Tom Butler

@FA & @USsoccer_coach Licensed | @SEsoccerclubCT Coach & DOO | @Nike Member | @YorkStJohn Graduate | @HullCity & @PepTeam Fan | Plant Based | “It’s Our Ball”

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

8 minutes.

That’s how long it took after the final whistle for this to land in my inbox:

“🇪🇸 Champions of the World. Train Where Champions Are Made.”

Jump on that Soccer Tours money train!

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

And this 👇🏼

[Dan Wetzel @DanWetzel]

Pay to play. Travel over training. An incentive to coddle not coach.

Youth soccer is broken in America, the USMNT keeps proving it true.

Column for @espn

https://t.co/CMvJrLKnHY

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

And this 👇🏼

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.

US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.

So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.

Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.

Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.

They will not.

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

This 👇🏼

[Sam Mahmood @TheSammahmood_]

The U.S. soccer federation is a poor return on invested capital.

I played soccer for 20+ years.

Grassroots.
Academy.
D1 college.
Pursued professionally after.

And I’ll say the quiet part out loud:

The US soccer infrastructure is broken.

In America, we treat playing D1 soccer like it is the peak achievement.

For most families, clubs, coaches, and players, the entire youth soccer machine is built around one goal:

Get recruited.
Get a scholarship.
Play college soccer.

But if the objective is to produce world-class players, D1 soccer is a terrible development path.

From 18-22, some of the most important technical development years of your career, you are preparing for a 3-4 month season built largely around athleticism, direct play, set pieces, fitness, and survival.

Now compare that to an 18-year-old in Spain, Argentina, Morocco, Italy, England, or France.

That player has likely been in a professional environment for years.

Training daily.
Playing meaningful matches year-round.
Competing against grown professionals.
Getting thousands more touches.
Learning how to solve the game under pressure.

The gap is massive.

And it shows.

American players are usually athletic.
They are usually fit.
They usually compete hard.

But at the highest levels, that is not enough.

The biggest difference is technical comfort.

We do not move the ball like Spain.
We do not combine like Argentina.
We do not play with the same fluidity, rhythm, and confidence you see from countries where the game is embedded into the culture from childhood.

That comes down to volume.

Volume of touches.
Volume of street soccer.
Volume of futsal.
Volume of unstructured play.
Volume of high-level training environments.
Volume of meaningful games.

In the US, youth soccer is expensive, overly organized, overly coached, tournament-driven, and too often built around winning games at 13 instead of developing players for 23.

Parents spend thousands.
Clubs charge thousands.
Travel teams fly all over the country.
Showcases become the product.
Recruiting becomes the scoreboard.

But the return on invested capital is poor.

We probably spend more money on youth soccer than almost any country in the world, yet the technical output does not match the investment.

That is a broken operating model.

And like any business, if the output is weak, you do not blame the customer.

You inspect the system.

The US has talent.
The US has athletes.
The US has money.
The US has facilities.

But the foundation is wrong.

We built a pay-to-play, college-recruiting machine and confused it for a world-class player development system.

Those are not the same thing.

Until we fix the grassroots layer, increase meaningful touches, make development less dependent on family income, and stop treating college soccer as the top of the mountain, the US will keep underperforming relative to its resources.

I’m not saying this to trash US Soccer.

I’m saying it because I lived it.

And if we actually want to become a powerhouse, we have to be honest about the infrastructure first.

[Premier League @premierleague]

Welcome back, @HullCity 🐯

Congratulations on promotion to the Premier League!

[Hull City @HullCity]

WE ARE HULL CITY. WE ARE PREMIER LEAGUE!

#hcafc

[Southeast Soccer Club @SEsoccerclubCT]

𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐖𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐄

Where passion meets purpose.
Where players become more than athletes.
Welcome to Southeast Soccer Club.

#SSCPride | @NEFC_US

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

26/27 Team Selection.

Earned. Not given.

#SSCPride

[Southeast Soccer Club @SEsoccerclubCT]

𝐑𝐄𝐆𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍

Registration for our 26/27 Team Selection Events is now OPEN.

Take the next step with SSC & get in front of our coaches in an environment built to challenge, develop & compete.

𝑹𝑬𝑮𝑰𝑺𝑻𝑹𝑨𝑻𝑰𝑶𝑵: https://t.co/iccMYyadcO

#SSCPride

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

Performed with their team.
Invited to train with the best.
Returned to us with renewed drive.

One of the many positives of the partnership between @SEsoccerclubCT & @NEFC_US.

#SSCPride

[Southeast Soccer Club @SEsoccerclubCT]

𝐈𝐍𝐕𝐈𝐓��𝐃

Congratulations to the 7 boys invited to attend this weeks @NEFC_US @MLSNEXT Homegrown practices as a result of their outstanding performance & development so far this year.

#SSCPride

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

“Show me your circle & I’ll show you your future.”

Grateful to be in rooms like this with such knowledgable, inspiring & genuine people.

@NEFC_US 🤝 @SEsoccerclubCT

[Southeast Soccer Club @SEsoccerclubCT]

𝐂𝐎𝐀𝐂𝐇 𝐄𝐃𝐔𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

Several members of our coaching staff visited club partners @NEFC_US this week for a high-level day of professional development.

📝 C.A.R. & K.I.S.S.S principles
⚽️ ft. @MLSNEXT 2012 Boys
🩻 Recovery Modalities ft. @MassGenBrigham

#SSCPride

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

New season.
New ideas.
New faces.
New challenges.
Same philosophy: “𝙄𝙩’𝙨 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙗𝙖𝙡𝙡”
___

#SSCPride | @SEsoccerclubCT

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

As the fall season ends, many clubs focus on “supplemental tryouts” & “ID sessions.”

What if the same energy spent adding new players went into developing their existing players.

A reflection of an oversaturated market or just today’s youth soccer reality?

Interesting.

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

It’s not men’s football.
It’s not women’s football.
It’s just football.
And it’s coming home… again. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏆

#Lionesses

[Lionesses @Lionesses]

History, written again by the #Lionesses. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏆

[Southeast Soccer Club @SEsoccerclubCT]

𝐑𝐔𝐍 𝐓𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑

Lace up those sneakers tomorrow, 6/20 to unite with the @ECWSOC family & “Run to Remember” the memory of #18, Shelby Olsen.

#SSCPride | #RunToRememberShelby

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

24/25 season. Done.

#SSCPride | @SEsoccerclubCT

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

Observations from this weekends games:

#YouthSoccer

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

🤯🤯🤯

[Kyle Wilson @HappySoccerGuy]

Who can honestly comprehend this picture?

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

A weekend of ups & downs.
Up & down New England.
Ups & downs on the field.
Ups & downs in the weather.

The real test? Stay grounded. Not getting too high with the highs or too low with the lows.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

#SSCPride | @SEsoccerclubCT

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

It’s tryout season & the decisions go both ways. Players have choices to make too, not just the coaches. Some thoughts…

[Tom Butler @CoachTomButler]

@paulspacey