Youth soccer in the United States has been rapidly growing for years now ranking first in popularity among all youth sports. People love it due to its simplicity and limited barrier to entry. Price used to be included in this however for years now kids in the United States that want to play at the highest level have to pay as much as 10,000$ a year and this doesn’t even include college recruitment costs.
Since America is most known for their prestigious university status, student athletes tend to follow the path of the college recruitment process, from there less than 2% make it to the professional level. However, with the massive increase of popularity in the, to even get noticed by colleges now is very difficult. I was able to speak with ex University of Washington and Professional soccer player Edward A. Henderson, thinks good players now have a lack of opportunity.
“Colleges back then, they had in their budget to go out and see a couple players,” Henderson said, “Now days kids are much better than we were, so there are fewer special players.”
Today talented kids who want to play college now must mass email schools and pay to attend ID Camps to get good looks from college scouts. With all these steps many kids get priced out along the way. Henderson grew up in Seattle playing rec and club soccer locally.
“It was very much a pay to play model, but not like how it is now, it was much more affordable.” Henderson said, “If I were born now, my parents couldn’t afford the fees.”
This is a massive issue facing our youth talent, as now of the few players that make it pro, most are found in the MLS Next league. This is the United States’ closest equivalent of pro academies
in the United Kingdom, however only 29 of them are directly linked with MLS teams. While to be on an MLS Next team is a very minimal fee, travel expenses can be very heavy. With most states having two or less MLS Next teams, so if there’s an away game, it’s almost a guarantee you’ll have to book plane tickets. As opposed to this in the United Kingdom there are 92 professional teams with directly linked academies. Ex Wolverhampton Wanderers and Shrewsbury Town (UK) academy player Gareth Vaughan had a very different experience with travel.
“Travel for us was probably anywhere between five and fifteen miles” Vaughan said, “If we had to travel any further than twenty miles, we’d consider that very far.”
As well through these academies there’s a much clearer path to go professionally, as college typically isn’t involved with high levels of soccer in the UK.
“People [in the US] are looking to not only play soccer but, the educational part too.” Vaughansaid, “In the UK, there’s no education involved with soccer that’ll get you to the professional ranks.” Overall, there seems to be completely different mentalities for young adults in the US and the UK in terms of why they are playing. In America the drive to go pro is not as do or die as these players have their education to lean back on which can lead to a different successful career. While as in the UK many of these academy players are sacrificing years, where they could be in school to try and break into the professional ranks where they can build a career out of it.
