Apart from the crisis in St Louis and problems in Baltimore, we haven’t heard too much about the state of the league and its future in recent months. Yet we are past the midpoint of US Soccer’s tenure of running the league already. The important point for the future of soccer in America in MLS is this: can this season become a turning point towards sustainability at that level, under the direction of US Soccer?

Because, if there’s one thing second division North American teams haven’t been in the past two decades, it’s viable as ongoing operations. Longevity is a luxury. This is, from all standpoints — whether as a fan, a sponsor, an investor, a player, a coach or a staffer — a serious problem. As Brian Quarstad at Inside Minnesota Soccer (IMS) points out, 52 different teams have come and gone from the Division Two level of American soccer since 1995; this, of course, is without promotion or relegation. It’s simply a 75% fail-rate as businesses.

That level of failure is never going to be the way to fashion anything out of that level of soccer, whether our focus is on youth development or growing fanbases. All it does is disrupt the lives of the many involved.

The question is whether US Soccer’s involvement can change that pattern. When Sunil Gulati, President of US Soccer, answered questions about the announcement that the governing body would be running the league for one season back in January, he also made it clear they saw this as a chance to implement a new set of requirements on financial sustainability at that level:

We’ve got some very specific targets in our regulations and we intend to put in more of those. Whether they apply to financial stability, what staffing levels look like, etc. To give you an example, our regulations have minimum standards on size of stadiums, a full-time operation for P.R. Director and CEO and so on and so forth. We think we need to put some more meat behind those in order to make sure that the teams that are part of a Division 2, or Division 1 for that matter, meet a certain standard and most importantly can meet that standard year in and year out and improve. We can’t have this constant issue that bedevils a number of sports, that the offseason is spent primarily to make sure that you can come back the following season. That you’re looking for expansion teams not because it makes long-term sense to build the game and the league, but because you need an expansion fee. We had that issue 25 years ago in our league, and we want to make sure that we’re able to avoid that so that expansion is done in a systematic way. U.S. Soccer is not going to be the one deciding that, but if people coming in the door want to be part of Division 2, they need to understand that this is a long-term play and that there are going to be some significant investments early on and aren’t counting on expansion proceeds in a year or two to reduce capital costs. The philosophy we’ve discussed with the leaders of these teams seems to be in line with that. People understand that for us the most important thing is stability, growth is right after that. But you can’t have growth without stability.

Some criticised Gulati and US Soccer for not finding this focus on stability earlier; why had it taken the public embarrassment of two rival entities fighting over second division status for the governing body to realise that clubs needed enforced help on operating a business to avoid the failures that have historically bedeviled American soccer, aside from (just about) MLS?

At this point, though, that doesn’t matter. What does matter is if and how US Soccer is following through on implementing more stringent requirements on clubs to encourage stability at the second division level. And on this, Brian at IMS has an excellent series this week, Rethinking Division-2 Pro Soccer in North America, that’s well worth reading.

In it (with two of the four parts published so far), he argues for a better vetting process for clubs by the authorities, for running teams like viable small businesses (instead of gambling on future earning potential) and for reducing travel costs in this mammoth continent-sized market by regionalising the league.

On the first point, Brian talks to another Brian, Brian Remedi of US Soccer, who explains US Soccer has not been sitting on its hands since Gulati made his statement in January on the need for tighter regulation of clubs’ financial viability:

“We are doing something that the Federation has never done in great detail before,” said Remedi in a May interview with IMS when he met with the NSC  Stars, Minnesota’s new D2 team. “We are getting out and looking at the teams in Division 2. In years past we left it up to the league administrators to ensure their clubs were meeting minimum standards and that games were run appropriately. Because we are running the league now we want to get out and make the house calls.

“We are also looking under the hood from a marketing perspective, from a financial perspective, even from a ticketing perspective. Our goal is to ensure these teams are viable for the long term.

“It’s in our interest to make sure that there are division 2 markets that are going to be sustainable over the long haul. Not a short term 1-year or 2-year thing. We want these markets to be sustainable for long periods of time. So we are collecting information on the team and from the team and we will give some thought to that data and will be writing reports and giving it to our professional league task force who ultimately will make a recommendation to our board of directors. We assume that there will be at least one, two, possibly more entities applying for sanctioning for next year and we believe that the teams that will be part of that league will come out of the 12 teams that are in the USSF D-2 Pro League this year.”

The USSF has called a meeting for the second week in August and have invited all teams currently involved with the USSF D2 Pro League. At that time, US Soccer will release their new standards that all current or future D2 teams will have to comply with. Expect the federation to require the future sanctioning league to require a more costly bond for each and every team involved with the league. It’s also said that they will have higher standards for stadiums and a more stringent litmus test for teams that want to join the USSF second division of soccer.

There will be some concern that when crunch-time comes, US Soccer might be tempted to water down their requirements if they find few clubs are likely to actually meet them.  On the other hand, the fact that Gulati came out and made a pretty clear public statement about the need for tough and real requirements to be met, and the evidence that US Soccer is following up on this with the release of new standards next month, suggests this is something that the governing body is serious about for the long-term good of the sport. Let’s hope they follow through, and keep an eye on IMS for the rest of his excellent series.

United States Men's National Team Coach Bob Bradley

Bob Bradley has completed a full cycle as head coach of the US Men’s National Team.  By most any metric or standard, he has achieved great success and advanced the program.  Here is a partial list of his achievements in the last four years:

• He has a higher winning percentage than any coach in US Men’s National Team history: .644 (38-19-9)
• He won the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup
• He took the US Men to their first FIFA final at the 2009 Confederations Cup
• He won the CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying Hexagonal
• He won the 2010 World Cup Group C
• He brought more players into camp in one World Cup cycle than any other coach in US history
• He scheduled more games against European nations than any other US coach
• He helped with the development and maturation of Landon Donovan into the United States first world class attacking player
• Selected, coached and galvanized a group of mostly modestly talented (relative to the world stage) individuals into a unified team that fought for each other and the common good

But now I wonder what Bob does next.  While staying on in his current role is a possibility and by reviewing his accomplishments above would make sense, extensions beyond one World Cup cycle are rare and shouldn’t be counted on.  As a certain coach told me when he resigned from the Chicago Fire, “we could have achieved more, but we had a real good run and change is often best for everyone.”  So, if this is indeed the close of a chapter for Bob, what will the next chapter be?

There are already rumors linking him with two prominent jobs that are not yet even open in London and D.C.:

• Fulham

This  would be an intriguing opportunity for the Princeton grad.  He would be the first American born head coach in the Premiership.  Fulham is a club that has reached out for American players in recent years including current US National Teamers Clint Dempsey and Carlos Bocanegra.  In many ways, this would be a better opportunity for Bob than continuing into the next cycle with the US Men.  While Fulham currently has popular Roy Hodgson in the skipper’s post, he is likely to bolt for Liverpool in the coming days.

• DC United

Returning to his MLS roots where he served as Bruce Arena’s top assistant and earning MLS Cup rings in each of the League’s first two seasons.  Curt Onalfo is in the seat now in his first season as United coach.  Bob still has a close relationship with DC United President Kevin Payne and Onalfo’s team has posted a substandard record of 3-9-1, for ten points which is tied with two other teams for fewest in the 16-team MLS.

• Chivas USA

Perhaps he could take over his former club that is struggling under new coach Martin Vasquez at 3-9-1, which matches DC United’s ten points at the bottom of the MLS standings.  This would allow Bob to remain in southern California, close to his daughters who attend college in the area.

• Youth Development with US Soccer

Keeping  one of the country’s smartest soccer brains in US Soccer, but redirecting his focus to the sport’s overall development would bear fruit down the road.

Perhaps he will take a less predictable step.

• Major League Soccer

While I wouldn’t expect Bob to take any position that would keep him off the sidelines and training fields, his experience, knowledge and intensity would serve America’s top professional league well in many areas.  While his professional career has been on the competition side of soccer, his intelligence and perspective would also be beneficial on the business side.  Few people realize that Bob has a graduate degree in sports administration from Ohio University, one of the nation’s most respected programs of its kind.

• Collegiate Coaching

Bob isn’t one to make decisions based on popular expectations and coaching out of the public spotlight would allow him the opportunity to focus on what’s important to him – his family, his players and the sport of soccer.  A southern California school position would allow him the chance to stay near his daughters and an Eastern school would bring him back to his roots and nearer other family members.

• Author

Again this is unlikely, because it would keep Bob away from his passion of being on the sidelines, in the locker room and in the editing room working to develop a group of athletes into a successful team.  However, a Bob Bradley book describing his ideas and practices to assemble, develop and prepare a team wold serve as a great resource for coaches in any sport and offer invaluable life lessons to all.

• Broadcasting

Just kidding.  Wanted to see if you were paying attention.  While I think Bob would be the best soccer analyst this side of Wigan coach Roberto Martinez, I can’t imagine him ever wanting to do this.

Whatever path Bob chooses to take, I am certain he will do so with integrity, hard work, intelligence and considerable thought and he will be successful again.

The United States is a World Cup regular now, in the midst of its sixth consecutive appearance. But back in the stone ages — i.e., the late 1980s — its national team was on the brink, held together by a goalkeeper and his flag.

No one is saying that David “Dino” Vanole is the sole reason the U.S. is in South Africa this month, playing in high-stakes games of soccer. But the people who saw him psyche up teammates and psyche out Neanderthals; the people who heard his jokes and rhymes; the people who covered their eyes when a 1989 penalty kick was headed straight for his throat … think he deserves much of the credit. That he should be on the Mount Rushmore of U.S. soccer.

Smirking.

Read the rest.

The reliance on Fire connected players and coaches will be an important factor to creating a unified team chemistry that will give the US its best chance of success.

Here are the XI. players and coaches that give the Fire even more influence on the 2010 US roster than Simpkins-Ford did on the 1950 US roster.  Listed after each name is the position with the US World Cup squad and the years affiliated with the Chicago Fire:

XI.     Michael Bradley, Central Midfielder, 1998-2003: He was only eight years old when he began kicking the ball around with the likes of Piotr Nowak, Frank Klopas, Ante Razov and Chris Armas on the Chicago Fire training field.  Before he left the Fire for New Jersey at age 13 with his dad, Michael’s list of training partners included Eric Wynalda, Hristo Stoitchkov, current US teammates DaMarcus Beasley and Carlos Bocanegra and current US coaches Mike Sorber, Lubos Kubik and Jesse Marsch.  The son of the Fire’s first Head Coach and the current USMNT Coach, Bob Bradley,  never played a game in a Fire uniform, but he shined the players shoes, helped with equipment, discussed the team every day with the head coach and trained with the Fire before and after practice sessions throughout the team’s first five seasons.

The next four players never played for the Fire’s first team, but they were recruited by and played under current Chicago Fire Assistant Coach Mike Matkovich with the Fire’s PDL team, the Chicago Fire Reserves.

X. Brad Guzan, Goalkeeper, 2004-2005: Guzan grew up in suburban Homer Glen, IL and starred with the Chicago Magic under Matkovich.  Matkovich annually assembled one of the top collections of college stars in the country and for two seasons his goalkeeper was Guzan.  He was very well regarded as a youth goalkeeper and I recall the first time I saw him play for the Fire Premier, aka Reserves, as a gangly 19 year old in a US Open Cup tie against SAC Wisla, a local amateur team.  While the Fire Reserves won the match 5-1, I was disappointed by Guzan’s play.  Just as the peasant-turned-newt did in “The Holy Grail”, however, he got better.   His 0.388 goals against average was the best in the PDL in 2004.  He went on to star for Chivas USA where he earned MLS Goalkeeper of the Year honors in 2007 and currently is Brad Friedel’s backup at Aston Villa where he has shown his knack for saving penalties.

Matko’s Memories: “Brad Guzan, he’s like my son. I’ve known him since he was 11 years old. I knew he was going to make it because he’s a tough guy. He’s got a lot of talent from a young age. You know how you can tell when a guy’s young, you know he’s going to make it because his head is on right? He’s the perfect guy for that.”

IX. Jay DeMerit, Central Defender, 2001-2002: The Green Bay, WI native and former University of Illinois-Chicago defender played two seasons with with the Fire Reserves where he was mainly ignored by then Fire head coach Bob Bradley and me.  His rags with English seventh-tier club Northwood to riches with Watford story has been well told and now he is on the cusp of making a real difference on the soccer world’s biggest stage.  This time, he wasn’t ignored by Bradley. 

Matko’s Memories: “He’s super athletic kid, good guy, good willingness to work. It’s interesting to see how he ended up where he is because he ended up just going overseas on a walkabout with this other guy named Kieran, who was an English guy. And he ended up sticking England. Ever since then, it’s been nothing but successful. When we had him, he was a very good defender. We were able to play 3-5-2 with him on the field. I remember him marking Pat Noonan and taking him out of the game; Pat didn’t have a shot at goal. He was just so good athletically. He’s one of the best defenders we’ve ever had in the Fire Reserves. I can see why he’s where he’s at.”

VIII. Jonathan Spector, Right Back, 2003: The second most famous soccer player from Arlington Heights, IL, Spector played briefly with the Fire Reserves, before signing with Manchester United.  I saw the highly touted Spector play in one of his few appearances with the Fire Reserves and it was in the midfield.  A few months later, he was moved into the back by Sir Alex Ferguson and was training with his new club, Manchester United.

Matko’s Memories: “We only had Jonathan one year. We got him out of the Residency program. We actually played him outside/left mid. He was only 16 when he played for us, he was very young. But he was a special guy. He had the profile to make it. When he was in with us and to start him it was a good experience for him playing with us in the PDL because he played with older guys. I think it really helped him when he was back down in Residency.”

VII. Ricardo Clark, Central Midfielder, 2002: I certainly didn’t spot future stardom every time while scouting Fire Reserves games, but Clark’s talents were obvious as a 19 year old in his only season with the PDL club.  His loping strides and deft touch reminded me of a young Manuel Lagos.  The following winter, he turned pro early and was selected second overall by Bob Bradley and the MetroStars.  Bradley was pleased that DC United used the first pick to take New Jersey native and local favorite Alecko Eskandarian as he preferred Clark for his new club’s needs.  The Fire picked third overall and were disappointed, but not surprised, when Clark was taken leaving us with Nate Jaqua, whom we also felt would be a solid MLS player.

Matko’s Memories: “We only had one season with Ricardo. He played U-19 and he played in the Fire Reserves.  When he came obviously you can tell this guy had talent right away.  He was in and out of the national team pool. At the level with the PDL he covered a lot of ground. Had the ability to take games over and dominate the middle of the field from a holding spot. When we had those teams he was only 18/19 but he was one of our better guys at that age.”

VI.     Mike Sorber, Assistant Coach, 2000: The St. Louis native was Bora Milutinovic’s MVP for the US in the 1994 World Cup, went on to play for UNAM Pumas  where he was the first American to be named to the Mexican league All-Star team then played in MLS for four seasons before joining the most talented team in Fire history, if not MLS history in 2000.  He played 24 games helping the Fire capture the Central Division title and reach the MLS Cup Final.

Five players, the coach and the son of the coach of the 2000 Chicago Fire are among 11 2010 US World Cup players and coaches with ties to the early Chicago Fire.

V. Lubos Kubik, Assistant Coach, 1998-2000: The Czech international is my favorite Chicago Fire player ever.  His skill on the ball, economy of movement defending the Fire goal and genteel personality all exuded class as he worked with Piotr Nowak and Chris Armas to stabilize the spine of the Fire through its first three MLS seasons.  The Ring of Fire member has great insight into the game developed over decades of playing and coaching in the top leagues of Italy, France and Germany.  Bradley has used Kubik to scout European and other World Cup competitors as well as American players in Europe.  He also provides insight that is valuable from a former player of Kubik’s pedigree that includes 56 caps, including the 1990 World Cup and 1996 European Championships.

IV.     Jesse Marsch, Assistant Coach, 1998-2005: Jesse was always a coach as a player.  Coaching probably comes more naturally to him than playing.  He made the very most of his playing abilities by working hard and analyzing the game.  Those qualities and his long history with Bradley dating back to his college days at Princeton University make Jesse a great complement to Bradley’s staff.

III. DaMarcus Beasley, Midfielder, 2000-2004: DaMarcus came to the Fire in a draft day trade with the Los Angeles Galaxy just moments after we selected Carlos Bocanegra.  The Fort Wayne, Indiana native flourished in Chicago where his parents were able to drive to all the home games.  He electrified fans with his speed on the ball and through Bradley, learned to become a tenacious defender.  At the time we sold him to PSV Eindhoven, he was the most popular player in Chicago and one of the most popular in America.

II. Carlos Bocanegra, Defender, 2000-2004: Carlos was a high school football and soccer star in southern California.  fortunately for US Soccer, the future national team captain chose to focus on soccer at UCLA.  We worked exceedingly hard the week prior to the 2000 MLS SuperDraft to move up from our #4 slot to get the MetroStars first pick overall, so we could be assured of selecting Bocanegra – and failed.  As the old saying goes, “sometimes the best trades you make are the ones you don’t.”

The night before the draft, we had even arranged a scenario that would’ve given the MetroStars the #3, 4 and 6 selections and put Chicago #1 to assure getting Bocanegra.  The MetroStars said “no”.  The failure to make that deal led to the most productive ten minutes in Chicago Fire history.  Little did we know that Octavio Zambrano was holding onto the pick to use for another UCLA defender, Steve Shak, who went on to play 38 games over two MLS seasons before finishing his career in the USL.  Kansas City and Colorado followed with selections of Nick Garcia and Adin Brown leaving Carlos available at #4 and allowing us to trade the #6 pick along with a 2001 1st round pick to LA for Beasley.

I. Bob Bradley, Head Coach, 1997-2003: The best decision I’ve made in my career was hiring Bradley as Chicago’s first head coach.  Not only did he build the Fire into a great team, he taught me important life skills about communication, family, priorities, accountability, listening and integrity.  He’s taken those qualities with him to the US Men’s National Team.  I’m not surprised one bit that he has the winningest record in US Men’s Soccer history while playing the most difficult opponents and taking a look at the most players in US Soccer history.

Bradley coached seven of the ten others on this list in MLS - five with the Fire, Brad Guzan at Chivas USA and Michael Bradley at the MetroStars.  He has surrounded himself with players, coaches and staff that he is familiar with and whom are familiar with him.

There is a level of trust, respect and understanding in the group overall, but especially among the coaches and the players who have previously played for Bradley.  This relationship has developed over years of working together, talking to each other, challenging each other.  It has built a sense of unity.  The group really came together at the Confederations Cup after they rebounded from a poor start to challenge for the championship.  Fifteen players on that Confederations Cup roster are on the US World Cup roster.  I’m convinced that the unity this team has acquired as a result of the shared history and methodical assembly of both team and staff will lead to America’s greatest soccer success.  That common bond and past relationship has helped build the collection of individuals into a true team and for eleven of them that shared background includes time in Chicago with the Fire or Fire’s PDL team.

Still, though, the existence of the service and other social media will present a fascinating angle to the tournament, with information control a far harder challenge for the organisers and team managements than ever before. Imagine if Twitter had existed during the 1998 World Cup, and the explosions and leaks that would have surrounded the Ronaldo imbroglio before the final.

Even before the tournament has started, we have a Twitter controversy:

England coach Fabio Capello has banned his players from commenting on Twitter, but that didn’t prevent others from tweeting about who was going or not going to the World Cup — before Capello even announced the England 23-player roster on Tuesday. That Theo Walcott was among the topics “trending” on Twitter was indeed not good news as he was the most notable of the seven players Capello cut.

Almost two hours before Capello’s scheduled announcement of the England 23, news of the seven players who had been dropped had spread across the web, and celebrity tweeters — at least celebrities in Britain — were adding their opinions on who was in or out.

“It’s frankly a shambolic and unacceptable way for England’s World Cup campaign to begin,” noted the BBC’s Jonathan Stevenson.

England players will not be allowed to comment on any social media site or write articles for newspapers during the tournament.

By contrast, the surprise of the United States’ squad announcement — that Robbie Findley was in and Brian Ching was out — largely was a surprise when the announcement was made, though some Twitter buzz had noted Ching had been seen earlier at an airport heading off. Without the suffocating interest and media coverage in England, social media is less of a danger to official Communications channels in the U.S. — though that’s not to say it’s not a concern or opportunity at all.

Different squads face different challenges and team managements are handling the situations in markedly divergent ways. England’s Football Association, as it mentions above, have put a blanket ban on players using social media: ensuring their superstars remain as remote as ever from us, though frankly, I would not have too much interest in what Frank Lampard had to tweet in any case.

For a team still striving for media attention domestically, like the United States, it makes sense to allow players to tweet, even if it still presents a challenge for the communications department of U.S. Soccer, who told me they simply offer “guidelines” for players to follow when using Twitter. They did not expand on what these guidelines encompass,  but you can bet they will have some nervous moments when you think of an exhausted player with direct access to thousands of followers after a defeat with 140 characters to fill.

Imagine, for example, the media storm if Ledley King had typed the words U.S. defender Oguchi Onyewu did after his selection for the U.S. team was announced, overcoming injury and doubters who he ill-advisedly termed “haters”:

Athletes are young, cocooned, and often unaware how their words ping around and are perceived by fans. It’s good that U.S. Soccer are treating their players like grown-ups, unlike the Football Association. There’s a serious upside to this too for soccer in the United States, with the connections players build with fans through Twitter. But one suspects there will be a hairy moment or two for U.S. Soccer officials to deal with come gametime.

Photo by Thomas Hawk on flickr.com

Among the many common critiques of American soccer is the idea that we’ve managed to invert the traditional roots of the game: in most parts of the world football is a diverse sport of the people, but in the US soccer is a homogenous ‘country club’ sport for the suburban elite.  The US soccer system, according to this popular narrative, restricts the sport’s power structures in ways that exclude our best “athletes” (which is often code for low-income minorities).  I’d like to suggest, however, that after carefully considering the US’s preliminary World Cup roster—the 30 men that ostensibly best “represent” the American system—the actual story is a bit more complicated.

Take, as an example of the popular narrative, ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap introducing an E:60 video segment celebrating Clint Dempsey: “Generally in this country, the soccer players we produce they’re suburbanite kids who played in these regimented leagues.  Clint Dempsey is kind of an altogether different story.  Clint Dempsey comes from very humble origins, Nacogdoches Texas, and the way that he developed required enormous sacrifice on his family’s part…”  Yet, taking nothing away from his dedicated family, the moral of Dempsey’s American soccer story seem to me open to interpretation.

Dempsey’s family was certainly not wealthy.  But neither do they seem desperately poor, nor far outside the American mainstream.  His Dad, we learn in the video segment, worked for a railroad and in construction, his Mom was a nurse, his sister was a high-level tennis player, and Clint eventually hooked up with the Dallas Texans elite youth club before spending three years at Furman University (an excellent private liberal-arts school in South Carolina).  His family did indeed have to make sacrifices, which Clint claims included giving up their boat and selling some of their gun collection, and he did have to scrap to develop his game in the backyards and parks of Nacogdoches.  But overall this could also be spun as a very “normal” American story—a hardworking family leveraging their resources (and spending a lot of time commuting) to provide opportunities for a talented and motivated child who learns to improvise by necessity.

It all depends, I suppose, on what we mean by “normal” for the elite of American soccer—a question I was inspired to ask of the US 30 man roster partially by a short bit in the Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski book Soccernomics.  In that book they address the question of “Why England Loses and Others Win” by analyzing the rosters of recent England World Cup squads to identify what they call “the problem of exclusion:” “The Englishmen who make it to the top [of the football talent pool] are drawn very largely from one single and shrinking social group: the traditional working class.  The country’s middle classes are mostly barred from professional soccer.  That holds back the national team.”

Kuper and Szymanski’s specific tactic was to tabulate the social class origins of England’s recent World Cup players by charting their father’s jobs (see their ‘Figure 2.1’ below).  Out of the thirty-four players Kuper and Szymanski identify that “eighteen players, or more than half the total, were sons of skilled or unskilled manual laborers.”  On the other end of the social class spectrum, “only five players out of thirty-four…fathers seem to have worked in professions that required them to have an education beyond the age of sixteen.  If we define class by education, then only 15 percent of England players of recent years had ‘middle-class’ origins.”  Because these proportions vastly differ from the total English population (Kuper and Szymanski note that “nowadays, more than 70 percent of Britons stay in school past the age of sixteen”), it seems as though England may be systematically excluding a large pool of potential talent.

Figure 2.1 from Kuper and Szymanski: 'Soccernomics'

For the data nerd in me, this kind of analysis seemed like great fun—particularly since Kuper and Szymanski describe a form of exclusion in England that is diametrically opposite of the popular narrative in American soccer.  So with my limited resources (ie, an internet connection and a quiet Friday night) I made an effort to track down some of the same information about Team USA.  Since most American players aren’t public celebrities to the same degree as English World Cup players, it was a challenge to track down parental careers—but the richness of the soccer blogosphere did offer a pretty good data start.  In fact, there was enough information to tabulate a few other demographics that often come up in discussions of the state of American soccer, including our reliance on the college system, our racial/ethnic mix, and our ability to integrate immigrants.   All of these categories are problematic to define, and any conclusions are necessarily incomplete, but I think they do say something about the state of our soccer nation.

The Family Business?

Looking at the ‘father’s job’ list for Team USA does suggest that we have fewer children of manual laborers than Kuper and Szymanski identified among the fathers of English players.  Otherwise, however, the story for Team USA seems to be one of diversity.  Of the public information I could find (which accounted for the parental occupation/social class of 25 of the 30 players), there were few consistent patterns (see my chart labeled ‘2010 US World Cup 30 Player Roster’ below).

Again acknowledging that social class categories are fuzzy and hard to define (when asked, upwards of 80% of Americans self-identify as ‘middle class’ while less than 1% identify as ‘upper class’), only 7 of the 25 players seem like clear candidates for the high social class end of the scale: Benny Feilhaber and Stuart Holden both had fathers who were oil company executives, Robbie Rogers’ parents were both lawyers, Alejandro Bedoya’s father was a corporate sales director, Brian Ching’s parents seem to have been well-educated researchers, Steve Cherundolo was “raised in upper-middle class north San Diego,” and Oguchi Oneywu’s parents were both successful Howard University graduates.

10 of 25 would seem to better fit in a more familiar middle class, including four with at least one parents who was a school teacher (Carlos Bocanegra, Jay DeMerit, Landon Donovan, and Maurice Edu), Jozy Altidore whose father worked as a delivery man for Fed Ex and whose mother was a nurse, Ricardo Clark whose father seems to be a college-educated public works manager, Robbie Findley whose Dad was a computer consultant, Brad Guzan whose father seems to have worked for a suburban Chicago fire department, Jonathan Spector whose father seems to have been a sales rep, and Sacha Kljestan whose father is a construction contractor.

Another 5 of the 25 would seem to better fit in what Kuper and Szymanski define as ‘working class,’ including the aforementioned Clint Dempsey, DeMarcus Beasley’s parents in auto parts manufacturing, Herculez Gomez whose father “works at a car dealership in Las Vegas,” José Francisco Torres—who seems to have been raised in a working class part of Longview Texas based on a ESPN Desportes documentary video, Tim Howard (whose father was a truck driver, and mom a ‘project manager’), and Eddie Johnson who was raised by a single mother employed as a ‘child-care specialist’ while his absent father served in the military.

Finally, there seem to be two full-time soccer fathers: the obvious one being Michael Bradley’s father/US National Team coach, and the other being Edson Buddle’s father Winston—a former player from Jamaica who runs a soccer academy program in New York.

All in all, trying to sort through these statistics to compare with Soccernomics both reminded me of the difficulty of defining social class and made me think US Soccer is less exclusive than I would have previously believed.  This group of US players seems to run the American social class gamut: in between the occasional extremes of an oil executive or a truck driver is a critical mass of teachers, nurses, and salesmen.  That certainly does not mean US soccer can be content with current levels of access and diversity: the future of the game will always depend upon a broad base of players and genuine opportunities for talent to show itself.  But it just might mean US Soccer has made some progress.

College v Pro?

Another peculiar way in which American soccer has looked exclusive is in its globally distinct reliance on college players.  When you ask serious American fans about the 1990 World Cup, for example, the standard excuse is something like: “What could you expect with a team of college boys?”  There is, of course, some truth to that excuse: there was no MLS in 1990, few American success stories in Europe, and most of the team had played most of their competitive soccer in college.  That has changed.

It is still the case that a majority of the US players have attended college for at least one year (the 9 out of 30 who have not include Altidore, Beasley, Bradley, Donovan, Gomez, Howard, Johnson, Spector, and Torres), but only 6 of the 30 actually attended college for all four years (Bedoya, Bornstein, Ching, DeMerit, Findley, and Hahnemann).  For better or worse, the average time in college soccer among all 30 players works out to slightly less than two seasons.  Instead, 14 of the players who skipped college or left early took advantage of the MLS program that used to be called ‘Project-40’ and is now called ‘Generation Adidas.’

In general, however, I’m one who thinks and hopes that the college game will always have some place in American soccer.  Despite being globally odd and obviously flawed, college soccer fits in American culture and seems to me integral to ensuring that players have opportunities to fulfill their potential both on and off the field.  In fact, one of the odd facts I stumbled across in my research for this analysis was that Team USA owes at least an indirect debt to our colleges and universities: several of US players are from immigrant families where the father initially came to the States and played college soccer (including Alejandro Bedoya’s father, who came from Columbia and played at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Ricardo Clark’s father, who came from Guyana by way of Trinidad and played at New York Polytechnic, and Oguchi Onyewu’s father, who came from Nigeria and played at Howard University).

Immigrants and Ethnic Diversity?

Because US Soccer has long had a reputation as a bastion of white privilege, the racial and ethnic make-up of the 2010 World Cup roster also offers some interesting storylines.  Of course, in this age of Barack Obama we all know that racial and ethnic categories are often complicated hybrids—who counts as what often depends more on social identity than on absolute categories.  Nevertheless, the census still collects the data (even if a significant minority mock the question by identifying as ‘Vulcan’).

So if we temporarily ignore the complicated nuances the broad numbers from the 30 man roster include 14 White/Caucasian players (47%), 9 Black/African-American players (30%), 6 with Latino/Hispanic parentage (20%), and 1 Asian-American (Brian Ching is the son of a “Chinese American father and Caucasian American mother”).  In contrast, current estimates of the US population as a whole are 65% White, 15% Latino/Hispanic, 12% Black/African-American, and 4% Asian.  Overall, then, contrary to what you might expect “minorities” are actually disproportionately represented on the US national team.

Now for some of the complicated nuance.  Those numbers include as Latino/Hispanic Benny Feilhaber (the son of an Austrian-Brazlian father who is identified as Jewish and Brazilian mother—and Brazilians are often not included as “Hispanic”), Jonathan Bornstein (the son of a White father identified as Jewish and a Mexican mother), Carlos Bocanegra (whose father was born in Mexico but grew up in the US), Alejandro Bedoya (whose father is an American educated Columbian immigrant), and José Francisco Torres (the son of a father born in Mexico and a White/Caucasian mother).  The only one who is relatively straight-forward to define as Latino/Hispanic is Herculez Gomez—the son of two parents born in Mexico.  So while we can all agree that US Soccer needs to do more to integrate the many Latino/Hispanic players that often play outside the conventional player development system, it’s tough to know exactly what that means.

Likewise when thinking about access for Black/African-American players, what should be the metric of progress?  Having a roster with 30% Black/African-American players (9 of 30), compared to a US population that is about 12% Black/African-American sounds pretty good in terms of providing access.  But then you’d have to note that 7 of those 9 are the sons of immigrants from Haiti (Altidore), Jamaica (Buddle), Guyana (Clark), Nigeria (Edu and Onyewu), Trinidad (Findley), and even Hungary (Tim Howard’s mother—though his father is African-American).  Is the US system succeeding at providing opportunities to Black/African-American players, or is it simply relying on the children of immigrants?  And does that difference matter?  (As something of a side-note, that same question is sometimes a topic of controversy in the halls of academia—where many Ivy League schools have produced impressive growth in black student enrollment by relying largely on immigrants and their children)

The success of the children of immigrants is ultimately the most striking pattern in my analysis: the US 30 player roster really does seem to represent the old cliché of America as a melting pot.  By my count 60% of Team USA players (18 of the 30) have at least one parent who was born abroad (even including Landon Donovan—whose father was born in Canada).  In contrast, only two players were themselves born abroad (Stuart Holden, who was born in Scotland, and Benny Feilhaber, who was born in Brazil), and estimates for the whole US suggest the population includes only about 13% foreign-born residents of all types.  So what does that mean?

Interpretations?

Whether looking at social class, education, or racial/ethnic heritage, Team USA looks remarkably like the diverse nation it represents.  Does that mean the story here is one of success, with the US soccer system providing resources and opportunities to a vibrant mix of Americans?  Or is it a story of how soccer’s place firmly outside the mainstream of “American sports’ makes for a somewhat random pattern of access, excessively dependent on a combination of our peculiar college set-up and immigrant parents who’ve figured out how to work the system?  Is Team USA reasonably diverse because of the US soccer system, or in spite of it?

The answer is probably: both.  Comparing the demographics of the US player pool with the stats on English players offered by Kuper and Szymanski offers space for cautious optimism: the American players come from a diverse enough social class background to suggest that there is more than one route to the pinnacle of the US soccer pyramid.  Likewise, comparing the US player pool with the demographics of the US as a whole demonstrates a healthy and somewhat representative blend of races, ethnicities, and immigrants—it is a team I plan on being proud to root for.

But at the same time we all know it is still not good enough.  Despite US Soccer’s 12 year old plan to win the 2010 World Cup, the US is not expected to be a serious contender in South Africa.  We still don’t adequately share the game between all the diverse communities that make us a melting pot, or a mosaic, or whatever metaphor best describes the latest iteration of the American experiment.  We still don’t have enough players like Clint Dempsey.  Whatever that means.

Andrew Guest writes weekly for Pitch Invasion. He is an academic social scientist and soccer addict living in Portland, Oregon.  Having worked (and played) in Malawi and Angola, he has a particular interest in Africa.  He can be contacted at drewguest (at) hotmail.com.

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On Saturday at Toyota Park, I watched parts of a game between the Chicago Fire Academy and the US Youth National U-17 Team, a game won by the Fire 4-0. To be fair, many of the Fire’s players were a year older than their opponents (though the Fire were also missing a couple of their best players, Technical Director Frank Klopas mentioned to me), but it was still an impressive showing.

Remember the name Victor Pineda (who also plays for the USYNT), Fire fans: the talented 17 year-old looked awfully good in the glimpses I saw, and MLS rule changes announced last week make it much more likely a player like him could be signed to the first team squad sooner rather than later.

MLS roster sizes were increased from 24 to 26, with two more slots added solely for homegrown players from their youth academies. Clubs now receive three-quarters of the transfer fee for a homegrown player who goes abroad, an increase from two-thirds, and something that will, for example, be welcomed by a club like Vancouver who are about to join MLS with one of the continent’s leading youth academies.

The changes to the homegrown players rule considerably grows the incentives for clubs to invest in their development academies, building on MLS’ Home Grown Player Initiative founded in 2007, which now means every single club has an Academy team in US Soccer’s Development Academy, itself also founded in 2007 with a significant financial investment by US Soccer. The Development academy requires the participating clubs, 77 in total in 2009-10, to hold three training sessions per week, and limits the number of games the teams can play, to encourage a focus on the improvement of skills rather than maximising game play.

The Fire now have a free Academy that means kids from poorer backgrounds can get top-level training without having to pay the enormous fees typical of elite clubs in the United States in the past. They have a youth system that runs all the way from U-6 to the first team. And they have a very talented crop of players from a diverse variety of backgrounds.

The Fire are not doing this solely out of the goodness of their hearts. It is an investment in developing local talent that will not only improve the first team, but will eventually — they hope — make the club money through the transfer fees received in the future. MLS is going the right way in rewarding clubs for their substantial investments in youth development both on the field and off it. That’s the only way it can work.

Some don’t believe there is a need for this structure at all, as one of Paul Gardner’s rambling recent essays demonstrated (he’s not calling for ‘anarchy’…but it’s not at all clear what he is calling for).  But for me, watching local kids of all backgrounds from all parts of the Chicagoland area wearing the Fire badge beating the US Youth National Team on the main field at Toyota Park suggests to me a bright future for youth development in this country and its necessary connection to the elite professional league here.

Quick Hits

• Steve Davis has a theory about “the steaming pile of pooh at DC United“, deserving to be read for the title alone.
• AC St Louis get off to an inauspicious start as they start their first league game with ten men, while a player fetches his passport from the hotel.
• For sale: Liverpool.

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

U.S. Soccer’s Annual General Meeting took place this weekend, passing without a great deal of commentary from the soccer press, with President Sunil Gulati elected to his second four-year term, running unopposed.

Of some interest on the elections of the other positions on the US Soccer Board of Directors was the news that the Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) Commissioner Tonya Antonucci has replaced Kevin Payne of DC United on the board, as one of the two representatives of the Pro Council.

The Pro Council is made up of eight commissioners from professional leagues, with two representatives selected from the council serving two year terms on the US Soccer Board of Directors.

It appears that there was a consensus that the Pro Council should represent both its men’s and women’s Division I leagues, with MLS Commissioner Don Garber still on the board.

It also seems to mark a significant moment for women’s professional soccer: I stand to be corrected, but I’m not sure that women’s football is represented equally with its men’s equivalent in any other country’s national governing body.

Incidentally, Lynn Morgan, the president of the previous women’s professional league, WUSA, also served on the US Soccer Board of Directors, though I could not determine if she was a representative of the Pro Council itself (I called US Soccer, who are looking into their records on it). EDIT: just received confirmation from US Soccer that Lynn Morgan was indeed on the Pro Council.

Update: we spoke to Tonya Antonucci about her election, and she had the following to add:

It’s a great honor for me and the league as a whole that the WPS Commissioner now holds a seat on the US Soccer Board of Directors.  This elevates WPS’s role and visibility as a viable professional platform within the larger US Soccer body, and provides a great opportunity for WPS to share its experiences in developing the women’s game and further integrate into the soccer landscape at all levels in the United States.

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The resolution to the deadlock over second division plans for 2010 in North America is of course analysed all over the place: over 100 journalists and bloggers joined the US Soccer teleconference yesterday afternoon. You can read the full transcript from US Soccer here. Now the dust has settled, and the USL and the NASL have been forced into a compromise for 2010 by US Soccer, the key question is what this means for the long-term, something Gulati mentioned several times. As he said:

Our goal is to have a stable, professional soccer environment in the U.S. I think we’ve been able to accomplish that with MLS over the last 14 years, and with the exception of one year, there has been a steady growth of the teams in terms of interest. We want to make sure that we can accomplish that through all of our other professional leagues, which are different from youth soccer or amateur soccer. In the next few months we’ll be laying out some regulations, rules and standards. We’ll put a little more substance into it about what a second division should look like. Everyone has agreed that that’s important and we’ll be working on that. For us, the most important thing here is long-term stability. What we think we’ve achieved today is a short-term solution for the 2010 season, but we want to work with a number of people and all the teams to find a long-term solution so we don’t have teams changing back and forth between divisions. We’re extremely excited about this agreement and certainly about 2010 overall for the sport in the U.S.

And again, towards the end of the call, answering a question “On how the USSF will measure benchmarks to determine a team’s success or viability and whether there will be quantitative measurements teams will have to demonstrate to continue to participate”:

Yes, we’ve got some very specific targets in our regulations and we intend to put in more of those. Whether they apply to financial stability, what staffing levels look like, etc. To give you an example, our regulations have minimum standards on size of stadiums, a full-time operation for P.R. Director and CEO and so on and so forth. We think we need to put some more meat behind those in order to make sure that the teams that are part of a Division 2, or Division 1 for that matter, meet a certain standard and most importantly can meet that standard year in and year out and improve. We can’t have this constant issue that bedevils a number of sports, that the offseason is spent primarily to make sure that you can come back the following season. That you’re looking for expansion teams not because it makes long-term sense to build the game and the league, but because you need an expansion fee. We had that issue 25 years ago in our league, and we want to make sure that we’re able to avoid that so that expansion is done in a systematic way. U.S. Soccer is not going to be the one deciding that, but if people coming in the door want to be part of Division 2, they need to understand that this is a long-term play and that there are going to be some significant investments early on and aren’t counting on expansion proceeds in a year or two to reduce capital costs. The philosophy we’ve discussed with the leaders of these teams seems to be in line with that. People understand that for us the most important thing is stability, growth is right after that. But you can’t have growth without stability.”

Many, including Rochester beat reporter Jeff DiVeronica, are taking this as a elbow in the ribs to the operation of USL over the past decade or so, which has seen teams coming and going at a rather rapid pace:

To me, those were all shots at how the USL has done business. To a degree, I agree with him, but as this season unfolds I’m sure Gulati will find out how difficult it can be to run a minor-league soccer operation. For as long as I’ve covered the A-League/USL, which goes back to 1996, America’s second division was the red-headed stepchild. At best, it was an afterthought. The USSF concentrated on MLS and building up the U.S. national team programs. It needed to. Now, it sounds as if Gulati realizes some attention to the second division must be paid to help with player development.

So while most of the focus has been on the short-term solution for 2010, it seems as if US Soccer hopes to leverage this crisis (and the useful fact there is competing demand to operate a Division II league) into a broader plan to give lower division soccer purpose beyond an expanded footprint for the sport. Gulati, asked of the purpose of a Division 2 league in the U.S., finally concluded that “In the absence of a promotion and relegation system, it’s hard to exactly pinpoint an answer to that question.”  Gulati mentioned there had been discussions with MLS already on how the pyramid knits together, especially in terms of player development, and in the year ahead we should really expect to see US Soccer, MLS, the USL and NASL pinpoint answers to that question so we are not in the same mess going forward, and the purpose and structure of lower league soccer is clear enough to all.

Worldwide News

• The credit crunch and tighter finances in Scotland are having one interesting effect: clubs are much less willing to go through the expensive business of hiring and firing managers willy-nilly, leading to much greater stability, according to Alex Smith, chairman of the Scottish League Managers’ Association: ‘”Stability has been forced on clubs. It hasn’t kept bad managers in jobs, but it has given good ones a bit of leeway – for example, younger guys who are trying to build something, maybe creating sensible youth structures and who shouldn’t lose their livelihood because the first team loses four or five games.”  Meanwhile, Away from the Numbers has an interesting update on the financial woes at East Fife.
• Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis has said he does not expect a takeover bid from either Stan Kroenke or Alisher Usmanov to come anytime soon.
• Minnesota’s new professional soccer team, to play in the USL conference of the new Division II league, is not formally connected to the now defunct Thunder, though clearly has some informal ties. Du nord has all the details in an excellent post.
• A proposed U.S.-Mexico friendly has fallen through over a row about television rights.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.

By Faerie Girl on Flickr

Big Story
As assiduously reported by Brian Quarstad, Duane Rollins and Kartik Krishnaiyer, the United States Soccer Federation and the two leagues seeking Division II status for 2010 in North America appear to have finally reached a compromise.

It appears that the USSF will oversee a league with two conferences featuring the teams committed to the USL and NASL respecitvely. There are many other details rumoured to be part of the deals, and what can become public presumably will in a conference call the USSF is hosting this afternoon with representatives of both leagues.

So, we will have second division soccer here in the United States in 2010 (let us hope we also have first division soccer!). It’s significant that despite the bitterness, the threats of lawsuits, and the tight timeline, that the two leagues have been able to hammer out an interim solution. As we recalled here last week, in the past, this was not always possible, leading to administrative strife tearing soccer apart.

Of course, it already being 2010, we should presume negotiations on hammering out a long-term solution for 2011 will begin shortly.  While we await the final details of the interim solution, perhaps one or two who argued the USSF (and MLS) were either dropping the ball or deliberately trying to destroy second division soccer will stay quiet for a little while, though it will take much work again to work things out beyond this year.

Worldwide News

• I love world football. One minute Hans Backe is following Sven-Göran Eriksson on his bizarre global career: assisting Sven at Manchester City, Mexico and then as manager at troubled Notts County, and now he’s the head coach of Red Bull New York. Well, he’s prepped for disaster and general weirdness, at least.
• We have been careful to avoid much commentary on MLS’ labour talks here because of our lack of knowledge and insight on the complex situation (Peter Wilt’s prediction of a lockout yesterday aside, but Peter knows far more about MLS than I do). I’d recommend MFUSA’s series as a primer for those wanting to keep up, while Fake Sigi has an interesting opinion piece today on the state of MLS and its business model, quite eloquently describing MLS as built to last in its present complicated, but carefully constructed condition: “It’s a brilliantly conceived business entity built with decades of pro sports litigation in the USA in mind. It’s something that the majority of people don’t understand, but under the hood it’s sexy as hell and built to last. It’s the corporate entity version of a rotary engine or a Macintosh computer. It took the old way of doing things, looked at the problems that had plagued other leagues, and came up with an innovative, new way of dealing with those issues while retaining a ton of eccentricities that few understand.”
• Of random interest: photos of the 15 lowest ranked UEFA nations’ national stadiums.

The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.