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OT: We may win the World Cup in 2026

Unless you’re one of a handful of countries, expectations of winning the WC are unrealistic. Definitely need many factors to come together be competitive, including a little luck.

Though the first condition of filling out a roster of world class players seems to be closer. Also having a squad that plays together for a while is critical.
Kind of like the FBS Playoffs
 
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@brad1218 Good thread. It seems like you have pretty good knowledge on the program. Before we talk about winning it in '26, what's our qualification status and prospects looking like for '22?
Qualifying doesn’t start until next September which is good for us. Gives our kids more time to play together. We should make it easily though. Our starting lineup for qualifying will probably look like this;

Altidore
Pulisic - Reyna - McKennie
Musah (maybe Acosta for experience) - Adams
Robinson (Cannon)- Brooks - Miazga - Dest
Steffen
 
Qualifying doesn’t start until next September which is good for us. Gives our kids more time to play together. We should make it easily though. Our starting lineup for qualifying will probably look like this;

Altidore
Pulisic - Reyna - McKennie
Musah (maybe Acosta for experience) - Adams
Robinson (Cannon)- Brooks - Miazga - Dest
Steffen
i can't believe that we're still running jozy out there. in all these years since, we haven't been able to develop/find anyone that can push him for his spot? i'd like to see sargent get the start up front. would be a better option to trigger the press.
 
i can't believe that we're still running jozy out there. in all these years since, we haven't been able to develop/find anyone that can push him for his spot? i'd like to see sargent get the start up front. would be a better option to trigger the press.
I agree and they may start Sargent. Depends o. How he finishes the rest of the year. I just think for qualifying they may go with his experience with everyone else being so young.
 
I agree and they may start Sargent. Depends o. How he finishes the rest of the year. I just think for qualifying they may go with his experience with everyone else being so young.
i'm also hoping for chris richards to step up and make a move for more PT.
 
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I know tons of American football fans who complain soccer is so low scoring but cream their pants over a 14-7 football game.
I don't. I think they changed the rules to make it harder to attack the quarterback and to even make contact with receivers in an attempt to help offenses. I'm actually one of the few who enjoys a low-scoring game, provided it's got lots of good hitting and intensity. I don't see much hitting in soccer.
BTW, I can't remember the last time I saw a football game where the final score was 0-0.
 
I don't. I think they changed the rules to make it harder to attack the quarterback and to even make contact with receivers in an attempt to help offenses. I'm actually one of the few who enjoys a low-scoring game, provided it's got lots of good hitting and intensity. I don't see much hitting in soccer.
BTW, I can't remember the last time I saw a football game where the final score was 0-0.
These are all fair points but just because a soccer game is low scoring doesn't necessarily mean it was boring to watch. There is also a good amount of contact in soccer but it's not a collision sport like football is
 
Qualifying doesn’t start until next September which is good for us. Gives our kids more time to play together. We should make it easily though. Our starting lineup for qualifying will probably look like this;

Altidore
Pulisic - Reyna - McKennie
Musah (maybe Acosta for experience) - Adams
Robinson (Cannon)- Brooks - Miazga - Dest
Steffen
I think if Sargent is getting regular minutes in the Bundesliga he should start by the time WC qualifying comes around. I'm a big believer that we cannot field MLS level players if we really want to push the USMNT forward, we have so many prospects now that are coming through Europe and I would love to see them play and grow together
 
In 2022 qualifying, depth will be more important than ever. Lots of games close together (mostly playing 3 games over the course of a week), and 14 games where yellow card accumulation will certainly come into play. Really think that’s an advantage for us (and obviously Mexico) with the depth of our player pool.
 
Pulisic’s struggle for minutes results from injury. He was arguably a top 5 player in the EPL after the restart this spring. I just hope he isn’t another John O’Brian - awesome when healthy but rarely healthy for long stretches.

Agree with everything else you said though - depth is building and we hear all the time about young yanks going overseas. That can only be a good thing.
pulisic atop 5 player in EPL ? That’s a good one!!!
There are 5 better players than Pulisic in Man City alone.
 
In 2022 qualifying, depth will be more important than ever. Lots of games close together (mostly playing 3 games over the course of a week), and 14 games where yellow card accumulation will certainly come into play. Really think that’s an advantage for us (and obviously Mexico) with the depth of our player pool.
Not to mention that the core of the team is likely to be involved in European league play, domestic cup play, champions league and the like. Fatigue will definitely play a huge role in all WC qualifying.
 
Anyone else totally distracted by Tim Howards super white teeth on the EPL studio show?
 
Yes. I prefer the two robbie's with Rebecca in the studio.
I'm with you, it might just be me but I prefer listening to British people talk about EPL. It doesn't sound right to me listening to Americans talk about it.

The 2 Robbie's have a good podcast where they recap after each match day
 
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Love the enthusiasm about thinking we can win the 2026 World Cup - but I’m more concerned now about just making the World Cup!
Missing out on a World Cup will do that to you.
 
Our kids are really rounding into form. Pulisic, McKennie, Reyna, Dest are all world class right now and they are so young. Adams is right there too. Then you have Musah who has come out of nowhere to look great. I think Richards will make the jump and pair up with Brooks. We are a great full back and striker away from having true studs at every position and we have depth. The striker part has me a little worried. Hoping Weah or Sargent can make the leap. Julian Green is also making noise and starting to fulfill the promise. He should get another look.
Since we changed the way we teach out kids many years ago to small sided skill creating soccer I have been saying 2026 & 2030 will be very BIG JUMPS for us!!! Not saying we are winning because it's hard for Gremany to win for crying out loud but not qualifying and early exits should be of the past...It should be a surprise if we don't get out of our group...I watched a cedar stars team play my sons team from NJ 2 years ago at 11 years old and I said "Geex if JUST this team stuck together we would be better than some of our WC teams we had years ago! Of course a bit of an exaggeration but the talent was incredible for that age...Way better when I played when I was younger (Not even close skill wise) and I played for Kearny thistle with Meola. One of the best teams around...AND that is ONE cedar stars team !!!!! Can not wait 2026/30 and beyond!!!
 
Disagree most teams in the world don’t have a great striker. It’s a very tough position to fill right now for many club teams and countries. I am not sure we actually need a great striker. I would just prefer to have one. France won with Giroud who is not a stud striker anymore. Also, to the poster above we have already made the round of sixteen a few times and the quarterfinals once. We should have made the semis that year as well. That team that almost made the semis was nowhere near as talented as this team in 2026 will be. I am not saying we are going to win it. We will definitely be a favorite though with it being in home soil. Top 5 favorite.
Totally agree...Forever a brazilian defender was just as or more skilled than our forwards...We always had as much heart, toughness, strength, team work but lacked the skill...That has transformed BIG time over the last 15 years...The playing field is even now...We will be top 10 and maybe better from 2026 and beyond!!!
 
I've often wondered the kind of coach who can really develop our American players (unlike Klinsmann and his JV German squad). I seem to remember an ex-Mexico coach being on the short list last time. Is Tab Ramos still considered a viable choice?
Tab was coaching the U19 WC team and then took a job to coach a MLS team...I for one liked the way he had our younger kids playing...Funny story, I met Tab when he was here for a week after moving form SA. He was kicking a ball in the basketball courts in Harrison. I went to kick with him and after a while he asked if I eanted to play one on one...I said sure...BAD decision !!!! :-) I never seen a ball stick to someone's foot like velcro like that!!!! a month later he joined Harkes on the Kearny Thistle club and the rest is history...
 
Since we changed the way we teach out kids many years ago to small sided skill creating soccer I have been saying 2026 & 2030 will be very BIG JUMPS for us!!! Not saying we are winning because it's hard for Gremany to win for crying out loud but not qualifying and early exits should be of the past...It should be a surprise if we don't get out of our group...I watched a cedar stars team play my sons team from NJ 2 years ago at 11 years old and I said "Geex if JUST this team stuck together we would be better than some of our WC teams we had years ago! Of course a bit of an exaggeration but the talent was incredible for that age...Way better when I played when I was younger (Not even close skill wise) and I played for Kearny thistle with Meola. One of the best teams around...AND that is ONE cedar stars team !!!!! Can not wait 2026/30 and beyond!!!

I was waiting for someone to mention this.

The way we teach soccer here in the US (over the past decade or so) is gonna start paying dividends soon

The future is so bright (even with all the issues with pay to play, no pro/rel, etc)

Super excited about the next several cycles...but especially 2026+....
 
Reviving this thread to continue the Pulisic discussion. Unused sub yesterday, clearly not favored by Tuchel, has not started a PL game in almost a month. With Chelsea on a roll (4th in the league, equal on points with the mighty West Ham as of today), minutes may be limited to occasional starts or off the bench. Assuming nothing changes (and it probably will), time to starting looking for a loan in the summer?
 
Not too long ago, Brazil got throttled by Germany 7-1.

Brazil.

At home.


TBH, I think Rutgers football has a better chance of winning the Big Ten...
 
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Reviving this thread to continue the Pulisic discussion. Unused sub yesterday, clearly not favored by Tuchel, has not started a PL game in almost a month. With Chelsea on a roll (4th in the league, equal on points with the mighty West Ham as of today), minutes may be limited to occasional starts or off the bench. Assuming nothing changes (and it probably will), time to starting looking for a loan in the summer?

It's early in Tuchel's tenure so I wouldn't worry about it too much yet. Puli used to play for him at Dortmund as well so maybe he's trying to get him integrated again slowly. We'll see though. Tuchel has been sitting a lot of talent since he came over.
 
It's early in Tuchel's tenure so I wouldn't worry about it too much yet. Puli used to play for him at Dortmund as well so maybe he's trying to get him integrated again slowly. We'll see though. Tuchel has been sitting a lot of talent since he came over.
Lol, you are not wrong about the "slowly" part. j/k. Seriously, not sure where he fits into Tuchel current system, especially if Werner finally finds his form.
 
Lol, you are not wrong about the "slowly" part. j/k. Seriously, not sure where he fits into Tuchel current system, especially if Werner finally finds his form.

I am very concerned about his situation there. the conclusion I have reached (and yes, I admit this is so I dont need to face the alternative) is that Tuchel is concerned about his hammies...and wants to bring him back even more slowly than the previous regime

the alternative is damning, and makes no sense.

also, Tuchels formation leaves Pulisic with only position to play...he's never removing Mount (understandable) on the right, and he seems determined to play Werner where I would play Pulisic. Pulisic can't play either wingback as that's not his thing and he's not going to play up top. just a baaaaad situation all around. and with Chelsea winning, TT looks the genius, so....

i am holding out hope...but getting harder not to be very concerned.
 
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Lol, you are not wrong about the "slowly" part. j/k. Seriously, not sure where he fits into Tuchel current system, especially if Werner finally finds his form.
This, it seems like wingers don't really fit into his system. So far it they've been playing 3-4-2-1 with wing backs and 2 attacking mids/center forwards behind the #9
 
Yeah. I am concerned. Agree with the posters above. Seems he doesn’t have a position I. This system. May need to transfer. TT has also been sitting Chillwell who has been great this year and James. We will see.
 
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Agree top to bottom. Puli is being pushed into a false 9 and is being forced into a more central role which hurts him because he is such a slasher from the wing.
 
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Tuchel's comments on Puli the other day for what it's worth:

“[It] was a very tight decision if he starts again after the cup game, or if he comes on from the bench. We decided for another eleven to start. Unfortunately, we only had three changes which makes it very difficult to give time to the players, to let everybody play, and to have an impact with the changes of fresh legs. That makes it difficult and the third change we didn’t want to use too early.

“During the match, we did what we normally do which is to only change to win the match. He deserves to start, or to come in but I could only use three guys. I hope he keeps on going and he will make an important impact for us in the future.”
 
In which sport?
A USMNT world cup championship is achievable. Even with our best athletes playing other sports, we're still a country with more than enough people to have great teams in any sport.

We just need to continue to improve youth soccer development, especially at the youngest ages, but also up through college age (it has been improving, but slowly). And we need to continue to improve our methods of identifying potentially great players very young (4-5 years old, even younger). We're perhaps getting better at this, but have a long way to go.

We need to do more to ensure that our youth development systems focus almost exclusively on individual skill development until the kids are old enough to more rapidly understand and apply tactical training , which occurs roughly around age 12 or so. It varies from player to player.

In part, that's because the younger the kid is the better their brains are at forming the connections involved in certain physical activities. But it's also about efficiency.

For example, teaching a 5 year old how to recognize the cues for when they should execute an overlap could take an entire season or two, and still not sink in very well due to the relatively poor ability to form situational abstractions at such a young age. Teaching the same thing at age 12 might take a month or so of 2 practices per week before it starts to really sink in. Teaching a 16 year old could take a 4-5 practices (which typically occur in one week).

Conversely, for kids with the requisite physical talent, it's trivially easy (and really fun for them when done right) to train a 5 year old to become confident with individual ball skills. Using the right, fun, exercises with some very light coaching and it teaches itself. But it becomes lots harder to do the same thing with most 16 year old kids. Again, because of how our brains work at different ages.

This is why our players often appear less skilled with the ball than the folks on the best teams in the world. Our players are often extremely well developed tactically, and we often win games over more skilled opponents because of tactics. But the best teams in the word are instinctively brilliant with the ball AND have the same level of tactical understanding as we do in the US.

To me, this is the single biggest failing of our youth feeder system today. It's something that's complicated by having so many so-called premier clubs, a majority of which focus too much on winning over development (which is necessary for them to keep players signing up and their parents paying that big bill).

US Youth Soccer's ODP exists to do some of this stuff. It just needs to continue to improve in methodology, scope and scale, IMO.
 
A USMNT world cup championship is achievable. Even with our best athletes playing other sports, we're still a country with more than enough people to have great teams in any sport.

We just need to continue to improve youth soccer development, especially at the youngest ages, but also up through college age (it has been improving, but slowly). And we need to continue to improve our methods of identifying potentially great players very young (4-5 years old, even younger). We're perhaps getting better at this, but have a long way to go.

We need to do more to ensure that our youth development systems focus almost exclusively on individual skill development until the kids are old enough to more rapidly understand and apply tactical training , which occurs roughly around age 12 or so. It varies from player to player.

In part, that's because the younger the kid is the better their brains are at forming the connections involved in certain physical activities. But it's also about efficiency.

For example, teaching a 5 year old how to recognize the cues for when they should execute an overlap could take an entire season or two, and still not sink in very well due to the relatively poor ability to form situational abstractions at such a young age. Teaching the same thing at age 12 might take a month or so of 2 practices per week before it starts to really sink in. Teaching a 16 year old could take a 4-5 practices (which typically occur in one week).

Conversely, for kids with the requisite physical talent, it's trivially easy (and really fun for them when done right) to train a 5 year old to become confident with individual ball skills. Using the right, fun, exercises with some very light coaching and it teaches itself. But it becomes lots harder to do the same thing with most 16 year old kids. Again, because of how our brains work at different ages.

This is why our players often appear less skilled with the ball than the folks on the best teams in the world. Our players are often extremely well developed tactically, and we often win games over more skilled opponents because of tactics. But the best teams in the word are instinctively brilliant with the ball AND have the same level of tactical understanding as we do in the US.

To me, this is the single biggest failing of our youth feeder system today. It's something that's complicated by having so many so-called premier clubs, a majority of which focus too much on winning over development (which is necessary for them to keep players signing up and their parents paying that big bill).

US Youth Soccer's ODP exists to do some of this stuff. It just needs to continue to improve in methodology, scope and scale, IMO.
i think that tactics and strategy can be taught much younger than 12. it can start as easily as IFTTT scenarios that simplify the automations. if you pass to this guy, then run there. if the defender does this, then do that. these are all building blocks that, if encouraged in less structured training environments, become the automations that guardiola and klopp build their teams around. think about little league baseball, basketball, etc. same idea. 5 is definitely too young, but the 8-10 year old range is not too early.
 
A USMNT world cup championship is achievable. Even with our best athletes playing other sports, we're still a country with more than enough people to have great teams in any sport.

We just need to continue to improve youth soccer development, especially at the youngest ages, but also up through college age (it has been improving, but slowly). And we need to continue to improve our methods of identifying potentially great players very young (4-5 years old, even younger). We're perhaps getting better at this, but have a long way to go.

We need to do more to ensure that our youth development systems focus almost exclusively on individual skill development until the kids are old enough to more rapidly understand and apply tactical training , which occurs roughly around age 12 or so. It varies from player to player.

In part, that's because the younger the kid is the better their brains are at forming the connections involved in certain physical activities. But it's also about efficiency.

For example, teaching a 5 year old how to recognize the cues for when they should execute an overlap could take an entire season or two, and still not sink in very well due to the relatively poor ability to form situational abstractions at such a young age. Teaching the same thing at age 12 might take a month or so of 2 practices per week before it starts to really sink in. Teaching a 16 year old could take a 4-5 practices (which typically occur in one week).

Conversely, for kids with the requisite physical talent, it's trivially easy (and really fun for them when done right) to train a 5 year old to become confident with individual ball skills. Using the right, fun, exercises with some very light coaching and it teaches itself. But it becomes lots harder to do the same thing with most 16 year old kids. Again, because of how our brains work at different ages.

This is why our players often appear less skilled with the ball than the folks on the best teams in the world. Our players are often extremely well developed tactically, and we often win games over more skilled opponents because of tactics. But the best teams in the word are instinctively brilliant with the ball AND have the same level of tactical understanding as we do in the US.

To me, this is the single biggest failing of our youth feeder system today. It's something that's complicated by having so many so-called premier clubs, a majority of which focus too much on winning over development (which is necessary for them to keep players signing up and their parents paying that big bill).

US Youth Soccer's ODP exists to do some of this stuff. It just needs to continue to improve in methodology, scope and scale, IMO.
All these little kids running around in rec leagues playing games is silly in my mind. 10 and under should be playing a game based on passing and top and not scoring
 
i think that tactics and strategy can be taught much younger than 12. it can start as easily as IFTTT scenarios that simplify the automations. if you pass to this guy, then run there. if the defender does this, then do that. these are all building blocks that, if encouraged in less structured training environments, become the automations that guardiola and klopp build their teams around. think about little league baseball, basketball, etc. same idea. 5 is definitely too young, but the 8-10 year old range is not too early.
Every single professional player that plays for those two famous coaches already has developed unbelievably good individual skills. They got that good because of tens of thousands of hours playing with a ball, most starting a pretty young age, and often without any coaching at all. And then by having great coaches help them refine their individual technique and inject exercises that helped develop tactical knowledge and awareness. None of them are automatons, even if the coaches are strict about adherence to a style of play.

I think you might be overlooking the fact that most 10 year old players are only getting about 180 to 270 minutes of training per week. It's simply not possible to do everything one might want to do, so prioritization that emphasizes leveraging kids cognitive abilities at different ages is critically important.

I did a bunch of soccer coaching (18 years) and even ran a youth travel soccer club for awhile. During that time, I remember watching a coach in my club, years back, focus really hard on pseudo-tactical training with his U10 players to manipulate his players into helping them win games. He created automatons in order to win games. And it worked, they won lots of games that season and the next. In particular, I recall them beating a pretty decent team from one of the Carolinas. The teams were evenly matched physically, he just tactically "outcoached" the other coach in the game.

Two years later, I got to watch a rematch of those exact same two teams with largely the same set of players still coached by the exact same two coaches. The team from the Carolinas effortlessly beat the snot out of the NJ team. I chatted w/their coach a bit after the game. To a player, the entire team from the South had developed far better individual skills. So when they executed their recently learned tactical knowledge, that they lacked almost completely two years earlier, they were that far more precise and successful with it.

Focusing primarily on individual skill development up until around U12 was a constant refrain in US Soccer licensing courses and in years of continuing soccer education seminars.

If we want to develop a MNT that can win the world cup, we need a whole lot more of what the Carolina coach did, which was putting player development before winning, and not what my friend did which was short-sighted and required a lot of hours of playing catch up in skill development to remain competitive as the kids got older.
 
Every single professional player that plays for those two famous coaches already has developed unbelievably good individual skills. They got that good because of tens of thousands of hours playing with a ball, most starting a pretty young age, and often without any coaching at all. And then by having great coaches help them refine their individual technique and inject exercises that helped develop tactical knowledge and awareness. None of them are automatons, even if the coaches are strict about adherence to a style of play.

I think you might be overlooking the fact that most 10 year old players are only getting about 180 to 270 minutes of training per week. It's simply not possible to do everything one might want to do, so prioritization that emphasizes leveraging kids cognitive abilities at different ages is critically important.

I did a bunch of soccer coaching (18 years) and even ran a youth travel soccer club for awhile. During that time, I remember watching a coach in my club, years back, focus really hard on pseudo-tactical training with his U10 players to manipulate his players into helping them win games. He created automatons in order to win games. And it worked, they won lots of games that season and the next. In particular, I recall them beating a pretty decent team from one of the Carolinas. The teams were evenly matched physically, he just tactically "outcoached" the other coach in the game.

Two years later, I got to watch a rematch of those exact same two teams with largely the same set of players still coached by the exact same two coaches. The team from the Carolinas effortlessly beat the snot out of the NJ team. I chatted w/their coach a bit after the game. To a player, the entire team from the South had developed far better individual skills. So when they executed their recently learned tactical knowledge, that they lacked almost completely two years earlier, they were that far more precise and successful with it.

Focusing primarily on individual skill development up until around U12 was a constant refrain in US Soccer licensing courses and in years of continuing soccer education seminars.

If we want to develop a MNT that can win the world cup, we need a whole lot more of what the Carolina coach did, which was putting player development before winning, and not what my friend did which was short-sighted and required a lot of hours of playing catch up in skill development to remain competitive as the kids got older.
Fair point about practice time. Do you think youth coaching has improved with skill development in recent years?
 
All these little kids running around in rec leagues playing games is silly in my mind. 10 and under should be playing a game based on passing and top and not scoring
I think playing games with shooting and goals is okay. But the smaller the numbers, and the smaller the goals, the better for younger players.

3 v 3 games with very small goals (or even just Pugg goals) and no goalies teaches the game organically. Players gets far more touches on the ball (than in larger sided games), which develops skill and confidence with the ball. And some players almost immediately develop some spatial situational awareness, and they start habitually taking advantage of that space (finding good angles and distance for support) without having to be coached to do so.

It's wicked fun once everyone figures it out. The coach is focused on using the sessions to make coaching points about individual technique. But the small-sided game itself is teaching the prerequisites for the tactical training to come. If there wasn't a resource-problem (finding enough qualified coaches), I'd argue that all league games under 10 should be 3v3 or 5v5, instead of 8v8.

Practice sessions should typically be comprised of various small-sided, often uneven-sided, games (or exercises or "drills") that help coach a particular skill. Uneven sided games (e.g. 3 v 1) are fantastic at helping kids develop an innate recognition of how to react to different numbers situations in a game, both on offense and defense. You don't have to coach it; you're too busy focused on teaching good ball technique. The kids just figure it out. And those uneven sided games also help kids whose ball skills aren't yet developed gain confidence, because it's way easier to be successful receiving or passing the ball on a spacious field with three players against one player.

Meanwhile, the 1 player (in the 3 v 1) learns naturally how to close down angles against larger numbers of attackers (a natural precursor to learning how to properly play the second or third defender in a flat four defense or other defensive contexts). The 1 player also learns that explosiveness and creativity are the keys to breaking down a defense in a numbers-down situation, in an environment where expectations are low so nobody worries about failure (nobody expects the 1 to win in a 3 v 1, so why not try something new or different?). Again, the coach doesn't coach those things, they teach themselves while the coach is busy correcting whatever individual technique was the focus for improvement during that practice session.

As players get older, coaches help players bridge the awareness gap between the things they do to be successful in contrived, uneven sided, games and the recognition and reaction to those exact same uneven numeric situations in the context of full-sized games. Then they learn how to work together to create those numbers advantages in games.

It's a beautiful thing to see when full awareness settles in and it all comes together for the player.
 
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Fair point about practice time. Do you think youth coaching has improved with skill development in recent years?
I don't know, it's hard to say.

There has been a lot of effort expended at creating better coaching education in the country, although that's been going on for awhile now. And, last time I checked, soccer is the largest and fastest growing youth sport in the country, IIRC. So hopefully that combination of factors suggests that, as kids who played soccer with ever-improving coaching grow up and become parents, they too will get involved in coaching, and the quality of coaching will continue to rise.

I was kind of a first generation soccer player in my area. There were no clubs when I started playing (the summer before 2nd grade). Lots of the kids I played pickup soccer with back then went on to coach soccer later in life. Some of the adults who played with us went on to form the first soccer clubs in local towns.

But since then, the organization and quality of coaching education has only gotten better and better, so I would expect my kids' generation to produce even better players through even better coaching. But I really don't know if it's happening that way or not. I hope it is.
 
Agree top to bottom. Puli is being pushed into a false 9 and is being forced into a more central role which hurts him because he is such a slasher from the wing.
Didn't even travel to Southampton today due to a "pre-injury injury" whatever that means. As long as Tuchel sticks to this lineup he won't play. You figure Tuchel will experiment a bit but I don't think sniffing around for a potential move is a bad idea at this point. Remember the money spent on Puli and this guy was handed the #10 shirt after a year. The skills are there. Might make sense to step down a level (newcastle etc) to get consistent time with an attack centered around him. USMNT needs him playing and in good form.
 
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