The Endline

As I was writing the post Is U.S. Soccer Taking Over the World? I found myself thinking about Project 40 and 2010. This June’s World Cup is supposed to be the year that U.S. Soccer’s big plans come to fruition and we bring home the cup. I’m not here to blast U.S. soccer and MLS but to look back and evaluate if the programs instituted in 1998 are performing as intended. ESPN’s Outside the Lines recently took a look at Project 2010.

As you just saw,  two major initiatives grew out of Project 2010: The US Soccer Residency Program and Project 40 (now Generation Adidas).

A quick look at the players that were a part of Project 40 shows a mixed bag of results. The first class in 1997 consisted of guys that ended up playing for the U.S. Olympic and  youth national teams, but never for the senior side. A couple of player like Brian Dunseth and Joey DiGiamarino fit into that category and also played a few season in MLS. Here are some names that you’ll recognize from the all-time list: Tim Howard, Ben Olsen, Josh Wolff, DaMarcus Beasley, Carlos Bocanegra, Bobbey Convey, Eddie Johnson, Freddy Adu, Michael Bradley, Clint Dempsey, Brad Guzan, Jozy Altidore, Sacha Klejstan, and Maurice Edu. Not too bad. Now I omitted some guys that have had MLS success but really never got a chance with the National team or guys that went to Europe and spent the majority of their career outside the radar of U.S. soccer. Guys like Brian West, Dema Kovalenko, Chris Albright, Danny Califf, Nick Rimando, Kyle Beckerman, Edson Buddle, Justin Mapp, Kyle Martino and even Jamar Beasley. Based on the two lists presented it seems as though it’s working. But what about the busts? Have you ever heard of Juan Sastoque, Andy Kirk, Maurizio Rocha, Mario Longo,  Jacob LeBlanc (I have because I trained with him at the IMG Academy), Craig Capono, or Jason Thompson? So like every program there have been wonderful successes and disappointing failures.

The other initiative has been the US Soccer U-17 Residency Program at the  IMG Academies. A recap of the first class in 1999 was done by Justin Rodriguez and if every year we could produce a Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley and an Oguchi Onyewu then I think we would be alright. But that hasn’t happened and we’re going into the World Cup with our hopes pinned on Landon Donovan. I spent some time at IMG before it was an official U.S. program and I definitely feel I was playing the best ball of my life after I left. The coaching, the competition, the training, the facilities are all great, but this country doesn’t have a creative attacking player in the mold of Ronaldo, Messi or Kaka. So I’m left wondering why we haven’t produced a player of that caliber? Is it because creativity is something you’re born with? Can you coach creativity and vision or do you simply pick it up by playing the game that you love? Is this even something that Wilmer Cabrera and his staff can instill in our younger players?

I think part of the problem is that all the youth clubs are focused on winning  and I know I’m not the only person who feels that way. I know the argument that all the good athletes go and play football and basketball in high school but I don’t think that’s the issue. Sure it would be great, but I think U.S. soccer could still succeed with out them. I hope that the USSF evaluate their programs after this world cup and put an emphasis on MLS teams developing their own talent. The measure of a youth club in a professional team is determined by how many of their players make their way onto the senior side and are eventually sold to bigger teams in bigger leagues. The current youth set up in the United States doesn’t reward that philosophy (neither does MLS when it comes to signing their own academy players) so we will continue to create huge youth clubs with an emphasis on winning instead of creating our own  Lionel Messi.