Sean Ryan

[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.

[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.

[FOX Soccer @FOXSoccer]

After becoming the smallest nation ever to advance to the Knockout Stage of a FIFA World Cup, Cape Verde was welcomed home with a parade in the nation's capital 🇨🇻

(via @liberta___depre)

[NBC Sports Soccer @NBCSportsSoccer]

A TROPHY LIFT 22 YEARS IN THE MAKING. ARSENAL ARE FINALLY PREMIER LEAGUE CHAMPIONS AGAIN. 🔥

[afcstuff @afcstuff]

📲 Mikel Merino on Instagram, of Win, Arsenal’s chocolate Labrador, enjoying the title celebrations. ❤️‍🔥🐶

[afcstuff @afcstuff]

OUTSIDE THE EMIRATES STADIUM AT 1AM AT NIGHT RIGHT NOW. INSANE. 🤯❤️‍🔥

🎥 @Bxshhyy

[afcstuff @afcstuff]

THAT MOMENT. ❤️‍🔥🏆

[Jordie @jordiebarstool]

It's crazy to think the Italians from Kicking & Screaming never qualified to play in a World Cup

[InAllKindsOfWeather.com @AllKindsWeather]

I was born into a Gator family. I’ve bled 🔶🔷 since birth. And I love most of #GatorNation like an extended family.

But if I may, one critique…

I think we as a fanbase should have done a better job celebrating and cherishing last year’s natty. We enjoyed it for maybe 24 hours or so, and then it was right onto who was coming back, who would we get in the portal, etc. and immediately placing our thoughts onto next year.

We have Todd Golden and his staff to do that. That’s their job. We as fans should have exerted more energy reliving, reminiscing and just plain enjoying the memories of that unforgettable ride.

Sure, there would come a time for us to move on and think about next year— but next year was always going to come. That’s how calendars work. Life moves sequentially and those things you look forward to and/or worry about for so long will come either way.

We had an unforgettable run in 2025. Magic carpet rides like that don’t come around very often. Hell, there’s a reason Kentucky only has eight national titles, and Connecticut and North Carolina only have six. It’s the same reason only a handful of teams have ever won back to back natties. Nobody wins it every year, or every other year, or even once every ten years that they’ve been around.

And hell… look at Gonzaga, Houston, and Purdue. Some teams, and some really good basketball programs, never do win it all. Like ever.

We had that one shining moment last year. We’ll always have it in our memory banks. But maybe the next time we’re fortunate enough to see Florida win a national championship in a major sport, we’ll keep it at the front of our minds for a lot longer.

[NFL @NFL]

Mike Vrabel thanks @Patriots fans for their support as the team arrives home ❤️ (via @JoeGiza, @wbz)

[Joe Giza @JoeGiza]

📹 Mike Vrabel comes over to see the fans who welcomed the Patriots back to Foxboro @wbz

[Carlos A. Lopez @LosTalksPats]

Patriots until the day I die.

Thank you all so much for following along this season! 💙❤️

[New England Patriots @Patriots]

Coaches of the Year 🙂‍↕️

[Mike From Woburn @MikeFromWoburn]

Bill Polian was Bills GM, lost 3 straight Superbowls & was fired. The 1st Loss was due to a Bill Belichick D game plan that is already in the HOF.
He was Colts GM where his team was repeatedly embarrassed by Belichick's Patriots & had the rules changed.
He's a bitter sore loser.

[Grant Paulsen @GrantPaulsen]

This is going to sound like a hot take for social media. I apologize for that in advance. But, it's just correct.

If you voted against Bill Belichick getting into the Hall of Fame, you should lose your vote. You should never get another one. You don't belong. There are capable people waiting in the wings; you lost your privilege.

[New England Patriots @Patriots]

THE NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL!!!!!

[NFL on ESPN @ESPNNFL]

New England is headed to their 12th Super Bowl in franchise history 😳

The most all-time in NFL history 🔥

[Julian Edelman @Edelman11]

Gritty win. Injuries everywhere. Down late. Need these type of games before January.

[MLFootball @MLFootball]

MIKE VRABEL POSTGAME 💀💀💀

Vrabel greeted every player heading into the locker room, yelling, “NFC South champs! NFC South champs!!!”

New England swept the entire NFC South division: Tampa Bay, Carolina, New Orleans, and Atlanta

DAMN.

[Savage @Savageboston]

Wow. This is so awesome. 🥲

🎥: TikTok/MaryIsBananas