Justin Bryant · @Keepers_Union
6th Jun 2012 from Twitlonger
Here's my US player development rant, in one overlong tweet. I've coached both in (ODP) and out (afterschool program with 2nd-gen immigrant kids) of the US system. By a million miles, the more talented kids were those on the concrete basketball and handball courts of Brooklyn. Some of them had never in their lives played an 11v11 game with refs and proper kits. But they love the game, passionately follow their favorite teams on TV(usually Club America, Chivas, Barcelona, and Real Madrid) and have heroes whose skill they try to emulate. Therefore, they understand the game much better than the average kid inside the system. By contrast, most of the kids in the system never touch a ball outside of a scheduled training session or game. These kids get rewarded by the system because they've got someone to drive them to every game and practice and pay their league/ODP fees. There are people trying to fix this with various inner-city recruitment projects, but there's a long way to go. Then there's college soccer, a deadly developmental cancer in the US game. For another post...