Willing.runners

@PaulSpacey Cool, and I used your accent because it arrogantly narrows your vision on how invasion sports work.

@WillingRunners By your answers. Same way I judge everyone.

“American athletes dominate everything.” Except soccer. Why do you think that is?

@PaulSpacey Cool. The plague for the alternates is in the ladies room

@WillingRunners Why the insecurity? Why attack the accent? Look inward and you’ll find the answers. Top 3 nations by performance in major tournaments last 8 years. Argentina, France, England.

@PaulSpacey Just because our opinions differ doesn’t mean I understand it any less.

@PaulSpacey Not disputing the importance of the technical base. Over the last year what has been the #1 complaint about rhe USMNT player pool? Mentality. Without the mental leg the table falls down.

@WillingRunners In soccer, the technical part is the base. Without that via early engagement, the rest becomes irrelevant. That’s why the top players start at 5/6 but in American sports you can start later and play multi-sports and still make it. Soccer is different.

@PaulSpacey England’s men haven’t won anything of significance in 60 years. The Premier League is majority foreign players and foreign coaches. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence

@WillingRunners Once you understand how different soccer is, the rest of the thinking process opens up. It’s a decision making sport which is foot dominant. American sports are hand dominant and driven largely by athleticism, with decision making playing the supporting role.

@PaulSpacey Herein lies the problem. The 4 Pillars of Athlete Development are universal. Soccer coaches focus mostly on Technical/Tactical. The top coaches in the US focus deliberately on all 4.

@WillingRunners We’re talking about soccer and mainstream sports. Olympics happens every four years, it doesn’t count. Most events are individual, not team.

@PaulSpacey Tell that to all the Olympians from around the world and live and train here in the United States.

@WillingRunners America has the best coaches and players for the sports nobody else cares too much about. Soccer is a global game with global competition. That’s the huge difference. Me being English (and a U.S citizen btw) is irrelevant.

@PaulSpacey Go take a look at how clear the USOC, USA Basketball, and USA Hockey are about what they’re developing players for. US Soccer and USYS are afraid to say it out loud because then there’s metric to hold them to.

@WillingRunners Plenty of them seem to be trying, perhaps not hard enough?

@PaulSpacey Says the Englishmen. We have the best coaches in the world for every sport except for soccer. What’s the common denominator?

@WillingRunners Yeah this is definitely not it.

@PaulSpacey At the start of the NASL in rhe late 60’s they brought in entire pro teams during their offseason. We started this project with an inferiority complex and have never lost it.

@WillingRunners What about the decades when that wasn’t the case? (only started happening more recently with higher % of foreign players in college).

@PaulSpacey Okay. What about the pro game? The US is one of just 3 countries where more than half of all men’s pro players are foreign? Do you know the other 2? Here’s a hint: neither have ever qualified for the World Cup

This is the type of shit I’m talking about. I challenge you to find any mention of player development in the USYS strategic documents. There’s plenty of references to revenue development though.

@KAssigbe That’s not the parents fault. For 30 yrs they’ve been sold a bill of goods. “We’ll get your kid into college”, or “we’ll get your kid to pro”. But the results never matched the promises.

⚽️ culture in 🇺🇸 is about what makes parents happy. We create new leagues, tournaments, & whatever is necessary to appease parents. It’s not about the kids & what they need, so we can’t expect a better national team when the system is not about developing players.

@BeneSB_ The most valuable players of all time are all dribblers. Dribblers rule the game.

People want to develop individual players. So they go and say: "let them dribble. Let them express themselves." The problem is: this teaches football from an individual perspective. Players do what is good for them. But this inherently limits them. Because they don't see the many options they'd have if they attack together. Possession-based football doesn't suppress players. Players have MORE options to dribble. More options to be creative. More options to "express themselves." Because they see the game from a team perspective. What's good for the player becomes what's good for the team.