Marshall U wins NCAA men’s soccer with 25 foreign athletes

I definitely think we’re limiting American athlete opportunities. As someone said, this is most prominent in tennis. This week is the NCAA tennis champs and 68/114 of the players on the 16 qualifying teams are foreign. There are entire teams qualifying for NCAAs with no Americans ( https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/article.asp?id=358330749). Two years ago Wake Forest won NCAAs and i believe they had a roster of all foreigners. There’s no doubt this limits opportunities for Americans. Tennis is the worst but this is true on a smaller scale for all sports. I like the 25% cap rule that was proposed.

Tribe wrote:

I definitely think we’re limiting American athlete opportunities. As someone said, this is most prominent in tennis. This week is the NCAA tennis champs and 68/114 of the players on the 16 qualifying teams are foreign. There are entire teams qualifying for NCAAs with no Americans (

https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/article.asp?id=358330749

). Two years ago Wake Forest won NCAAs and i believe they had a roster of all foreigners. There’s no doubt this limits opportunities for Americans. Tennis is the worst but this is true on a smaller scale for all sports. I like the 25% cap rule that was proposed.

Wow, yeah, that's not good. Point taken.

Good for Marshall. They were within the rules. As long as we let unlimited foreign athletes, unlimited byu years of eligibility, unlimited age, unlimited oregon PEDs, unlimited duke basketball salaries, then every school can do whatever they want.

Any of you ever BEEN to Huntington, WV? Beautiful country, but the town is a pit. If they want to be good, they are not going to do it by attracting top American players.

NoVan wrote:

Men's soccer is allowed to offer 9.9 scholarships. So, either Marshall has gotten really creative with alternative ways to get their soccer players on scholarship, or there are a bunch of families in Europe who are paying out of state tuition to send their sons to play soccer in West Virginia.

Not sure about Marshall, but a number of schools have weak requirements for some of their scholarships for international students, so they can cover part of tuition with academic money and the remainder with athletic money, essentially doubling the number of scholarships they can offer and actually incentivizing coaches to recruit foreign athletes over domestic athletes (UNM's Amigo Scholarship comes to mind).

johnny99 wrote:

truth here wrote:

This is DISGUSTING.

Our NCAA system is solely developing international athletes. That's why USA men's soccer can't qualify for the Olympics or the World Cup. Young American soccer players never get a chance to play in their own country, they are pushed out by foreigners who had a soccer ball by their feet by the time they could walk.

This may be a troll post, but if not it's pretty uninformed.

The top American players don't play college soccer. College rosters have no bearing on the United States' ability to qualify for the World Cup, and have minimal bearing on qualification for the Olympics.

Our best players now are professionals by the time they are 18.

The "N" in NCAA stands for NATIONAL.

How anyone can support giving any scholarships to any foreigner is SICKENING while Americans are CRIPPLED under immense student loan debt.

truth here wrote:

johnny99 wrote:

This may be a troll post, but if not it's pretty uninformed.

The top American players don't play college soccer. College rosters have no bearing on the United States' ability to qualify for the World Cup, and have minimal bearing on qualification for the Olympics.

Our best players now are professionals by the time they are 18.

The "N" in NCAA stands for NATIONAL.

How anyone can support giving any scholarships to any foreigner is SICKENING while Americans are CRIPPLED under immense student loan debt.

And your attempt to link the failure to qualify for the World Cup and the Olympics to the NCAA remains misguided.

truth here wrote:

This is DISGUSTING.

Our NCAA system is solely developing international athletes. That's why USA men's soccer can't qualify for the Olympics or the World Cup. Young American soccer players never get a chance to play in their own country, they are pushed out by foreigners who had a soccer ball by their feet by the time they could walk.

What is disgusting is that the US does not develop the black and brown talent that exists in this country. Most young soccer players have to pay lbig fees and travel a lot to come up through the ranks here - not the way it works in the soccer powerhouses around the world . That's a key reason why US men's soccer sucks internationally, and it's why I shed no tears for Americans who whine and moan about American programs favoring international players when American soccer favors rich Americans. Karma.

truth here wrote:

johnny99 wrote:

This may be a troll post, but if not it's pretty uninformed.

The top American players don't play college soccer. College rosters have no bearing on the United States' ability to qualify for the World Cup, and have minimal bearing on qualification for the Olympics.

Our best players now are professionals by the time they are 18.

The "N" in NCAA stands for NATIONAL.

How anyone can support giving any scholarships to any foreigner is SICKENING while Americans are CRIPPLED under immense student loan debt.

For the May 30 friendly against Switzerland, a 40 man provisional roster was named. Scanning it, I saw maybe 4 or 5 players that had attended some college (maybe not 4 years). The other 35-36 never played a second of college soccer. And there's no guarantee that those college players will make the gameday roster, which will probably be around 23.

When MLS launched, college soccer provided a lot of players to the league. Over the last 25 years, however, academies have taken over as the primary source of professional players and, by extension, national team players. A guy who turns pro at 22 after 4 years of college soccer often has no chance against guys who have been professional since they were 17 or 18.

Tribe wrote:

I definitely think we’re limiting American athlete opportunities. As someone said, this is most prominent in tennis. This week is the NCAA tennis champs and 68/114 of the players on the 16 qualifying teams are foreign. There are entire teams qualifying for NCAAs with no Americans (

https://www.tennisrecruiting.net/article.asp?id=358330749

). Two years ago Wake Forest won NCAAs and i believe they had a roster of all foreigners. There’s no doubt this limits opportunities for Americans. Tennis is the worst but this is true on a smaller scale for all sports. I like the 25% cap rule that was proposed.

I actually thought tennis was worse. The 47th best American tennis player in the NCAA not making it to nationals doesn't really strike me as curbing our development of our top players. To each their own I guess.

This is outdated. Academy programs are not always the pay-to-play model that existed in past years. There are many, many more opportunities for talented but financially hindered youths to be recognized and developed now in the United States. Sure, it should (and will) continue to improve but it's not as bad as you paint it.

Yeah, many of the top boys academies are free, and those that are still "pay to play" have some form of scholarship or financial hardship policy. Pay to play still exists, and it's still an issue, but it's not as big an impediment to finding and developing talented players than it was 20 years ago.

The bigger issue today may be scouting, so that the talented players are seen, identified, and placed in an environment where they can develop.

johnny99 wrote:

For the May 30 friendly against Switzerland, a 40 man provisional roster was named. Scanning it, I saw maybe 4 or 5 players that had attended some college (maybe not 4 years). The other 35-36 never played a second of college soccer. And there's no guarantee that those college players will make the gameday roster, which will probably be around 23.

When MLS launched, college soccer provided a lot of players to the league. Over the last 25 years, however, academies have taken over as the primary source of professional players and, by extension, national team players. A guy who turns pro at 22 after 4 years of college soccer often has no chance against guys who have been professional since they were 17 or 18.

You are so dumb that you're proving my point without even realizing it. A higher % of our provisional roster would have college experience if there were more opportunities for American high school players in college.

Look at it in track terms. If the top 3 high school kids in each event were the only athletes in contention for World Teams, we'd get crushed. But our college system develops superstars like Cole Hocker and Shelby Houlihan that were untapped in high school.

This is not how the development of elite soccer players works. NCAA soccer is a backup plan for those not good enough to progress through academies to first team contracts. "College experience" is a bad thing.

You are 1000% wrong.

Take 200 kids who are roughly equivalent soccer-wise at 18 years old. Send 100 of them to play for four years at Bayern Munich, Wolfsburg, FC Salzburg, NY Red Bulls, LA Galaxy, FC Dallas, Barcelona, Schalke etc. Send the other 100 to play at D1 colleges for four years. Compare the two groups at 22 years old and you'll have significantly better players in the group that spent those crucial developmental years in a professional environment.

There are still thousands of American boys that play D1 college soccer. So the kids that are losing spots to foreign players are not as good as the kids who went pro at 17-18, and not as good as the thousands of kids who did get a spot on a D1 college roster. The reality is that if these kids weren't good enough to either go pro or get a spot on one of 205 D1 men's programs in this country, they were never going to make the national team, much less make an impact on the national team.

This is not how the development of elite soccer players works. NCAA soccer is a backup plan for those not good enough to progress through academies to first team contracts. "College experience" is a bad thing.[/quote]

Furthermore, how many of the elite soccer players are even playing high school soccer? Are there now two soccer tracks in the U.S.: the academic track, high school to college; and the sports track, academy/club to professional or other advanced club situation?

Interesting article from 2018.

It seems the pathway to play for the US Mens National Team is not really thru college...so yeah, what is happening is the academies, both in MLS and abroad are essentially taking any American player who shows any type of potential at the next level...leaving the colleges basically scrounging....and a previous poster said it best...you can get a "2nd tier" European player who is way better than a "2nd tier" American player, especially when talking 18 to 21 years old. The development and coaching is that much better in Europe.

https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/usmnt-news/2018/11/3/18057332/usa-usmnt-college-produce-most-players

None of that even matters because my second post makes the only point that REALLY matters.

Americans are buried with crippling student loan debt. These scholarships should be going to Americans, not international students.

I get the idea of a late bloomer, or a diamond in the rough. But you are out of touch with the development of American male soccer players now. We're almost at the point where if you're not good enough to play professionally at 18, you won't be good enough to play on the national team.