It is a favorite hobby of fans to reconstitute the political infrastructure of football in their country. This usually takes place for most fans after an early exit in a major tournament. Never mind the infinite spirals of chance and fortune that elevate some teams over others in the World Cup, we all want the narrative. The narrative that if our team wins, they were the best, and if they fail… well, heads should roll somewhere.
Crises in youth development, lack of leadership, a domestic league that may not be doing the home nation enough favors as it is – these problems suddenly become obvious to an entire population when three days earlier no one thought such things were a problem. Suddenly, the accomplishments of Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, and Wayne Rooney are completely ignored as England’s inability to produce top level stars is called into question. Forget the fact that had Landon Donovan not slotted home a goal in the dying moments of the group phase, England would have had every chance of playing in the World Cup final. Forget the fact that, despite claims of their inability to develop talent, they were U21 European Finalists and their exit in the World Cup was to the team that won the U-20 tournament. Forget that the emergence of Sami Khedira and Thomas Muller had more to do with injuries and failures of players ahead of them at both club and country, and not because they were actually Germany’s first choice. Forget the fact that after failing to qualify for Euro 2008, the model that everyone wanted to follow was the Italian model, and now the Italians are doing their own penitent soul searching following a dismal World Cup. No. We would not dare look for disconfirming evidence that would rip at our precious cliched sports narratives.
If this is a hobby for England fans after major tournaments, it is practically a full time occupation for the more serious fans of the United States. The United States is not just a team, it is a crusade. The US team is a symbol for many of its supporters of America’s best face: hard-working, energetic, optimistic and brave. They represent a country that historically does not care about them, and they are often pilloried abroad for the general dislike of the policies of their government and the frequently shockingly patronizing attitude of American tourists.
The rule for the American soccer fan in how to think about American players they support has been this simple rule: Disrespected abroad; disrespected at home. Belief in this rule has lead to a couple of bizarre behavioral patterns for supporters of the United States. True blue supporters tend to be hyper-vigilant in insisting that their players deserve better chances at better clubs in Europe despite the fact that there are no visible barriers as to why this would happen. Europe is a largely open market, so it is hard to believe that every club would carry a prejudice against American players and that every club would also value this prejudice over having a player who improved their squad. True blue supporters also tend to be constantly hyper-sensitive to the perceived inferiority of the infrastructure of the United States to other more established nations.
The American supporter fights a psychological war on two fronts for acceptance. Which means that Major League Soccer, USA Soccer, the college system, youth soccer are constantly in for criticism amongst the fan base. Certainly the relationships are not perfect, as this recent piece on the college system describes quite nicely. The relationships are, on the other hand, not terribly constituted either.
The reason that American fans, the reason that all fans, dream of dictatorial like reforms of their national program is because what limits their dreams from coming true is generally not the people running their sport (though they often appear easy to vilify), but because institutions like a National Soccer program are not a set of rules – they are a set of relationships between lots of people who are free to choose. When a fan dreams of overhauling the system, they are hypothetically stripping all other parties of choice except for their own. For example, if the American soccer set-up produces more college-educated kids than other youth set-ups, that is not a valueless byproduct – it is only a valueless byproduct to the fans. For players, it means that the system will provide them with resources to seek a happy life in something else if they do not make it. For coaches, it provides a satisfaction that their relationships can be successful on more than just the level of imparting lessons about the game itself.
How many Argentine kids are their walking around in impoverished lives, undereducated, lacking job skills or work opportunities because they participated in a system that is willing to churn through as many of them as possible to produce one Lionel Messi? I am not trying to condemn the youth development system around the world, just trying to point out that there are different choices to make, and different choices lead to different consequences.
Consider it another way. Imagine you are Commissioner Don Garber of Major League Soccer. Your clubs can only scout and train so many players at a certain cost. So, while it is absolutely fantastic that so many American kids play soccer, given your limited resources, the more kids who play, the more impossible it becomes to do anything but trust the evaluations of youth leagues and coaches about the potential of the young players in your country. Not only do you have to trust their judgments about player potential, you also are only going to be able to get their guess about who the top tenth of one percent of players and get them in the hands of the real quality player development personnel and facilities. It is no wonder that Jay Demerit made it into the US team then by going to the lower leagues in England with a backpack and a dream.
As Billy Bob Thornton said in Armageddon, “Our operating budget only covers searching a small percentage of the sky, and with all due respect Mr. President, it’s a pretty big ass sky.” And just as giving Mr. Thornton an increased budget to cover another 2% of the sky is not really going to substantially change the odds he will spot an incoming asteroid, neither is slightly expanded scouting, or slightly expanded youth development going to increase your chances of spotting the very best talent in your player pool by very much.
In other words – to put it in very basic economic terms – for each incremental foray into youth development, the costs are high and the expected benefits do not really change. To get more money for youth development, MLS would need either to squeeze more money out of sponsors, or fans, or television networks, and one has to presume that any of those moves are not advisable. You cannot make any move on the board without upsetting good positions with the other pieces. Don Garber can likely sympathize with President Obama’s position in Afghanistan.
Whenever I am asked what I think USA Soccer and MLS should be doing to get better, I try and answer with little things. Our institutions are not an elephant, they cannot do whatever they want. MLS is trying to get to 20 teams, play a 38 game home and away season, and have all 20 sides in soccer-specific stadiums so that clubs control their own assets. Once MLS is in this position, more things become possible. Once MLS is in this position, the demand side of the player supply chain can change. Once the demand side can pull at more people with more resources, the supply lines will become more sophisticated and more focused. Until then, we’ve got what we have.
Even when that day comes when MLS has enough productive assets to grow financially to such a position, expect that a lot of what we will see in the United States development system will be the hodgepodge we have, but better. It is easier to go with the inertia of current arrangements than to upset them. Once you know this basic law of institutional behavior, you can finally extract yourself from those awful message board discussions of how you would change your national set-up and get back to just enjoying the football that we’ve got.
Written By Steven
Maloney
(80 Posts) |
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