The U.S. is good at most sports; why can’t it be consistently excellent at soccer?
The world’s attention was focused for weeks on the recently concluded FIFA World Cup — a tournament for which the U.S. men’s team failed to qualify.
Why? That question has begun to permeate U.S. soccer’s feeder programs — youth soccer academies in which kids and their families pay to play.
In this part of Vermont, youth soccer players have a choice among pay-to-play academies. Prices can range from $700 to $3,000 per year, depending on age, skill level and location. Those fees often don’t include uniforms or any travel expenses.
Vermont United Soccer Academy is the newest and most local option; it views itself as an entryway to larger, more established organizations.
“We don’t go beyond age 14, so it’s truly a youth development club,” said Andrew Lafrenz, who coaches the academy’s under-12 girls team and is also the women’s soccer coach at Northern Vermont University-Johnson. “Then, if you feel that once you’re in high school and want to push to the next level, there are a number of outstanding clubs who develop older players and you’ve put the effort in and really honed your skills locally.”
The club just wrapped up its inaugural season. Brian Buczek, the Stowe High School boys soccer coach, established the organization so his children and other local kids had an opportunity to play the sport at a higher level. As these academies go, it’s relatively inexpensive: $1,250 per year, including uniforms.
To keep the price down, Buczek and his wife, Samantha, do all of the administrative work themselves. A volunteer operates the club’s website, and its teams compete only in in-state tournaments to limit travel costs.
Even so, $1,250 isn’t affordable for everyone.
“We did some back-end stuff to make sure that we don’t turn down anyone based off of their financial situation,” Buczek said. “We have some kids on full scholarships and partial scholarships, and kids who are helping out in other areas to help compensate for their expenses.
“We definitely have people who have not only paid their tuition, but they’ve gone ahead and given us a little more to put towards the scholarship fund.”
Ramp up the intensity
One of the more elite clubs in the state is Burlington-based Synergy FC, which was founded in 2005 by Hugh Brown. While it has many goals similar to VT United, its approach is exponentially more intense. Synergy is well known for its success in prestigious tournaments throughout the U.S., as well as producing professional-caliber players.
Synergy FC’s fees are rather steep for this area: $2,640 per year, no counting uniforms and the travel expenses needed to play in the aforementioned tournaments. But the club’s results speak for themselves, as 14 of its 50 players are currently on international professional contracts.
“We’re the only club in this state that is doing what is required to do if you are truly trying to develop players,’ Brown said. “I think that the Vermont market is actually more geared toward recreation. In Vermont, it’s almost a turn-off to people having to do soccer five days a week because they want to do other activities, and that’s not a problem, but it’s kind of pervasive in America.”
“You have to really, really maximize your time, and the training sessions need to be serious and purposeful.”
On the surface, the financial aspect is relatively similar to other youth sports. But soccer, at its core, should be one of the most inexpensive sports, considering equipment and facilities. The fact that soccer is inexpensive is a significant factor in its progression to being the most popular sport worldwide.
Synergy FC’s success in player development has led Brown to an innovative solution to alleviate the pay-to-play model. The vast majority of club soccer players in the U.S. graduate to college athletics, but as their overall skill has increased, professional teams, both foreign and domestic, have taken notice and are attempting to recruit them into their organization.
“Say if a European club likes one of our players and they talk to us about signing them, there’s no transfer fee, they’re not going to compensate us,” Brown said. “In fact, the U.S. Soccer Federation prohibits it and there’s a lawsuit underway as they try to transform this system.
“I would use that money to increase the infrastructure of Synergy, and if we kept selling players like that, then eventually we wouldn’t have to have anybody pay to play for us. We could take all of that money and put it back into our club.”
Why the cost?
So why is it so expensive to play youth soccer in the U.S., a country that has not been a powerhouse in the sport, while countries with fewer resources and smaller populations are routinely more successful at the highest level?
Is the U.S. reliance on the pay-to-play development model helping or hampering the development of players who dream to eventually represent their country?
Existing somewhere between the Vermont United Soccer Academy and Synergy FC is the Montpelier-based Capital Soccer Club, formed in 1999 by Peter Kim, who also coaches the Middlebury College women’s team.
Capital caters primarily to athletes in central Vermont. Its prices are competitive, ranging from $770 to $1,265 per year, depending on age, but like Synergy FC, expenses for uniforms and travel to out of state tournaments aren’t included.
Kim has traveled throughout Europe and South America to study different professional development systems.
“My biggest takeaway was about the cultures of those countries, as opposed to the methodology,” he said. “We need more recreational soccer, more places for informal soccer to happen, more pickup games, and I saw that there.
“If you want the game to grow, you need to cultivate local soccer. It’s about community. It’s about community in the rest of the world.
“I think that, if kids in this country spent as much time playing, even informally, as they do in the car, we would be much better at soccer. We get sold by the nice uniforms, we get sold by the championships.
“At the grassroots level, it belongs more to the kids and the players, and the more structured it gets, the more it belongs to the coaches and the parents who pay for it. I think we should be devoted to two things: what’s good for the game and what’s good for its players.
“Worry less about the standings and the money and focus on the communities and the people and the sport.”
What to make of all this? A couple of points:
• The U.S., if it wants to excel in soccer, has some problems to clear up.
• In Vermont, many knowledgeable and dedicated coaches expend great effort to help young soccer players be as good at the sport as they want to be.
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