Coach Mario

SOL WEEK 2 From Saturday's @solofthecities serve-to-play futsal league. Another fun week! 📷 - Caty Mawing Photography

So, VAR steps in to give Embolo a second yellow because the referee made the wrong decision in the first place to book Paredes? If it was just a foul, not a yellow, it’s not reviewable. Pure insanity. Game’s gone. Less VAR man. For the love of god

@FOXSports @FOXSoccer As he should be. Terrible 🤦🏾‍♂️

Breel Embolo was visibly emotional after receiving a second yellow card for simulation and being sent off

Im convinced its fixed now. #Fifaworldcup 🇦🇷 vs 🇨🇭 🤦🏾‍♂️

Let’s just say the quiet part out loud… Sports like Soccer, Lacrosse, Golf, Tennis and winter sports are played by white suburban kids whose parents are targeted for money. There’s infinitely more talented black and Hispanic kids who will never get the chance because their parents aren’t rich enough to pay for clubs and better training. These are access and opportunity limited sports and the Soccer, Golf, Lacrosse, and winter olympians of the world get to be labeled the “BEST IN THE COUNTRY” because mommy and daddy paid for them to be without actual competition. This is another reason why so many Americans look at guys like TIM REAM on the USMNT and KNOW America’s best isn’t on display for the world.

"How can you be playing in southern California and there are no Latino kids? There is something weird going on. US soccer is gatekeeping. The best kids we have are not getting through." @KevinFrazier

Cristiano Ronaldo begged for hamburgers outside McDonalds. He’d never turn pro in America Messi’s parents were factory workers. He’d never turn pro in America Lalas went to boarding school. Failed to get into college until his dad made a call to Rutgers. He went pro in America

Oh America is doing the is soccer too expensive debate. I interviewed the parents of arguably their best player, Chris Richards, last year and this is how they got their son through it. Imagine how many are lost to the game in similar situations.

Maybe losing in the World Cup in 2026 will be what changes youth sports in America. Parents are tired of being ripped off so their kid can play a sport. Its time for Youth Sports Reform. Parents incomes should NOT determine if a kid can play a sport.

I look at Houston, which has a massive Latin youth population. You think the best youth soccer players in Houston are playing competitive youth soccer? No, because their parents can’t afford the insane barriers to entry that youth club soccer requires. Soccer should have the lowest barrier to entry. The sport requires a ball, a goal, and a field. Nothing else... but US Youth Soccer is designed to keep the working-class kids out of soccer, many of which is the go-to sport for youth, especially in a Latin-rich area like Houston. And you wonder why we get our asses kicked every four years in soccer. The American youth that loves the game can’t afford to get into the gatekeeper’s door.

this is why U.S. soccer doesn't have more dawgs

🚨 Celeste Amarilla: "YES, my post against Mbappé WAS RACIST. That's why I deleted, it was unfortunate. However, I will NOT apologize, I said what I had to say. I come from a society where gays were beaten and where calling someone a sh*tty n*gger was the most usual thing. I come from that generation, so now I'm trying to build a different Celeste Amarilla, that's capable of co-existing with others. Have patience, I'm trying."

@DPearsonPHL @FrauTillmann 💯

Btw lalas supporting the current system is basically proof that it doesn’t work. Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic would never have had the money to pay for the American system. So we are stuck with players like Lalas and Pulisic as a result of this exclusion.

Check out how @solofthecities is Doing Good Stuff with their serve-to-play model ❣️

@DMVSoccerDotNet Even if you do make the MLS squad the opportunity may not be what’s advertised. The pathway needs work.

The $$ in development was always going to come up as an issue. The true issue? The pathway. If you don't play for an MLS youth club, you're basically NEVER getting a callup. That's assuming you somehow make it to an MLS youth club. The entire pathway is broken. #usmnt

@BeastModeSoccer @IHateSoccerPod 🎯

USMNT out of the World Cup. Right on cue, the pay to play arguments start. Look deeper. Field space costs a fortune. Coaches need to get paid to do this properly, as a career, not a hobby. Most of the world is pay to play. The difference here is who does the paying. In the US, it's the parents.

@hollyoxcoburn @collienordelta @TheSammahmood_ Tbh some MLS academies aren’t even sending a large number to D1. Preoccupied w/ identifying 14 & 15 yr olds in favor of more polished 17 & 18 yr olds who are pushed out in hopes they’ll “develop” a world class young player and sell for big 💰. So much to fix…

@collienordelta @TheSammahmood_ Academy systems are purely feeders to college programs here; setting up for no great achievement.

The U.S. soccer federation is a poor return on invested capital. I played soccer for 20+ years. Grassroots. Academy. D1 college. Pursued professionally after. And I’ll say the quiet part out loud: The US soccer infrastructure is broken. In America, we treat playing D1 soccer like it is the peak achievement. For most families, clubs, coaches, and players, the entire youth soccer machine is built around one goal: Get recruited. Get a scholarship. Play college soccer. But if the objective is to produce world-class players, D1 soccer is a terrible development path. From 18-22, some of the most important technical development years of your career, you are preparing for a 3-4 month season built largely around athleticism, direct play, set pieces, fitness, and survival. Now compare that to an 18-year-old in Spain, Argentina, Morocco, Italy, England, or France. That player has likely been in a professional environment for years. Training daily. Playing meaningful matches year-round. Competing against grown professionals. Getting thousands more touches. Learning how to solve the game under pressure. The gap is massive. And it shows. American players are usually athletic. They are usually fit. They usually compete hard. But at the highest levels, that is not enough. The biggest difference is technical comfort. We do not move the ball like Spain. We do not combine like Argentina. We do not play with the same fluidity, rhythm, and confidence you see from countries where the game is embedded into the culture from childhood. That comes down to volume. Volume of touches. Volume of street soccer. Volume of futsal. Volume of unstructured play. Volume of high-level training environments. Volume of meaningful games. In the US, youth soccer is expensive, overly organized, overly coached, tournament-driven, and too often built around winning games at 13 instead of developing players for 23. Parents spend thousands. Clubs charge thousands. Travel teams fly all over the country. Showcases become the product. Recruiting becomes the scoreboard. But the return on invested capital is poor. We probably spend more money on youth soccer than almost any country in the world, yet the technical output does not match the investment. That is a broken operating model. And like any business, if the output is weak, you do not blame the customer. You inspect the system. The US has talent. The US has athletes. The US has money. The US has facilities. But the foundation is wrong. We built a pay-to-play, college-recruiting machine and confused it for a world-class player development system. Those are not the same thing. Until we fix the grassroots layer, increase meaningful touches, make development less dependent on family income, and stop treating college soccer as the top of the mountain, the US will keep underperforming relative to its resources. I’m not saying this to trash US Soccer. I’m saying it because I lived it. And if we actually want to become a powerhouse, we have to be honest about the infrastructure first.

UNTIL AMERICAN SOCCER CHANGES TO MATCH GLOBAL BUSINESS MODELS AND STRUCTURES, WE WILL NEVER WIN A WORLD CUP.