Christian Pulisic wrote a Players Tribune article just weeks after the United States Men’s National Time found out they would not be making the World Cup. Pulisic has been described as the future of United States soccer and as a wonderboy, a prodigy. While in this article he denies that he is a special talent compared to other American soccer players, it is very much the case that he will be the face of the team for the foreseeable future. Pulisic attributes his success not to his natural born talent that has been hyped up by the media and American soccer fans, but rather to his Croatian passport and his dual citizenship. He says that there are many other American soccer players who are more talented than him, but the opportunity he had to play in Europe at the age of 16 in the Dortmund academy shaped him into the player he is today.
While Pulisic was able to leave America to play soccer at the age of 16, other Americans have to wait until they are 18 to play in a European Union country. These two years that other American players miss out on are crucial to their development. Pulisic says that the ages between 16-18 is the time “where a player’s growth and skill sort of intersect, in just the right way – and where, with the right direction, a player can make their biggest leap in development by far.” Because Pulisic was able to begin playing in Dortmund’s academy at a younger age, he received this “right direction” where he was able to become the star that he is today.
Pulisic argues that the problem with American soccer has nothing to do with not having enough talent, but rather that the United States does not develop its talent in the right way. Factors as simple as American clubs giving preferential treatment to its top players can stunt those players’ growth in their most formative years and lead to them not being able to perform at the highest level. For the United States to truly succeed at the national level, something needs to be changed with the current system of player development. Other nations are taking advantage of that two year gap in development and leaving US Soccer in the dust (or just out of the World Cup). While this could be a full change in the system, it is crucial to American success. With the right training, maybe four years from now the United States will have multiple players at the same level as Christian Pulisic.
Link to Article:
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/christian-pulisic-usmnt-world-cup
That’s a very interesting fact that I never knew. This is a simple rule that could have a huge impact on helping American soccer if it were eliminated. It is rules like this which are so blatantly hurting our youth teams that make me question whether the USSF truly has the sport’s interest at heart and not just money. Eliminating this rule would be logistically simple compared to other solution people have called for to fix the MLS and national team and would have a significant impact within the next four years where we could see talents arise and debut at the World Cup alongside a more experienced and talented Pulisic in 2022. It’s clear that whatever we’re doing now isn’t working and we need to reevaluate every aspect of the system in place. It seems that this is a critical failure of the system in developing our players that should be eliminated quickly or else we may see a repeat of 2018 for the USMNT come 2022.
That’s pretty humbling of Pulisic to write and he makes a valuable point. I guess the question is, how can we get more youth soccer stars to quickly acquire dual citizenship? (Not really.) The real question is, how can we create better youth development programs? It’s sort of this never ending circular problem. If the MLS were more prominent, more US kids would be interested in soccer and want to play here, which would then advance the youth development programs. But how does the MLS become more prominent? It could bring in outside stars (which hasn’t really been working) or focus on homegrown players. To focus on homegrown players requires good youth development programs. See where this gets hard. I’m not sure how this gets solved. I think someone is going to have to take the initial risk. Someone is going to have to invest in youth programs and hope they work out.