Thinking back on this match after some time to process, we unfortunately reverted back to the mean.

This looked like the team we saw over the past year to 18 months, disjointed and inconsistent. Then we played a few strong matches in our tuneup to the World Cup, then afree that added two very good performances in the group stage.

The Trkiye game could be chalked up to resting lots of starters, but letting in that late winner felt all too familiar. The Bosnia win never really felt in doubt, even a man down.

Then we came out and did…this. None of the confidence or swagger that we showed in earlier games, just chasing the game from the jump.

At this point it feels like we're beyond the solution of "the right coach". The talent is good enough to compete against high quality teams and even give the elite ones a run on the right day, but we're just not good enough to consistently compete at the top level.

But we're better than we were tonight.

DFW Terminal A, why stay Domestic when we should be International baby?!?

I think geography is a limitation on youth development. Essentially, we aren't trying to become a Germany or a Belgium or a Netherlands. We're trying to build an all-European soccer system, and the resources are spread too thin. I'm not sure how we fix that.

Woke up hoping that was just a nightmare. Damn.

annie88 said:

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THE_CHOSEN_ONE said:

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King ****as with the kiss of death. Took all the energy out of our World Cup run and everything turned to **** and national unity down the drain like everything else he touches.

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Congratulations on the dumbest post of the day. Some of you are just ****ing children.

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Rich coming from the person with 20 dumb ass soccer questions per day.

La Bamba said:

---

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and… https://t.co/z7e2rWIKXR

— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) July 7, 2026

Thoughts on this?

---

Gupta's not wrong on any of it.

Thoughta- we need it, but will never get it

i feel like, while fully admitting I know very little about the sport, that the most frustrating thing about last night was that we pretty much beat ourselves, all 4 goals were from bone headed lack of effort play, imho

bummed about last night. we came out looking intimidated and it snowballed. disappointed, but there is no use self-flagellating over it.

tboag said:

---

La Bamba said:

---

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and… https://t.co/z7e2rWIKXR

— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) July 7, 2026

Thoughts on this?

---

This is spot on. Completely, all the college soccer talk, blah blah blah. It's this.

It's not even that our best athletes play other sports. We have 31 times the population of Belgium. I promise you the talent pool isn't the issue. It's how we develop. Our developmental programs are run by overweight soccer dads that usually have never touched a ball in his life. Bankrolling because our parents have been convinced their kid is the next Pele…. And they should spend money on it. The good (and rich) kids end up in the MLS and think they are great. Then you end up with Tim Ream anchoring your back line in the World f'in Cup. We are a joke.
The kids with ACTUAL ability… who may even want to play soccer… get kicked out if their parents can't afford it. So they go play basketball or football… or baseball (who's getting to have a similar issue but that's another discussion).

It's such an easy fix. But the MLS and those soccer dads have to afford their lifestyles somehow. So this is what we have. Literally forever until someone has the balls to change it.

---

why do our women's soccer teams dominate then? is it that the rest of the world doesnt care about womans soccer?

Going through the current roster in terms of future World Cup involvement. I've highlighted names that will be over 30 years old in 4 years

GK:
Turner is probably done. He'll be 35 and its already clear he isn't it
Freese will be 31. Maybe he continues to improve, but last night could be a career killer
Brady is only 22 so quite young for a goalie. I would not feel bad turning the page to see what he can do.

Defense:
Dest will be 29. Dude is great on some nights and then completely useless on others. But he'll still be involved
Chris Richards is our best defender. He'll be 30
Jedi Robinson will be 32. That's up there in age for a fullback/wingback. Will he still be effective in 4 years.
Auston Trusty will be 31. Might be an option, but it says a lot when he hasn't been able displace Ream
Miles Robinson will be 33. I don't think he'll be involved in 4 years
Tim Ream will be in his 40s and hopefully retired
Alex Freeman will be 25. Hope he continues to develop because he had a decent World Cup
Max Arfsten will be 29.
Mark McKenzie will be 31.
Joe Scalley will be 27. Hope he continues to improve in Germany. He is good for Monchengladbach and I want to see it translate over to the USMNT


Midfield:
Tyler Adams will be 31. Will still probably be a vital pin in the midfield
Gio Reyna will be 27. We said this after 2022, but hope he finds a club that he can settle down in and become the player we still see glimpses of.
Weston McKennie will be 31. I'm not sure what to expect with Weston. Can he do maintain what he does in 4 years time with the amount of ground he covers.
Sebastion Berhalter will be 29. This is the one player who I felt changed my mind during the World Cup. I didn't like him in his previous caps, but I thought he played very well during the competition and was a decent spark when he came on last night.
Cristian Roldan will be 35 and not involved imo
Malik Tillman will be our best player in 2030 at age 28.

Forwards:
Ricardo Pepi will be 27. Hope he continues to improve. He's had several good years in the Netherlands. Rumors continue to persist about a move to the PL. We've seen other US players fail during that transition. Can he suceed.
Brendan Aaronson will be 29.
Haji Wright will be 32 and I doubt will be involved by that point
Folarin Balogun will be 27/28 and in his prime years. He will still be the starting striker in 2030
Timothy Weah will be 30. This is the one I was pretty disappointed in coming from 2022 to now. Just seems to have regressed a lot.
Alejandro Zendejas will be 32 and I doubt will be involved
I left Christian Pulisic till the end. He'll be 31 in 2030. Outside of the first 45 minutes of the Paraguay match, just a massive disappointment. Dude has been in a rut for 7 months now and just seemed to break mentally last night. When we needed our biggest star to step up, he absolutely collapsed. Seeing him on the bench with his head in his hands at 60 minutes was an awful look. The guy who is supposed to be our leader looked like he had zero belief that we were going to get back into that match. He should still be there in 2030, but man what a let down.


Guys who didn't make this team this year that will be under 30 and possibly/probably involved in 2030:
Patrick Schulte (GK) will be 29
Noahkai Banks (DEF) will be 23. This is a young talented defender (only 19) that isn't cap-tied yet. I want to see the USMNT get him locked down. He can still play for Germany.
Johnny Cardoso (MF) will be 28. He was injured in early May and missed the World Cup
Tanner Tessmann (MF) will be 28. He was also injured leading into the World Cup, but everyone considered him to be the biggest surprise of being left off the roster
Diego Luna (MF) will be 26.
Patrick Agyemang will be 29. Missed the World Cup due to injury.

tboag said:

---

La Bamba said:

---

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and… https://t.co/z7e2rWIKXR

— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) July 7, 2026

Thoughts on this?

---

This is spot on. Completely, all the college soccer talk, blah blah blah. It's this.

It's not even that our best athletes play other sports. We have 31 times the population of Belgium. I promise you the talent pool isn't the issue. It's how we develop. Our developmental programs are run by overweight soccer dads that usually have never touched a ball in his life. Bankrolling because our parents have been convinced their kid is the next Pele…. And they should spend money on it. The good (and rich) kids end up in the MLS and think they are great. Then you end up with Tim Ream anchoring your back line in the World f'in Cup. We are a joke.
The kids with ACTUAL ability… who may even want to play soccer… get kicked out if their parents can't afford it. So they go play basketball or football… or baseball (who's getting to have a similar issue but that's another discussion).

It's such an easy fix. But the MLS and those soccer dads have to afford their lifestyles somehow. So this is what we have. Literally forever until someone has the balls to change it.

Go listen to Landon Donovan talk about this. Is eye opening. He specifically talks about playing in Germany as a 16/17 year old. His coach was a 25 year vet that was an expert at developing. No one cared about anything but development. Our youth teams work on kicking the ball far, clearing, crossing, and out running… so the scoreboard says they won and more parents want to pay for their "services". Europeans kids are learning how to actually control the ball, first touch, dribbling, and more importantly…. They learn how to think tactically. Early

---

I think you're mixing and matching issues here.

I'm in Houston and early 40s. I played competitively when was younger, went to some of the biggest tournaments. (Dallas Cup if that's still a thing).

My oldest is 9. He's been getting coaching from coaches, for a couple years, who will have some level of USSF soccer license. When I played, it was my dad because he had played some in high school.

That's to say the coaching is far better than it probably has ever been in the US.
-----------------

But that doesn't mean it's not stupid expensive. The club we are at, and probably indicative of the major clubs in Houston is effectively $1,000 per day of practice. So if you're in their "Youth Academy", plan to spend $2,000. Pre-ECNL - $3,000.

That is absolutely cost prohibitive for A LOT of people, but more importantly, the club is not incentivized to move the best players up, but the players whose check clears, especially at the Youth Academy level. We were the best team in the club (below Pre-ECNL), and they were adding kids who had never played before midseason.

-------------------

I don't know that there's easy fixes though. Sure costs need to come down (somehow). We need more merit based teams vs check cashing. But with the balance that some kids will develop slower but have a higher ceiling than others. Has to be a balance.

Edit: And maybe the biggest difference is, for people in Europe. Soccer is THE sport. Sure they have people who play other sports, but we view europeans in the NBA/NFL the way they view Americans in the Premier League. One off type players who rarely last. Until we gets our best athletes choosing soccer (I don't think they will), we will always be behind.

La Bamba said:

---

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and… https://t.co/z7e2rWIKXR

— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) July 7, 2026

Thoughts on this?

---

I've long thought the only chance we have at closing the gap internationally it setting up a youth system similar to what the rest of the world does. Doing it the way we do it now will never work. Most kids are priced out of elite youth soccer, scouting is a disaster, and sadly many people think NCAA college soccer is a solution (it's simply not).

We will see over the next couple cycles if the youth development academies set up with MLS and USL clubs will help.

In a perfect world, the USL Premier proposed league works and over time, we develop a large system of clubs, down to the lower divisions, all with academies. Kids are scouted and enter the academies by age 8. Kids can turn pro at 16. Top propects are lower division clubs can move to bigger USL clubs and ideally moves to Europe for top tier potential USMNT talent.

Will this happen? I doubt it. It would take a ton of money and a willingness by US Soccer to take a long term (decades) approach to organically growing the sport here.

In reality, I imagine we hope the MLS/USL academies that exist will generate some good talent and otherwise US soccer players will develop as they have been, including trying to focus on getting dual citizens from Europe to fill out the senior roster.

the fix is NIL. NIL for youth soccer to scout, sponsor and promote the best youth talent. If the USSF figures that out, we're a legit WC title contender within 2-3 cycles.

I love the USMNT and have been obsessed since the 94 cycle. That fire really started raging after 2002. While it's been really fun to be a rare underdog as Americans in a sport, I was really looking forward to finally making a QF and hopefully closing the underdog chapter forever. I think we all thought we were there. Last night is so devastating because now we don't know. Was it a one game fluke? Did we get Paraguay at their worst? Was Australia beating Turkiye a fluke? Just so frustrating. Honestly kept me up most of the night. Heck, TAMU football losses don't even do that.

I don't know if this has previously been post but here's Landon Donovan and Chad Ochocinco talking about the financial barriers to kids playing soccer at a high level since it's a topic already being discussed.

When our goalie kicked the ground and gave up that goal, you just had to laugh.

I had no illusions that this team would win the WC and I thought they would lose yesterday, but that was such a ****show...wow. It looked like our quickest guy would have been their slowest guy all night.

tboag said:

---

La Bamba said:

---

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and… https://t.co/z7e2rWIKXR

— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) July 7, 2026

Thoughts on this?

---

This is spot on. Completely, all the college soccer talk, blah blah blah. It's this.

It's not even that our best athletes play other sports. We have 31 times the population of Belgium. I promise you the talent pool isn't the issue. It's how we develop. Our developmental programs are run by overweight soccer dads that usually have never touched a ball in his life. Bankrolling because our parents have been convinced their kid is the next Pele…. And they should spend money on it. The good (and rich) kids end up in the MLS and think they are great. Then you end up with Tim Ream anchoring your back line in the World f'in Cup. We are a joke.
The kids with ACTUAL ability… who may even want to play soccer… get kicked out if their parents can't afford it. So they go play basketball or football… or baseball (who's getting to have a similar issue but that's another discussion).

It's such an easy fix. But the MLS and those soccer dads have to afford their lifestyles somehow. So this is what we have. Literally forever until someone has the balls to change it.

Go listen to Landon Donovan talk about this. Is eye opening. He specifically talks about playing in Germany as a 16/17 year old. His coach was a 25 year vet that was an expert at developing. No one cared about anything but development. Our youth teams work on kicking the ball far, clearing, crossing, and out running… so the scoreboard says they won and more parents want to pay for their "services". Europeans kids are learning how to actually control the ball, first touch, dribbling, and more importantly…. They learn how to think tactically. Early

---

Max Power said:

---

I don't know if this has previously been post but here's Landon Donovan and Chad Ochocinco talking about the financial barriers to kids playing soccer at a high level since it's a topic already being discussed.

---

I take issue with Donovan on some things, but mad props to him for banging this drum loudly. He genuinely wants to change thing and I hope he makes progress.

Our culture is youth sports->high school->college->pro. Relatively low cost with the best player moving to the next level based on takeng

It's a merit based system, or has been for most of its life. The pay to play element has been there for a long time but maybe only the last 20 years in earnest.

Europe/world basically takes the best kids from high school onward in to professional organizations.

Baseball is the most similar here, or was, with it being open to high end high school graduates at 18. But, even that is a late start for euro/world soccer.

I cannot foresee the united states ever creating a program where kids as young as 12 or 13 are pulled into professional development programs ala Europe in enough numbers to make much a difference.

So we've got to figure out a way to interrupt the youth sports-> college conveyor belt and its probably right there between youth sports and high school. It cannot happen without discovery fees or a substantial developmental league.

But, what's the incentive for a family to choose that route?

SECcess12 said:

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Soccer also doesn't require "our best athletes" playing for us to be extremely competitive. You think world class players all look like (insert any elite athlete for NFL/NBA)? They don't.

That is a tired and very lazy excuse. Would it help? Sure, but until our midfield stops turning it over 20 times against a better team, or our defense can clear a ball from the box, it doesn't matter who is playing.

---

Its part of a larger argument. We need more high level kids choosing soccer over other sports. Just more volume. To say it is not a problem is ignorant.

AgLiving06 said:

---

tboag said:

---

La Bamba said:

---

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and… https://t.co/z7e2rWIKXR

— Aakash Gupta (@aakashgupta) July 7, 2026

Thoughts on this?

---

This is spot on. Completely, all the college soccer talk, blah blah blah. It's this.

It's not even that our best athletes play other sports. We have 31 times the population of Belgium. I promise you the talent pool isn't the issue. It's how we develop. Our developmental programs are run by overweight soccer dads that usually have never touched a ball in his life. Bankrolling because our parents have been convinced their kid is the next Pele…. And they should spend money on it. The good (and rich) kids end up in the MLS and think they are great. Then you end up with Tim Ream anchoring your back line in the World f'in Cup. We are a joke.
The kids with ACTUAL ability… who may even want to play soccer… get kicked out if their parents can't afford it. So they go play basketball or football… or baseball (who's getting to have a similar issue but that's another discussion).

It's such an easy fix. But the MLS and those soccer dads have to afford their lifestyles somehow. So this is what we have. Literally forever until someone has the balls to change it.

Go listen to Landon Donovan talk about this. Is eye opening. He specifically talks about playing in Germany as a 16/17 year old. His coach was a 25 year vet that was an expert at developing. No one cared about anything but development. Our youth teams work on kicking the ball far, clearing, crossing, and out running… so the scoreboard says they won and more parents want to pay for their "services". Europeans kids are learning how to actually control the ball, first touch, dribbling, and more importantly…. They learn how to think tactically. Early

---

I think you're mixing and matching issues here.

I'm in Houston and early 40s. I played competitively when was younger, went to some of the biggest tournaments. (Dallas Cup if that's still a thing).

My oldest is 9. He's been getting coaching from coaches, for a couple years, who will have some level of USSF soccer license. When I played, it was my dad because he had played some in high school.

That's to say the coaching is far better than it probably has ever been in the US.
-----------------

But that doesn't mean it's not stupid expensive. The club we are at, and probably indicative of the major clubs in Houston is effectively $1,000 per day of practice. So if you're in their "Youth Academy", plan to spend $2,000. Pre-ECNL - $3,000.

That is absolutely cost prohibitive for A LOT of people, but more importantly, the club is not incentivized to move the best players up, but the players whose check clears, especially at the Youth Academy level. We were the best team in the club (below Pre-ECNL), and they were adding kids who had never played before midseason.

-------------------

I don't know that there's easy fixes though. Sure costs need to come down (somehow). We need more merit based teams vs check cashing. But with the balance that some kids will develop slower but have a higher ceiling than others. Has to be a balance.

Edit: And maybe the biggest difference is, for people in Europe. Soccer is THE sport. Sure they have people who play other sports, but we view europeans in the NBA/NFL the way they view Americans in the Premier League. One off type players who rarely last. Until we gets our best athletes choosing soccer (I don't think they will), we will always be behind.

---

Very fair. Self admittedly it's been awhile since I played and my son isn't old enough yet. The coaches probably are way better.

I'm a big believer that the MLS could get to the same level as the European leagues. But our development strategy has to change. Has to.