For Men's soccer to thrive in the US does Men's college soccer need to be improved?

[Tbonewannabe]

Women's soccer is pretty much at most Div 1 colleges but Men's soccer is on par with wrestling or some other low level sport. The women's team is the best in the world. College sports are so important to most other sports in the US.

[starkvegasdawg]

It just needs to not be boring as hell.

[Dawgowar]

Women's soccer is pretty much at most Div 1 colleges but Men's soccer is on par with wrestling or some other low level sport. The women's team is the best in the world. College sports are so important to most other sports in the US.

The opposite. The NCAA programs slow down our rising stars from going to European leagues to get real experience. The NCAA does not remotely translate into the higher levels of the game and never will. MLS has to commit to developing youth and offering academic incentives to the U-17 crowd and below. Otherwise a rising talent will take a college scholarship instead of continuing to improve his game.

Our best should be under pro-contracts at 16. Preferably at European clubs where the youth coaches know what they are doing.

MLS has a good business model but it has years to go to be competitive.

Best players to Europe - period.

[Todd4State]

I say we get the best players in the world to become U.S. citizens by paying them a lot of money to play on our National Team. That should fix it.

It's not like it's unheard of for people to immigrate to the U.S. and we are the country that came up with the Drea
Team so it's feasible. And as Ole Miss has shown you can get anyone to join you if you pay them enough and give them good enough perks.

[ShotgunDawg]

Great thinking Todd. We could name Calapari our coach as well and just tell him to go get the best players.

[Dawg61]

I think it only takes the EPL letting us have two teams in their league. You give us a New York or Boston vs Manchester United and the entire country will start watching soccer more. Since we are giving them the London Jaguars I think it's only fair to give us a spot or two in the EPL.

[Tbonewannabe]

The opposite. The NCAA programs slow down our rising stars from going to European leagues to get real experience. The NCAA does not remotely translate into the higher levels of the game and never will. MLS has to commit to developing youth and offering academic incentives to the U-17 crowd and below. Otherwise a rising talent will take a college scholarship instead of continuing to improve his game.

Our best should be under pro-contracts at 16. Preferably at European clubs where the youth coaches know what they are doing.

MLS has a good business model but it has years to go to be competitive.

Best players to Europe - period.

Klinsman actually said this same thing in an interview I read. He compared our soccer in the US to European basketball. The best basketball players in the world play in the NBA but then go back to their country for their National teams.

[scottycameron]

Why would anybody want it to? Don't we already have enough foreign crap on tv to take away from college baseball and football? You want to kickstart jai alai and cricket over here too? There was just a thread on here about ESPN carrying some bullfrog sport on their network.

[AROB44]

It just needs to not be boring as hell.

+1000

[RocketDawg]

To answer your question, yes, we'd have to improve men's soccer at the college level, and interest in it. I don't really think that will happen at the Div I level.

Some years ago, UAH and Alabama A&M both had really good soccer teams, with A&M the best. I actually went to the game when they played each other, and it was quite exciting, although I didn't, and still don't, know the rules. I think the only soccer matches I've watched in the last 20 years was when the US Women's team was doing so well in the '90s.

Gotta agree that it's pretty boring.

[smootness]

The opposite. The NCAA programs slow down our rising stars from going to European leagues to get real experience. The NCAA does not remotely translate into the higher levels of the game and never will. MLS has to commit to developing youth and offering academic incentives to the U-17 crowd and below. Otherwise a rising talent will take a college scholarship instead of continuing to improve his game.

Our best should be under pro-contracts at 16. Preferably at European clubs where the youth coaches know what they are doing.

MLS has a good business model but it has years to go to be competitive.

Best players to Europe - period.

Nailed it. Improving college soccer will have 0 impact on the level of the national team.

[ShotgunDawg]

Nailed it. Improving college soccer will have 0 impact on the level of the national team.

Gonna disagree. Short term, you are absolutely correct, but over the course of 20 years or so, there will be so many more qualified fathers and amateur coaches to teach the game at a higher level. With more male soccer players, there will be more qualified coaches to teach 5-15 year olds how to play and that will lead to more 16 year olds signing on to play in Europe. Short terms, it will have no impact, but long term, the impact would be huge