The US....

[The Federalist Engineer]

speaking of the development of young players, the pool for players in the US is small because of the way the Olympic Development Program is set up.

To have the skills necessary to play ODP soccer and eventually ascend to the USNT, a player will have to been trained at a Local Soccer club. My experience with rec soccer is that most
Of The coaches have no clue. They don't teach fundamentals (proper dribbling, trapping, striking the ball). They teach wrong tactics. They put their backs on the 18 and tell them to stay there. Etc etc.

So to get the coaching necessary to be an ODP and keep Up with all the other kids, you have to play club soccer. This will cost parents anywhere from $1000-$2000 per year depending on how much their particular team travels. Once a player has been trained properly, they can attend their state tryouts for ODP. If you make your state ODP team, this will cost you a few hundred bucks in fees and about another $700 mid summer if you want to go to ODP camp. If you make it to a regional team, the expenses go up.

I don't know if it will work but US Youth Soccer will need a boat load of sponsorship money to fund inner city and rural leagues with proper coaching that could train a larger pool of kids to prepare them for ODP and fund those less fortunate kids all the way through the ODP program.

These $ amounts are peanuts compared to elite Baseball and Hockey. The US team just lacks true game changing players, they have decent players. CONCACAF is a much better league than it has ever been. Panama, Costa Rica, and Honduras could beat anybody in the world. Honduras at home fights like tigers. Even Jamaica is ok.

The only gimme games in CONCACAF are the tiny Caribbean resort islands. Team USA in 1990, 1998, and 2006 would not have qualified against this competition either.

You mention ODP...ODP Sucks