Originally Posted by C-time
I knew I would get responses like this as soon as I brought up soccer and was in no way trying to make people like soccer. I was simply using soccer as an easy analogy for how the development of players is different between the US and the rest of the world. I should have just used their basketball development because it uses the same model as their soccer programs in most cases but on a smaller scale. In many cases the soccer clubs also have basketball teams. Long story short the US is in the minority in the way it uses high schools/colleges to develop their athletes which is why when guys like Svoboda come to the states they have been playing for a pro team/club instead of a school.
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I didn't want to derail this thread too may but you may have just brought it back to relevancy. I agree this is not whether the people in the US have an interest in soccer. Money is being spent in quantities that should produce more than a 5th place finish in Concacaf.
In some ways the US system for basketball is more like the international model. The shoe and apparel and other sponsors are putting money into AAU and college basketball programs that are developing talent. Given what we know about Adidas and UofL, how is that different than the international model?
What I don't know is who funds US Soccer. Why aren't those resources returning something more than what they have returned?
