Jurgen said he would fix US youth soccer

Part of the problem is that US Soccer basically had a falling out with US Youth Soccer and allowed the whole youth scene to become totally fractured and factioned. With the USDA, US Soccer has tried to do the development thing on their own only to find that the appeal is not as magical as they thought it would be. Consequently there are many good players who choose not to join a USDA team for one reason or another. US Soccer is missing out on those players.

More recently, US Soccer and US Youth have "kissed and made up" so to speak. ODP is once again an avenue to be considered for making it to the National teams. ODP teams all over the country have been stressing playing the ball out of the back and taking a much more possession oriented approach to play. This is the kind of development that the American youth player needs in order to make it to the next level. There is no one single fix and because of all of the entities that now have a stake in the upper levels of youth soccer it is difficult to streamline a National curriculum and thus develop the kind of players that will lead to success at the world level.

One of the biggest obstacles is the parent. First and foremost is that unlike other countries where the pro clubs have academies and there are lots of pro clubs, in most cases the parent has to pay for the player to be developed. The USDA was supposed to cure that. Though it has helped a lot in many cases, this problem is still out there in a big way. Unfortunately, parents expect a quick return on their investment. The expected return is not in the form of a slow development, allowing the player time to make mistakes and gradually learn the skills and thought processes needed to be successful at the highest levels. The expected return is in the form of wins. That leads the club coach to have to stake short cuts so his team can win at an early age. It may mean the initial success of the team - and that becomes necessary for him to keep his players - but it also means the players don't develop as well as they should. But hey, the investor (parent) is happy because they are winning!

Another big problem is the NCAA. It is kind of ironic that one of the USDA's big draws is that they will have college coaches watching your kid play. The problem is that if a player wants to develop into true World Cup talent, spending four very important years from 18-22 playing in a college environment is an absolute waste of time. The college season, rules and complete structure does nothing to help develop a player into a world beater. There is an attempt to change the college season which will make it better for development purposes, but the chances of the proposal actually getting adopted is very slim. The NCAA has no interest in developing soccer players so that they can be contenders at the next level.

Mr. Klinsmann can do a little in terms of the youth national teams and maybe influence the type of training he wants in the USDA, but in the big picture there is not a whole lot he can do to change youth soccer. It has become it's own monster with a lot of money at stake and the lords in each little fiefdom are not willing to give up their control... nor their money!

I'll step off of my soap box now...