All The Problems With Youth Soccer in America

How a beautiful game is so broken in the U.S.

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Photo by Ben Weber on Unsplash

As we celebrated America the country last week, America the men’s soccer team left us disappointed once again. After falling to Uruguay (without a single goal), the US was eliminated from Copa America and became the first host nation who failed to advance to the knockout stage. The aftermath has been cluttered with various takes on at what is lacking in American soccer development for boys. And I have a lot to get off my chest on the subject because it is insanely layered.

Of course this is sports and had the US advanced, the conversation would be vastly different. It would shift to Christian Pulisic’s stardom and the exciting emergence of players like Weston McKinnie and Gio Reyna. But alas, the USMNT’s latest flameout is another reminder of how we’re so behind in international soccer vis a vis virtually every other team sport.

Per Aspen Institute’s Project Play, 2,272,176 American kids between ages 6-12 played soccer in 2022. The number only drops to a hair below 1.5 million for ages 13-17. All those kids playing soccer and we still can’t compete on the world stage. This is America dammit, we’re supposed to be good at everything or maybe we’re bad at education and compromise but at least we’re supposed to be good at sports! At least the USWNT are mostly holding down the fort. But as a mom to two boys who play club soccer, it’s disappointing that there are so few examples of homegrown success.

Buckle up, grab your dissection tools, and throw on some goggles, because we’re about to get dirty.

The pay-to-play system in youth soccer is garnering the most attention, though it’s really a symptom of a larger issue. In Europe, kids have access to high quality soccer for free or at a very low cost. Much of the funding for elite level players comes from professional clubs which are very well endowed. On a recent episode of the Smartless podcast, David Beckham shared how shocked he was to discover that MLS had no youth academies when he joined the L.A. Galaxy in 2007. These academies, which exist in Europe and where the most talented prospects are offered cost-free training and education are powerful pipelines. Conversely, there are endless highly-selective academies so costly throughout the word that make U.S. club fees seem like a bargain. Beckham played an integral role in developing MLS’s academies, most of which are now free. But that’s where no-cost elite level youth soccer ends in America. There are a smattering of non-profits or even clubs who offer low-cost options but for 95% of youth soccer families, the cost is astronomical.

Rec may be a more affordable option but has become stigmatized as a low-level option. The real players play club and go to tournaments and all that jazz. Of course rec players have less pressure, less of a time commitment and still get all the life lesson-y stuff that team sports provide.

Perhaps my biggest issue with pay-to-play is how it’s increasingly become year-round at all levels, increasing the price and the overuse injury risk. Clubs will happily take our money. Parents will happily pay for private training or anything really they believe gives their kid the best pathway. But to where?

In most sports, there’s a pyramid that in which you rise and fall, getting relegated or being promoted. But in youth soccer there are so many pyramids that when joined together look like one gigantic blob. What’s better, MLS Next or ECNL? Can a kid crush it and be noticed in EPD, USL NPL, Elite 64 or DPL? The alphabet soup of American youth soccer consists of so many pathways that if I were to deeply research each one, I wouldn’t be finished until I was like 127 years old. All I know is there are so many promises out there, and none of them are cheap and none of them are obvious.

The growing social-economic gap in youth soccer continues to damage development. It’s not just can you afford it or not, for many kids, especially in urban areas, it’s where the hell is there even a field for unstructured play? Fields are clogged by clubs willing to rent the space. Local parks and rec and school districts need to make money too. But that means that kids, whether playing club or not who just want to kick a ball around the way they do elsewhere around the world - are too often left squashed by a By Permit Only sign. The unstructured sessions with friends are the ones that often inspire the most creativity and toughness.

Unaffordable. Check. Lack of viable places to train. Check. Lack of homegrown heroes. Check. Year-round? Check.

Soccer a beautiful game but the American version is not kind to young multi-sport athletes. So many incredible athletes move on to honing in on sports like football, baseball and basketball where the money is robust and the pathways are less murky. Those sports have their own problems but none of them are as demanding to families at such a young age as soccer. American club soccer is a highly structured year-round situation, even for kids as young as 6 or 7. Practices multiple times a week, plus games on the weekend. The pressure to add professional training on to that if your kid wants to eventually make whatever combination of letter within the alphabet soup. Essentially the system can be a turnoff for multi-sport male athletes before they even have a chance to fall in love with the game once it’s played at a higher level. It doesn’t help that males generally don’t hit puberty until a year or two after girls so they might not even know their athletic profiles until it’s too late to commit to all of youth soccer’s demands.

This cyclical nature of many of this country’s best youth athletes dropping soccer is, of course, only cementing its place on the lower tier of American sports culture. Football, basketball, and baseball not only have more stars and more fans, they were invented in this country (well, football is an offshoot of rugby but you get the point). The very best athletes in Europe and South America play soccer, at a young age, training professionally, free styling, whatever. In America, the very best athletes eventually land in the pros playing the American sports that dominate daily conversation and are played at home. Adding to the growing popularity of US women’s soccer is the fact that the best women play in the NWSL.

Not to say it’s perfect on the women’s side - the same deep financial inequities exist - but the men’s side is particularly broken. U.S. Men’s soccer is never going to be a significant chunk of American sports fabric until we make it more accessible and reasonable. Maybe some day the rest of the world will cower in fear. But let’s start with our youth programs, please.