My opinion about the deficits in US Soccer and where this is head in the future:
(My background: I coached travel league and has children in the US Development Academies [the DA] which wassubsidized and organized by USSF -- the highest levels of US Soccer).
1. Much has been said about Pay-to-Play in the USA and that being the reason why the USA skill level is poor, but I disagree...
2. Europe has a similar fee structure for much of club level ball, and the truly talented kids DO get free rides in Europe, but they also get free rides in the US at the highest levels. For instance, if you're with the Chicago Fire's club, you don't pay.
3. I pulled my kids out of the DA structure not because it was expensive, but because it was too demanding (5 nights a week, 3 hours after school, 1 hour drive each way). But the DA fee was small, all travel was paid for (the club had their own luxury bus), all hotel, all food, and the bus maintained 5 hours of quiet time for school studies. I elected to pay more for a Non-DA club for lesser demands.
4. People also say it's the lack of soccer culture in the US. This is maybe 20% right, but I'll get back to that in a second. Someone needs to explain why Portugal with 10m people has a team filled with superstars and can fill a second team with stars, while Brazil with 200m is struggling to produce top players at the world level. Is it because Brazil lacks a soccer culture? No. is it because kids don't play street soccer in Brazil? No. So...?
5. The European academies are more rigorous than those anywhere ele in the world. You go in at a very young age, 7 or 8, and then you have a couple hours of school in the morning, and for the rest of the day, you train in soccer. Soccer is your career from the age of 7. Sure, you can be given the heave ho from the academy when you're 12 or 13. But this is a highly dedicated and rigorous structure which the USA simply does not have. THIS IS REASON #1 why the US is behind. And that goes for Brazil as well, though they do have rigorous academies, they just don't have the resources the Europeans do.
6. Outside of immigrant communities, there is no buy in from urban communities, where many of our most talented athletes reside. I have tried in 2 different cities to grow the sport by arranging volunteer drivers to pick kids up, helping secure funding to pay outstanding coaches, and my direct experience is that soccer does not win hearts and minds the way that basketball does, and to a lesser extent, American football. We could not get kids interested even when it was free and they had rides. Top basketball players devote themselves to the sport at a very young age, and many kids are willing to do that. Not for soccer though in urban locales. This is the BIGGEST REASON why we lag. So when people say we have poor soccer culture, it's that we don't have hat buy-in from our best athletes. And that's OK!
I also don't want to hear about people talking about a lack of understanding of the sport. We have 7 Premier League players out there, top scorers from Ligue 1 in France and Serie A in Italy. Another several are starters in Spain. 4 in the Bundesliga. These are contributing players who know how to play in the world's top leagues. Our coach once finished 2nd in worldwide voting for best coach. We know how to play. Were the tactics we used wrong? Well, yes. The US Men's team chose an attacking style which maximized their chances of getting out of the group stage. But adopting that style against a more highly skilled team in Belgium was ludicrous, and I think Pochettino reckoned he would keep his reputation by emphasizing group stage play over a more defensive framework which could have more success in latter stages.
