The state of the United States Soccer Federation is weak. There, I said it. Let's rip the band-aid off right now. This will read like a presidential State of the Union Address where I am going to continue to hammer home the problems US soccer is facing as a whole.
The first thing I will look at are the results from the international friendlies that have been played by the US this year. We started off the year with the January end-of-camp friendlies where we lost an away fixture in Chile 3-2, then followed that up with an underwhelming 2-0 victory against Panama at the StubHub Center. Next came the 2 March friendlies in Europe against Denmark and Switzerland., which resulted in a 3-2 loss and a 1-1 draw respectively. On April 15, the men's national team played Mexico and sold out the Alamodome with a 2-0 win. Following that was a trip to Europe for the June friendlies against Holland and Germany, 4-3 and 2-1 victories respectively. Granted, these were not against Germany or Holland's best, but these are good results with a decent performance. After those were the Gold Cup tune-up friendly which was a 4-0 win over Guatemala. After the Gold Cup (which will get its own section), the United States defeated Peru 2-1 at RFK, then lost comprehensively to Brazil 4-1 at Gillette. In the October window, the US had one friendly which they lost to Costa Rica 1-0. Overall, the friendlies were a mixed bag with some good and some bad thrown in there. Klinsmann experimented with a few tactical things that didn't seem to work, but that is his right in these friendlies to do so.
The CONCACAF Gold Cup was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster. It is a tournament the US should win every single time, and we have failed to even get 3rd place in this tournament. Granted, the referee was at fault, but that does not excuse the dismal performances of our national team, and I hope that woke everyone at Soccer House up to the dismal future prospects of this team. Everyone has been done a great disservice, and it starts at the bottom at the U-little level in terms of where US soccer scouts. They should be scouting all over the country, at least 10 scouts in every major metropolitian region, plus an additional several thousand for those hard-to-reach rural places in this country, like Appalachia, the Gulf Coast, the Big Sky, the Ozark region, I could go on and on. I will never say that there is no place for "foreigners" on this team -- in fact, they are probably better equipped than our domestically-based players -- every single crack and crevice in this country needs to be scouted. Coaches should go visit academies such as the Ajax one or La Masia to see how their youth systems are run, and see if they can replicate that at their clubs to the best US law and culture will allow. If that fails, then work to change the culture. This will not only help us get better as a nation, but it will also help us win more international competitions at the senior level.
And note that I said senior level, not the junior levels. Those should be about development only. I believe that the result of a match is the byproduct of how we play on the field, and if we continue to play bunker ball forever and ever, how are we going to develop players fit to play in Spain and France where they emphasize more open play on a general basis. Let's put this into perspective: because Barcelona did not follow the FIFA transfer rules, our greatest hope for the future is stagnating in Florida with the "world class" US Soccer Development Academy (a joke unto itself).As for the related issue of youth club compensation, those youth clubs should be given the right to receive their compensation for the players they develop, not to be gobbled away by MLS and SUM. I don't think there are any laws against a youth club that receives money for the benefit of a player.
Lastly, here are the champions of the leagues that constitute the first 4 "tiers" of US soccer in 2015:
MLS: New York Red Bulls (Portland Timbers won MLS Cup playoffs)
NASL: New York Cosmos
USL: Rochester Rhinos
PDL: Michigan Bucks (K-W United won playoffs)
NPSL: New York Cosmos B (34 points in 12 games for 2.8 PPG; some teams played 10, others played 14 depending on division)
To summarize, the state of US soccer is weak because of the lack of results at the national team senior level, and the lack of care or interest in getting coaches better equipped to handle developing players for Europe. A change in culture needs to happen, and some people who are better equipped than I in knowledge of soccer coaching can start that new revolution.
