on this board the last week.

the money comes from the FA
It comes from the clubs and it comes from transfer fees on a player. Your academy even if its one who sells players to professional clubs always gets a cut of the transfer fee.

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No I'm not. I'm explaining why I don't see all the issues. I specifically said my only knowledge was the FCD system.

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Pay to play is a massive issue, its nothing more than the USSF slush fund.

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No I'm not. I'm explaining why I don't see all the issues. I specifically said my only knowledge was the FCD system.

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It sounds like FCD is on the right track, but they need to extend the scholarships to more than 3-4 kids.

If a club finds a model that works for American cities, then that is superb, but we have some unique issues that Europeans don't have to deal with, namely that our cities are designed in such a way that neighborhood teams don't make all that much sense. That is the trick for clubs and the USSF, as until the pyramid structure of the US encourages neighborhood teams, then it will have to be centralized through cities.

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Do you know how to implement the correct system.

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I have some ideas. Either set up regional academies paid for by the USSF, so as to allow the franchise model to have players from which it can always pull without having the clubs invest anything. At least directly.

Go full pro/rel, giving D2 and D3 status to the other leagues in the nation, and let clubs compete like that. Some clubs would buy, other clubs would sell. It would incentivize youth development, but the danger is that clubs would just buy players from abroad to achieve short term aims. Hence the USSF would still have to direct that.

Allow MLS clubs to keep a larger portion of the transfer fee. Again this would incentivize youth development. Give them something extra if they develop USMNT players.

That's just a start. But something has to change nationally if we are to actually compete at the level we should.

I got to watch one of the Frisco schools in the state championship last year and they beat the shite out of a team from Wichita Falls.

All of those kids looked legit as hell.

I think state academies could be cool. With state vs state completions. A little off topic I guess.