and always remember this: we are a consistently top 30 ranked team in the world who has qualified for every major tournament in the past 15 years with a terrible youth infrastructure of coaching and a poor upstart domestic league.

just imagine what we will be like when kids in the ghettos of NYC, LA, and Chicago dream of playing for Real Madrid as much as they do playing for the Lakers

Think about the amount of time there, 12 years. Twelve years is nothing, when you look at it. You said it yourself, this is a capalistic society and in order to get the money you have to put yourself and your product on the map. The US MNT has done that in the past 12 years, and so has MLS to a lesser degree. To me, that is all you can ask for in that amount of time. The problems you identified here are the problems that need to be solved in order to take the US to the next level; not the failures of project 2010.

At a national level we need to develop a style, not only of play but also of coaching. And then allow that style to permeate down to all levels of soccer in the US. Our style currently switches from year to year, tournament to tournament, and sometimes even game to game. That doesn’t happen when you look at European or South American countries. You always know how Brazil, or Italy, or Germany or whoever will play. That consistency of style gives them the ability to develop a common understanding among their youth players which then helps mold them into solid units no matter the level.

I’ve been coaching youth teams in Brooklyn for a few years now (I’ve been playing for 20) and I see a ton of untapped talent. The problem is the coaching, not the kids. We’re still a generation away from most coaches also being soccer players. I think in the division I coach in, I’m the only coach who has or still does play. That doesn’t happen in the countries we are competing against. Hats off to parents who volunteer but this is a barrier, make no mistake.

Last I’ll say we need to promote soccer as an urban game, not just a suburban game. Not only that we need to extend our adult leagues. I’m not talking about MLS or any pro games. I’m talking about the local leagues I play in around NYC. The more kids who see adults still playing, even and maybe especially for fun, the more they can understand that this is not just something you do for a few years but can be something you enjoy your whole life.

To that extent and the goal to make soccer a more prominent cultural experience I’ve been working on a project called Brooklyn F.C.. You can check out the website at brooklynfc.com. It’s what I call a micro-arena, its goal is to provide a high quality place for people to play and enjoy the game. And indeed foster soccer’s growth in an untapped Mecca.

-What if we simply aren’t willing to follow the youth club model that breeds so much success in other nations? Certainly there’s a happy medium on this scale of youth sports commitment- somewhere between China’s practice of assigning kids to sports at a VERY early age and the opposite, our much more comfortable Bradenton approach. Maybe it is best for kids NOT to commit their lives to a sport as a 12 year-old…and if so, is there any other way to make a dent internationally?

and

-I argue that YES there is - and that you say it all in the line “Think globally; act locally.” What if, as a replacement for the youth-to-club approach practiced elsewhere, we just had an incredible, educated, prepared network of local soccer leadership, with a reverence for the global culture of the game but a talent for teaching it locally, in a non-residential setting? It may involve, as you suggest, blowing up the “orange slice stereotype” and making youth soccer less about uniforms and minivans and more about purely learning and competing.

Maybe our arsenal of passionate soccer leaders isn’t big enough to make this happen yet; in any community I’ve lived, these types have typically been internationals themselves; and maybe it will take another generation or two for it to exist.

But I wonder, as I watch a nation of 300 million people pound a nation of 90,000 people 4-0, if we just need a better way of finding these leaders?