Article in the Star

There were an article on Wed. July 30 in the Kansas City Star Newspaper, talking about soccer. I thought I will comment a little....
(title)
Soccer players driven by dreams

The American market is huge for soccer. There are 4 millions registered male players. While these kids are often clumsily trained and lack creativity by Europeans standards, there are nearly as many of them as there are people in Ireland.

In their view, the U.S. system of developing players is broken. It is oriented around affluent, suburban teams supported by parents and organized clubs. They are puzzled by the emphasis on winning trophies and make money.

The system is based on who can afford to pay for their kids. We have some organizations that make a huge profit and don’t give anything to the kids. FC Porto is club at Johnson County, who believe in teaching core skills above all else and give scholarship to some of its players.

Why can Wizards sponsor scholarship? Why do we have to travel? With 4 millions of players, do we have enough talents? And it is not at 16 years old that you are going to develop a player but when they are 10. But until we get a sponsoring system that profit is not involve, clubs or organized programs will still emphasis on winning.