Jürgen Klinsmann references where priorities in youth sports - specifically soccer - sits in comparison to other parts of the world.
Has the sport finally resonated with the people of the United States? Has soccer arrived to stay in the USA?
Jürgen Klinsmann, who was working for ESPN’s analysis team, had some very interesting points the following day.
Klinsmann said our team was lacking the “first-touch” ability and the few great players we have just didn’t play great.
The former German striker compared the sport of soccer globally with the sport of basketball, here in the United States.
Soccer is a lower class sport around the world and that’s where a large number of the superstars come from, he said.
The players that are strong at a technical level sometimes also have that hunger to be great, to get out of whatever environment in which they reside.
While this may seem backward from our normal way of thinking, Klinsmann says we (the United States) are alone in the way we conduct our sports programs — from youth up to the high school and college level.
“You are the only country in the world that has the pyramid upside down,” he said during the telecast. “It means, you pay for having your kid play soccer because your goal is not that your kid becomes a professional soccer player. Your goal is that the kid gets a scholarship into high school or college, which is completely opposite from the rest of the world.”
Klinsmann isn’t an outsider. He’s resided in the United States for the pasr 12 years.
You can substitute Klinsmann saying the word soccer for any other sport in the United States because hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent every year for kids to play organized sports.
Playing any sport purely with the hopes of “making it big” is not only foolish, but it’s also unrealistic.
“I say it to parents and I say it to my players, ‘If you’re playing the sport for a scholarship, you’re making a mistake,’” Troy High football coach Jack Burger said. “’If you’re playing it to stay in shape, to make friendships, to possibly continue to play at the college level, that’s probably a realistic aspiration.’”
While Klinsmann used the examples of soccer and basketball to invoke the upside down pyramid idea, that comparison can be made to any sport in which parents pay large amounts of money, in hopes that there is an economic return in the end for them or their children.
Has the sport finally resonated with the people of the United States? Has soccer arrived to stay in the USA?
Jürgen Klinsmann, who was working for ESPN’s analysis team, had some very interesting points the following day.
Klinsmann said our team was lacking the “first-touch” ability and the few great players we have just didn’t play great.
The former German striker compared the sport of soccer globally with the sport of basketball, here in the United States.
Soccer is a lower class sport around the world and that’s where a large number of the superstars come from, he said.
The players that are strong at a technical level sometimes also have that hunger to be great, to get out of whatever environment in which they reside.
While this may seem backward from our normal way of thinking, Klinsmann says we (the United States) are alone in the way we conduct our sports programs — from youth up to the high school and college level.
“You are the only country in the world that has the pyramid upside down,” he said during the telecast. “It means, you pay for having your kid play soccer because your goal is not that your kid becomes a professional soccer player. Your goal is that the kid gets a scholarship into high school or college, which is completely opposite from the rest of the world.”
Klinsmann isn’t an outsider. He’s resided in the United States for the pasr 12 years.
You can substitute Klinsmann saying the word soccer for any other sport in the United States because hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent every year for kids to play organized sports.
Playing any sport purely with the hopes of “making it big” is not only foolish, but it’s also unrealistic.
“I say it to parents and I say it to my players, ‘If you’re playing the sport for a scholarship, you’re making a mistake,’” Troy High football coach Jack Burger said. “’If you’re playing it to stay in shape, to make friendships, to possibly continue to play at the college level, that’s probably a realistic aspiration.’”
While Klinsmann used the examples of soccer and basketball to invoke the upside down pyramid idea, that comparison can be made to any sport in which parents pay large amounts of money, in hopes that there is an economic return in the end for them or their children.
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