What is our obsession with Yanks

[Orgoner]

I (currently) live in the US and have had a fair bit of exposure to developing (and developed) players here and my general observations would be:

It's going to be hard for other countries to compete against the systems in place for the female game as it is clearly the number one team sport for girls here and there is plenty of encouragement from all quarters for girls to both play and seriously compete from an early age.

It's definitely better than it was, but "soccer" still tends to be well behind the so-called American sports for adolescent boys (their football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and, at least in this part of the country, lacrosse) and any inherent athletic talent tends to be siphoned off elsewhere before players get a chance to learn and play the game beyond the basic level.

There are always going to be individual players at the school level with talent, but the teams they play in are often diluted because the athletic kids are simply playing different sports. This makes development more of a challenge.

I'm probably being a total snob, but I rarely bother watching the professional football played here (there is excellent coverage on TV of the Premier League).

This doesn't mean that there aren't decent male players here, it's just that there are probably fewer than you might expect there to be given the size of the population.

[ozleeds]

I (currently) live in the US and have had a fair bit of exposure to developing (and developed) players here and my general observations would be:

It's going to be hard for other countries to compete against the systems in place for the female game as it is clearly the number one team sport for girls here and there is plenty of encouragement from all quarters for girls to both play and seriously compete from an early age.

It's definitely better than it was, but "soccer" still tends to be well behind the so-called American sports for adolescent boys (their football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and, at least in this part of the country, lacrosse) and any inherent athletic talent tends to be siphoned off elsewhere before players get a chance to learn and play the game beyond the basic level.

There are always going to be individual players at the school level with talent, but the teams they play in are often diluted because the athletic kids are simply playing different sports. This makes development more of a challenge.

I'm probably being a total snob, but I rarely bother watching the professional football played here (there is excellent coverage on TV of the Premier League).

This doesn't mean that there aren't decent male players here, it's just that there are probably fewer than you might expect there to be given the size of the population.

Football Soccer in USA and Australia and similar countries have gone really backward. Since they opened it all up for messenaries development has been stuffed. Like you, I don't watch the local Soccer, and when I do it puts me to sleep. Back in the early 2000s, both our countries were powerhouses as high as the top 25 in the world. We had players all over Europe playing for top teams now they are lucky to be playing league 1 or 2 football and they are our internationals.
You can see in most leagues how poor some teams are with just a handful of teams fighting it out year after year.

[spaldy]

I (currently) live in the US and have had a fair bit of exposure to developing (and developed) players here and my general observations would be:

It's going to be hard for other countries to compete against the systems in place for the female game as it is clearly the number one team sport for girls here and there is plenty of encouragement from all quarters for girls to both play and seriously compete from an early age.

It's definitely better than it was, but "soccer" still tends to be well behind the so-called American sports for adolescent boys (their football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and, at least in this part of the country, lacrosse) and any inherent athletic talent tends to be siphoned off elsewhere before players get a chance to learn and play the game beyond the basic level.

There are always going to be individual players at the school level with talent, but the teams they play in are often diluted because the athletic kids are simply playing different sports. This makes development more of a challenge.

I'm probably being a total snob, but I rarely bother watching the professional football played here (there is excellent coverage on TV of the Premier League).

This doesn't mean that there aren't decent male players here, it's just that there are probably fewer than you might expect there to be given the size of the population.

Orgs,

well stated. Could not agree more but you stated it much more articulately. Especially about the best athletes choosing other sports. It dilutes the talent pool so much.