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

Just look at the map of the USA that you posted...Many states are hundreds and hundreds of miles from the nearest opportunity. How can you honestly say that Americans have plenty of chances to develop?

How the hell is a kid from Montana going to be as prepared as someone from Europe who has far more opportunities?

As I said, 30+ free academies in a country the size of the U.S. is not enough. Things have changed a lot for the better in the last 20 years, but nobody is arguing that we're equal to any major Euro country when it comes to developing soccer players. Hopefully, going forward you will start to see more academies, and more academies that pick up the cost so finances aren't an issue.

The fact of the matter is that the areas that don't have an elite boys club tend to be sparsely populated areas of the country, where there are going to be less soccer players in general and certainly less elite level players than in more densely populated areas.

I'm not suggesting this is for everyone, but read up on Clint Dempsey's story, or Caden Clark's. Dempsey had no elite club near him, so he played for a club that was a few hours away. It took great sacrifice by him and his parents, but it paid off for him. Clark is about to turn 18 and if you haven't heard of him yet you'll likely be hearing about him over the next few years. He's from Minnesota, but tried out for FC Dallas and ended up playing for the Barcelona Academy in Arizona, and then signing a professional contract with NY Red Bulls when he was 17. The point being that if your kid is good and really wants to play at the highest level, you and he may have to make some sacrifices.

https://www.socceramerica.com/publications/article/51994/clint-dempseys-diverse-childhood-soccer-experienc.html

https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/caden-clark-barcelona-trained-killer-mls-europe-by-storm/1hdtzd4ffc9srzo67xhcuujyi

rojo wrote:

The Chronicle of Higher Ed wrote:

You might get pissed off if 75% of the engineering students at a US university are foreign and you may hope that a US school will provide opportunities for American kids. But it's not the school's job to do that. It's job is to stay in business and if it believes having 75% of its engineering students be foreigners is in its best interests it gets to do that and it is providing opportunities for American kids. It's just providing more of them for foreign kids.

GREAT POINT.

It's actually a terrible point. It assumes the college's main job is to make the biggest profit possible. Do you want every school to be like Trump University?

If a university determines the best way to increase their profit is to double tuition, would you defend them doing that? A college's ultimate goal should be to educate citizens of the state and country that fund the school. NOT to make huge profits.

truth here wrote:

rojo wrote:

GREAT POINT.

It's actually a terrible point. It assumes the college's main job is to make the biggest profit possible. Do you want every school to be like Trump University?

If a university determines the best way to increase their profit is to double tuition, would you defend them doing that? A college's ultimate goal should be to educate citizens of the state and country that fund the school. NOT to make huge profits.

It is a terrible point. Your point is the essence of my original post. Be it education, in your rebuttal, or mine with university athletic programs, the historical funding and current funding of most universities (I would think) has come from Americans. Therefore, it is Americans that should be provided most of the opportunities from a system they have paid into.

Specifically, and back to the original post, in my opinion, it is not productive, fair, developmental etc., having the majority of a teams roster made up of athletes from other countries. Without knowing, I would guess if you have 25 foreign athletes on a 47 person roster (unbelievable number but true) the starting line up is predominately the foreign athletes. Why, because back when I was a foreign athlete (granted there very few on my team) we were the best on the team at our respective events.

The main function of all institutions becomes self preservation and perpetuation. Given that universities are institutions their primary function is self preservation. As the most common threat to that self preservation in the US is finances, it follows that the prime goal of a university will in fact be to maximize profits. However, institutions also have both stated and unstated functions. If a university were to acknowledge that it's prime goal is making as much money as it can so as to survive there would be general outrage which likely would translate to fewer applicants, (why would you go to a school that specifically says that educating you is not its prime goal), a drop in donations, significant pressure to remove its tax exempt status, and so on. By stating that survival is its prime goal a university would actually jeopardize its chances of doing so and they give their stated prime goal as the service they provide.

So no school is ever going to say its prime goal is making as much money as possible so it can continue to exist. But that won't change the goal, just what the school says its prime goal is. This is no different from virtually any business. Insurance companies are there to maximize profits but you only see commercials telling you how dedicated they are to your security because you wouldn't buy their policies if they said they're trying to make as much money as possible.

Universities charge what they can get for tuition. Doubling tuition would almost always be counterproductive because too few students would be willing to pay what it costs to go there and because the PR fallout would be devastating.. But if the school believed they'd get enough students with the doubled tuition and could survive the PR disaster many, probably most, would do it.

Here here. When I was a freshman running track in college we had another one who was a 21 year old Jamaican girl who had won the Olympic trials in her event. She didn’t have the standard so she couldn’t go, but you can’t really compete with that.

Tribe wrote:

I’ll go back to my tennis example - the USTA invests a lot of money in the USTA training center and a small handful of athletes. They pay stipends, coaches, provide facilities. But they have had arguably higher yield from the NCAA. US men’s tennis is at an all time low. If they invested that money in collegiate tennis with an agreement that schools emphasize American player development, it would be more cost effective than their current system.

This might be a good idea if you are trying to find the next Isner. Not so much if your goal is to find the next Sampras.

HRE wrote:

If TV ratings were dropping badly because Americans are not getting into the late rounds then that would be a concern. But there's no evidence of that happening. Tennis fans seem to want to see Nadal, Djokovic, Federer etc. in the semis and finals. Tennis fans seem to respond to players as individuals rather than as citizens. An American champion may or may not ad interest, viewers, and revenue.

TV ratings in the US were much higher back in 90s and early 2000s when Sampras and Agassi were playing in the finals.

truth here wrote:

That's why USA men's soccer can't qualify for the Olympics.

hit the nail on the head there, Erskine------- soccer olympiad is the second most prestigiousest SOCCER PLAY-OFFs there is (after WORLD SERIES) and it would be a god dang disgrace if we don't have any representation

Didn’t read the whole thread, but there is alot of misinformation on soccer development in the US that needs to be cleared up. College is no longer the primary path for either Olympic or professional development of American soccer players. Nearly all of the top tier US players develop in MLS academies like FC Dallas, or in overseas club academies like Borussia Dortmund. For example, the US currently has the most talent it ever has had playing in top flight European clubs. The US also has by far the most players it has ever had at the top European clubs. Barcelona, Juventus, Chelsea, Valencia, Roma, RB Leipzig, Dortmund, Manchester City all now have an American playing for them. Additionally there are players on top flight teams like Fulham, Wolfsburg, Bremen, Schalke, Boavista, Eindhoven, and Galatasaray. I can think of only one of those players that went to college (Zack Steffen, former Maryland Terp, now at Man City).

As to why the US missed the Olympics, it’s because none of the players from Europe were released to play in the Olympic Qualifying tournament, because it doesn’t occur during FIFA-sanctioned international match dates. Which is a shame, because nearly all of the US talent for those top clubs would qualify as U23’s.

And Zack Steffen only played 2 seasons of college soccer before turning pro.

As a member of Marshall University men’s track program in the 70s, there is a lot of irony in Marshall winning the 2020 National Soccer Championship. Back in 2003 Marshall had made the decision to cut men’s soccer program. However, a big coal donor came into the picture at the last minute and promised millions to build a new soccer facility. The Marshall athletic director at the time Bob Marcum took the big donor up on the offer and reversed his decision to cut soccer . Marshall decided to cut the men’s indoor and outdoor track programs instead.

TV ratings for nearly all sports have been dropping in recent years. And it's almost impossible to make a meaningful comparison between ratings from the 80s and 90s, no or little internet, many people still without cable, one sports network for those who did, and today.

If the US college system focused more on developing American talent, then those college players would be able to qualify us for the Olympics.

Instead schools only want to recruit international players. It's a damn shame.

truth here wrote:

If the US college system focused more on developing American talent, then those college players would be able to qualify us for the Olympics.

Instead schools only want to recruit international players. It's a damn shame.

No. The European academies (and now the MLS academies) start to develop players at a much earlier age. College is way too late to start developing soccer players. Until the MLS academies started pumping out talented 17 and 18 year olds, the rap on US players were that they were significantly behind their European peers.

And by the way, no one really cares that much about the Olympics in the men’s soccer world. The structure of the tournament means very few of the top teams participate, and most of the best players are not age-qualified (it’s a U23 tournament).

Women’s Olympic soccer is legit, though.

we aren't qualifying for the World Cup either.

But the truth is we aren't getting knocked out by just the bigger European countries, we are getting beaten out by tiny countries like Costa Rica, Panama and Tunisia.

Tall Tree wrote:

Without knowing, I would guess if you have 25 foreign athletes on a 47 person roster (unbelievable number but true) the starting line up is predominately the foreign athletes. Why, because back when I was a foreign athlete (granted there very few on my team) we were the best on the team at our respective events.

10 of 11 of Marshall’s starters in the final were foreigners and their one substitute was a foreigner.

Sprint42 wrote:

truth here wrote:

If the US college system focused more on developing American talent, then those college players would be able to qualify us for the Olympics.

Instead schools only want to recruit international players. It's a damn shame.

No. The European academies (and now the MLS academies) start to develop players at a much earlier age. College is way too late to start developing soccer players. Until the MLS academies started pumping out talented 17 and 18 year olds, the rap on US players were that they were significantly behind their European peers.

After looking a a few top University teams in the ACC and PAC-12 it is very clear most, if not all, if the plays have come up through the Academy system.

Also the is a couple of players each year on these top teams that get drafted by the MLS.

So I think, many of the comments around lack of development at the University level are misguided. Obviously if a player in the Academy system is incredibly good and well above others his age he will get offers to go pro early. That doesn’t mean he and his parents would agree to such. An University education in the US may be more coveted and provide a fallback incase a kid who throws everything at pro soccer doesn't make it, gets injured, body doesn’t grow, gets burnt out etc.

I think there are so many options in the USA, versus other countries, to reach ones goals.