100 Years of Soccer in America: The Official Book of the US Soccer Federation

For my Grandson for Christmas.

Grandchildren are into soccer and enjoy reading all about the sport they love. It is important to be knowledgeable about things your interested in.

While the book is a nice idea, the writing style is dry. The bios of the players are factual, graduate here, earned honors there and don't capture the spirit of the player.

This is a must-have book for any soccer fan or fan of soccer history. Great photos & information about the early hsitory of soccer in America.

This book was a gift to my soccer loving family and everyone of them from the oldest to the youngest absolutely loved it!!!!

I purchased this book for my granddaughter. She absolutely loves it. She is an excellent soccer player and loves all things soccer.

Was a gift. Receiver loved it

The game in this country will never produce truly great players for the simple reason that the most important component in youth development framework - selection of talent is entirely absent. Youth soccer in America is a lucrative business controlled by the elected boards consisting of people with no understanding or appreciation of the game involved on their roles to satisfy their inflated egos, coached y randomly chosen coaches. Players pay to play the game. Youth soccer associations all over the country represent closed systems not accountable to anybody, self-perpetuating cliques dependent on sheer numbers. Parents are paying customers, coaches operate in an atmosphere of political correctness taken to the extreme - criticism is discouraged for the very simple reason that disgruntled parents will take their children elsewhere thus depleting the revenue. About a decade ago a prominent Portuguese coach was hired by the USSF to assess the state of youth soccer and make his recommendations. That coach served as Ferguson's assistant at Manchester United and had made a vital contribution to the development of Portuguese youth soccer system. The report was called Project 2000 and is still available on the web. The cover page of the report has the famous photo of Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon surface. That was not accidental; the effort to radically transform the game here would be in some ways commensurate with putting a man on the moon. Today the game is dominated by a combination of groupthink and complacency and politicized beyond control. Whistle blowers are quickly shown the door; even the majority of former players with solid credentials immediately adapt to the system shedding all vestiges of professional honesty and integrity. The motto is - keep everyone happy. Then there is the stubborn insistence on doing things "our way". Well, one only has to research the development of basketball in Europe. They spent decades learning from the best available standard - the NBA, never aspiring to reinvent the wheel, they were humble and patient students, and those qualities have proved indispensable for their eventual success. The best talent for the financial colossus - the EPL is provided by players from South America, Europe, and Africa. Young talented players don't come from the environments boasting manicured lawns and managed by administrators parading in designer Adidas gear. The only answer for the genuine establishment of viable youth soccer development is a federal funded national program with regional centers for excellence in which the most rigorous standards would be applied on a daily basis. This country has probably the best infrastructure for youth soccer worldwide and a tremendous pool of athletic talent. Change is always painful, but without courage there's no vision. Today's large involvement numbers will never produce quality, there are ample examples of empirical nature the corroborate this. In the meantime, youth clubs will continue to mushroom reflecting deft marketing by those who study demographics and descend on new suburban developments with their proposals. And on any given day one will continue to witness coaches with clipboards educating seven-year-olds in subtleties of pressing, getting wide, overlapping, and suchlike nonsense. And they will continue to look for one magic drill that will solve all their problems. Those coaching older youths complain that their players have problems with finishing, and yet hardly allocate more than 15 minutes a week to training this component of the game in any coherent fashion. Hopefully, there'll be awakening, after all this country is unique at innovation and bold, unconventional solutions in problem solving.