OT: Interesting Bluesky Thread on Kiddie Sports

[Moogy]

The US is orders of magnitude more developed in soccer today than it was 40 years ago. MLS, the MLS Academy system, kids heading off to Europe at younger ages, players all over the top flight Euro leagues, etc. It's not even close.

As for "sucking", we're a top 20ish team in the world and would be about the 10th-11th best team in Europe. We're like a Switzerland/Denmark, and few would say that they "suck" compared to the rest of the teams in Europe. We're not a truly elite team, but we're much better than some want to believe.

Sucking is a relative term. The US is, generally, an athletic development behemoth. However, in soccer, we keep hearing that we're about to not suck. Then, perhaps, we might beat some tiny developed nation the size of one of our cities in a friendly, or we might win by a goal in a tournament against some 3rd world nation. That nation's leading export is sweat, and they use a coconut shell instead of a soccer ball for their national team because they can't afford the real thing. Everyone gets excited. Then we lose to that uninhabited island someone is tariffing the crap out of, bested by a bunch of penguins ... and everyone's angry and saying we suck again.

 

[manatree]

I think it helped, but the US still uses the 'pay to play' system which filters out a lot of lower income people. When many of those folks are immigrants, say from Mexico, we are losing out on a lot of potential talent. Unfortunately for the MLS, our kids need to go play in the top European leagues if we are ever going to really compete in the WC.

Pretty much. Now the coaches are paid professionals (for competitive programs) and from my experience, fairly young (20s-30s).

I do worry about the pay to play structure. It has really transformed college wrestling with most of the top wrestlers training with private training clubs and/or attending private & prep schools. The training is better but not everyone can afford it.

 

[PSU Mike]

Baseball doesn’t look remotely fun anymore.

 

[SleepyLion]

Sucking is a relative term. The US is, generally, an athletic development behemoth. However, in soccer, we keep hearing that we're about to not suck. Then, perhaps, we might beat some 3rd world nation by a goal in some friendly. That nation's leading export is sweat, and they use a coconut shell instead of a soccer ball for their national team because they can't afford the real thing. Everyone gets excited. Then we lose to that uninhabited island someone is tariffing the crap out of, bested by a bunch of penguins ... and everyone's angry and saying we suck again.

 

[PSUSignore]

The US is orders of magnitude more developed in soccer today than it was 40 years ago. MLS, the MLS Academy system, kids heading off to Europe at younger ages, players all over the top flight Euro leagues, etc. It's not even close.

As for "sucking", we're a top 20ish team in the world and would be about the 10th-11th best team in Europe. We're like a Switzerland/Denmark, and few would say that they "suck" compared to the rest of the teams in Europe. We're not a truly elite team, but we're much better than some want to believe.

Big opportunity to prove it next year on the world stage. Personally, my expectations are low.