07/07/2026
Last night was a heartbreaker, but I saw it coming. We are still not at the level of the top soccer countries, and may never be. I have been watching soccer on all levels for a very long time, from four-year-olds to professional. The stagnation is real in our nation, the mis-applied hype is real. It’s as real as Freese’s foot scuffing the turf the way a child would. As real as scoring a beautiful free kick, only to concede seconds later by subpar defending.
People ask me: why do you love the sport so much? Well, I reply that the game is my first and eternal love. It was first, will be last, and is everything in-between. To me, the beautiful game is my beautiful woman. And the great thing is that it will always be there in its many forms and its ups and downs. Is it an obsession, an addiction? Most likely, as beauty and love can be both.
But I’m not here to argue and defend the sport I love so dearly. But I would like to say a couple important things.
First, this World Cup has brought a lot to our nation. It’s something we needed and other nations needed for a long time. Yes there are politics, and yes there are power and greed agendas all over the globe. But what has happened in this tournament is rejuvenating and refreshing. To see people come together from all across the world and celebrate: that is priceless. I’ve seen posts that say that the World Cup has done more than our politicians and ambassadors. I think it has. There has been a buzz and belief in people that I have not seen for a long time. It’s a shame that we will have to wait another 25-40 years for another World Cup to come to our nation. Yet that is the format. There have been whisperings of a two year cycle, and I would totally embrace it.
I see another people say that “OuR beSt AthLeteS PlaY otHeR SpoRTs". It may be true, and probably is. However, we have 350 million people in this country. Belgium and Portugal have 11 million each. We have plenty of athletes to go around in my eyes. The biggest issues that I believe kill this are:
1: Pay to play
The cost of quality coaching and development is too high and puts money first. It sees youth as short term revenue instead of long term investment. I’ve personally seen this and it must change in order for the sport to blossom and grow.
2: Geography
The USA is very spread out. To travel to gather and play on both a social/recreational and competitive level is too big of a hurdle. You can make high quality soccer free, but who is shuttling these kids to practice 3x a week? Also who are the best kids in an area going to play when the next large city is four hours away?
There is a reason US soccer sporting director Matt Crocker left to go to Saudi Arabia one month before the World Cup. He was here long enough to realize there are real, almost insurmountable problems to fixing soccer in this country. There is no baseline grass root through pro, league structure to work with. We are trying to build it backwards.
This isn't just a soccer problem, it is going to become more obvious when it happens to sports we currently dominate. Most notably will be basketball. We are going to see other smaller countries catch and surpass the USA. We have already seen how quickly they caught up to women's soccer.
Will Pochettino resign? Most likely. Like Matt Crocker, he sees the pig with lipstick. He sees the problems that are plaguing this nation to grow with the sport. And that is a shame.
So how do we go forward? One word: community. Communities are where this sport will flourish and grow. Make soccer accessible to all levels of socio-economic peoples. Through the communities we can then make a more national standards
and have real expectations for our nation instead of “hoping” that our national teams bring their A-game.
This is not an easy fix, and I don’t really know if it will ever be fixed. But I can say that I do have hope for this nation and for the beautiful game.
* 🎤drop
