More Bob Bradley Thoughts- How To Develop Talent

So my good friend from college, Dylan Langley, brought up a good point in response to my earlier post about the Bob Bradley firing-- I pointed out that the US doesn't have the players to play a possession game, but didn't really address why.  I think Dylan had it right when he argued that our youth development system in the US lags behind those of the best soccer countries, and that, with 300 million people, we should be able to compete for a World Cup.  The US has definitely made remarkable progress over the last 20 years.  In 1990, our national team was complete garbage.  In 1994, we got out of the group stage, but we were still not very talented (playing at home helps).  Our best players were in and out of the worst teams in Europe's best leagues.  Cobi Jones, Alexi Lalas and John Harkes made teams that were on the fringe of the English Premier League and Serie A, but they all went off and joined MLS within a few years.  Eric Wynalda was on a fringe German club, but none of them were any better than marginal out there.  As late as 1998, the only position where the US was producing top-notch players was in net (where Brad Friedel and Kasey Keller were two of the better goalies in Europe).  Fast forward to today, and Clint Dempsey is a standout in England's top league (nowhere near the league's best players, but he's a regular for a decent team, and arguably their best attacking player), Stuart Holden was named the player of the year for another decent team in England's top league, and Oguchi Onyewu and Jozy Altidore have even spent time under contract at Champions League clubs (though neither made an impression).  Talent-wise, we're still nowhere near Spain, but we're miles ahead of where we were a decade ago.

Dylan's argument is that we should overhaul the youth setup so that we develop real star players.  I agree with that part.  I think where we disagree is over whose responsibility that is.  I think the national coach has a pretty specific job- get the squad prepared to play at every tournament, manage egos and personalities, and choose effective tactics.  The coach doesn't get enough practice time with the players to develop them, and I'm not sure a centralized youth setup controlled by the national coach is the way to go.  If you look at the countries that produce the best talent, pretty much all of them do so through their club youth systems.  Brazilian and Argentinian teams have traditionally had less money than the big European teams (though the Brazilian league especially has taken HUGE steps lately), but the pipeline of top talent coming out of their academies is absurd.  Every year or two, a new "next big thing" comes out of there.  Just since 2000, Ronaldinho, Robinho, Pato, and Kaka have come out of the Brazilian pipeline.  Now, they have Neymar and Ganso.  And what's even more remarkable is how many of those players fill up rosters in second-tier European leagues-- there are Brazilians who don't get in the national team, but play central roles at Russian clubs, Turkish clubs, Portuguese clubs, and even Japanese clubs.  Obviously, the US has a long way to go to get to that level-- in Brazilian barrios, the kids all play soccer exclusively, while in the US basketball is still king.  But there's not a limited supply of athletes, and many of the best soccer players couldn't play anything else (can you imagine Messi trying his hand at basketball? Xavi playing football?), so that's really not an excuse.

So I think the solution is for MLS clubs to start producing star players at their academies, who move up the pipeline to MLS, and then eventually head over to Europe.  A lot of them already have academies producing promising young players.  There's no Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, but Juan Agudelo came through the Red Bulls academy and is a promising prospect; Andy Najar is going to play for Honduras, but he came through the DC United academy, and his development is a promising sign that MLS academies are starting to churn out players.  Of course, building a proper youth setup is hard.  Chelsea's thrown money at their youth system for years, and haven't produced a first-teamer from their academy since John Terry, and he's 30 (though Josh McEachran has promise).  But that doesn't mean that it's not worth trying, and when an academy works properly, it's a thing of magic (Barcelona's academy just in the last decade-plus has produced Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Fabregas, Pique, Pedro, Busquets, Puyol, and Victor Valdes.  That list includes 2 of the 3 best players in the world, and at least 3 of the top 10.  That's absurd.  So I think it's those academies that are the future of US soccer.  But I'm not sure that the national team coach's job is to develop that youth setup.  I think that part is on the clubs.

Having said all of that, I don't think letting Bob Bradley go was the wrong move.  I'm inclined to think that national coaches grow stale after one World Cup cycle.  For whatever reason, players stop responding to them, and new coaches are needed to take the next step.  Part of that, in my view, is that each cycle requires quite a bit of change to the core of the squad.  Occasionally, a player will start two World Cups in a row.  If he's really exceptional, he can make it 3.  But the core of the team has to change, and national coaches, especially ones who have had some success with one group, tend to cling to that core for too long.  It happened with Mario Lippi, who won the World Cup with Italy in 2006, retired, came back in 2008, and then steered the team to a disastrous performance in 2010 with the same core that had won him the title four years before.  I think the US needs new blood, and it needs a fresh face to introduce it.  The back four needs a total revamp- Steve Cherundolo is still (for now) the best option at RB, though Timothy Chandler looks like the pick for the near future, while Eric Lichaj may be an answer at left back.  But new center backs need to be plugged in.  And by the next World Cup, Landon Donovan will be 32 (old for a wide attacker), while Clint Dempsey will be 31 (a little easier since he can play centrally and doesn't rely as much on his speed as Donovan).  Jozy Altidore will have to be replaced or get squeezed out, and the central midfield situation will need to be sorted out.  I'd like a fresh pair of eyes behind the bench to do that.