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The Truth About Why U.S. Soccer Can't Catch Up 🚨
Jul 8, 2026
D.A. sits down with soccer analyst JJ Devaney of the Caught Offside Podcast to examine the real issue—not the coach or the players, but the system.
They break down the pay-to-play model, the rising cost of elite youth soccer, why so many talented kids are priced out, and whether America truly has the desire to fix the sport from the grassroots level.
If you've ever wondered why the USMNT keeps hitting the same ceiling, this is the conversation you need to hear.
#USMNT #WorldCup #Soccer #USSoccer #Football
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0:00
Therein lies the next question of why
0:01
can't we develop these superstars? We do
0:03
this on a global scale with every other
0:05
sport including hockey, which is our
0:07
fourth most popular sport at best in
0:08
this country. Perhaps if you jump soccer
0:11
ahead of it, it's the fifth. And yet we
0:12
develop stars in baseball, in football,
0:14
in basketball, and hockey. So, there's
0:16
been a million theories on this that
0:18
it's hard to draw the best athletes in
0:20
America to soccer because they have all
0:22
these other options. The other
0:24
suggestion is there's just not the same
0:27
hunger and desperation amongst our
0:29
soccer players. There's a complacency
0:31
and that's what
0:32
Pochettino stepped in and saw and felt.
0:34
And then there's this other theory that
0:36
travel soccer, which is supposed to be
0:39
our grassroots
0:41
and our youth funnel,
0:43
is broken because it's a pay-for-play
0:44
model and only middle class and upper
0:46
middle class and wealthy class people
0:48
can really afford to spend $15 to
0:49
$20,000 a year on their supposed travel
0:53
elite soccer team. So, which do you
0:55
ascribe the most significance to and why
0:58
we're stuck in this pattern of big
1:00
expectation but always falling short?
1:02
>> I I do think access, the last one is is
1:05
a big one. I mean, can we can we truly
1:07
say
1:08
that this is a sport that gets into
1:11
every core, a nook and cranny,
1:14
and every
1:16
every disadvantaged neighborhood in this
1:18
country?
1:19
No.
1:20
No, we don't. The thing about soccer is
1:22
it's supposed to be the easiest game to
1:24
play. You need a ball and you need a
1:25
little bit of space to go and play. And
1:27
that's it. And we look at the suburbs of
1:30
Paris now, which has produced players
1:33
for countries around the world because
1:35
of it's a diaspora World Cup. There's so
1:37
many players.
1:39
A huge proportion of players have come
1:41
from the suburb of Paris and they're
1:42
either representing France or they're
1:44
representing
1:45
the the home countries of their parents
1:47
or grandparents.
1:50
And they come up playing street soccer.
1:53
And
1:54
would you say soccer is
1:58
the neighborhood game
2:00
of the lower class in America?
2:03
Do we tap into Do we give access to
2:06
people who are on lower incomes and
2:08
their families? No, we don't. It's so
2:10
expensive to do it.
2:11
Because it's become
2:13
the academies
2:15
uh have become
2:17
just so heavily monetized like
2:19
everything else in this country. And if
2:20
you're going to do that to your sport,
2:22
then you are going to tighten the pool
2:23
of players from which you can select
2:24
from.
2:26
Um Now, I
2:27
I would say like the guy that scored two
2:29
goals against us, uh Charles De
2:30
Ketelaere from Belgium, his parents are
2:33
dentists. You know, that's decidedly
2:35
middle and upper class. Um
2:39
So, maybe it's a cultural thing as well.
2:40
But you want it you want to expand
2:42
and feel like people
2:45
are enfranchised and can be part of of
2:47
soccer in this country, and I don't
2:49
think that's the case. I I really don't.
2:51
I put a lot on that one. But I also
2:53
think as well
2:55
we are producing players now. We have
2:56
players in Europe. Like all those guys
2:59
that played
3:00
against Belgium, they're not suddenly
3:02
bad footballers. There was mistakes.
3:04
There was a bad day. Maybe we've
3:06
overrated what they are, but they're
3:08
fine footballers. You know,
3:10
yet we seem to think we have to because
3:13
of who we are and what we've done as you
3:14
said in hockey and in basketball and
3:16
other sports, dominate the world.
3:19
England up until the last few years
3:21
hadn't been in a major final since 1966.
3:25
That's only just been redressed, and
3:26
they still haven't won one, and that's
3:28
the home of soccer. So, [snorts] I do
3:30
think this is an ultra-competitive
3:32
sport. It's the If it's the world's
3:33
game, and the world's game has had a
3:35
head start on us for quite a few years
3:37
now.
3:38
Maybe we've got more to do. Maybe we
3:41
have a longer road to go to get to where
3:43
we want to be. Like you said, we are now
3:45
comfortably I would say not comfortably,
3:47
but we are able to beat a certain level
3:49
of team.
3:51
And now we're reaching to try to get to
3:52
the Belgiums and to the Spains and to to
3:55
teams like that. So, we're kind of stuck
3:57
in the middle. We're in a nether zone.
3:59
Um
4:01
Yeah, I mean, we have this conversation
4:02
every 4 years and I feel like I'm
4:04
reheating the same old things, but
4:05
>> No, I know. But But this is an
4:07
interesting time because it being
4:09
stateside, the World Cup drew more
4:11
attention on it than we've ever had for
4:14
soccer here in this country. '94 was
4:16
this kind of like big bang for US soccer
4:19
and MLS. But this was different. I mean,
4:21
you look at the numbers, they're getting
4:22
20 million, 25 million people to watch a
4:24
US soccer match. That's massive, huge
4:27
NBA finals numbers. So, World Series
4:30
numbers. So, it is more significant
4:32
today than the conversations that have
4:33
been had in previous cycles because more
4:36
people are invested. But that leads to
4:37
this other point that you said. It's a
4:39
hyper-competitive world. I mean, Italy,
4:41
the only sport they play is soccer and
4:43
they've missed three straight World
4:44
Cups. It's not like just because it's
4:47
your national sport and you have history
4:49
that you're automatically going to be
4:51
good at it. But the thing is in Italy,
4:53
it is a national reckoning every time
4:55
that they do not make a World Cup. It is
4:58
>> Right.
4:58
>> Sides are, you know, everybody's melting
5:01
down. Who's got to be fired? We saw what
5:03
happened with South Korea being booed at
5:05
the airport, shame upon the country.
5:07
These are the things that happen. Here
5:09
in the States,
5:10
yeah, Pochettino's going to get a little
5:11
bit of flak here.
5:13
Pulisic's going to get a little bit of
5:14
flak here. The team's going to catch
5:15
flak for 4 days, 5 days, and then
5:17
everybody moves on to NFL training
5:19
camps. All right, isn't that is the
5:21
issue here is that the fire that is
5:23
needed to really change things
5:25
only comes up in the immediate aftermath
5:28
of World Cup losses.
5:30
>> I I I think so. I snapped yesterday and
5:33
became a caller
5:35
on a radio station where I I I was
5:37
struggling to
5:38
Yeah, I I I joined Chris Carlin and Bart
5:40
Scott on ESPN New York.
5:43
I just I lost it. I was in I was moving
5:45
the car as one has to do in New York for
5:46
the street cleaners and I had the radio
5:48
on which I don't get to do very much
5:50
anymore and I called in and I probably
5:52
put in a babbling and incoherent rant
5:55
for 10 minutes. But you're right and I
5:57
did say to Chris Carlin, I said, Chris,
5:59
you're always going to be if we're good
6:00
I'll watch for the summer and then it's
6:02
straight off to mini camp or whatever is
6:04
happening. You know, like
6:07
that's the that's the sports culture
6:08
here. But I don't think that means that
6:10
just because Damon Amendolara, Chris
6:12
Carlin, Nick Wright uh Chris Bruce Sagar
6:15
are not continuing to talk about this
6:17
after. Now, I know you will, but those
6:19
guys definitely won't. That they aren't
6:21
continuing to talk about this after the
6:22
World Cup, after their contractual
6:24
obligations are over. I don't think that
6:26
should stunt the growth of US soccer.
6:28
Like a bigger question is why the
6:31
basically the director of football of US
6:33
soccer left on the eve of the World Cup.
6:36
He literally signed a deal in Saudi
6:38
Arabia and that's it, he's gone. And
6:41
Matt Crocker
6:42
uh is his name. Matt Crocker is the guy
6:44
who was supposed to create or was in the
6:46
middle of creating a pathways. So he was
6:48
trying to figure out the labyrinthine
6:50
youth soccer system in America. If you
6:52
want to get in the weeds, there's so
6:54
many fiefdoms on the West Coast and the
6:56
East Coast and the Midwest and they all
6:58
these leagues are for-profit. They well,
7:00
not all of them, but a lot of them are
7:01
for for-profit. They protect their own
7:03
coaches. They have their own coaching
7:05
system. They don't like interference
7:06
from the outside. How are we to
7:07
streamline this so we make sure we get
7:09
all the players that we need and we are
7:11
aware of them and that the talent pool
7:14
has a pathway to get to the very top
7:16
playing for the US in Seattle in front
7:18
of a home crowd against Belgium.
7:20
That guy's gone. We should be asking
7:21
that question. How the hell did that
7:23
happen?
7:24
>> That connects to my earlier point that
7:25
if there's not a public pressure on we
7:28
have to be better here, what is ever
7:31
going to motivate the people at the
7:32
grassroots level, the actual engineering
7:35
of American soccer to change? And I
7:36
think when Pochettino admits, we walked
7:38
into a room here and he's not from the
7:41
US, he's from Argentine, Argentina, that
7:43
he thought boy, we are complacent. We
7:46
need to be punched in the mouth here.
7:47
And I have to imagine it's because
7:50
American soccer has had the same group
7:52
of people running it for ages. If
7:55
they're ranked 10th through 20th, it's
7:58
good enough. If they get through the
8:00
group stage, it's good enough. And they
8:02
all keep their jobs, they keep making a
8:04
ton of money because all at these youth
8:06
levels all of these fiefdoms have as you
8:08
say
8:09
are salaried individuals of of parents
8:12
that are paying tens of thousands of
8:14
dollars a year. And I so I think it was
8:16
Dan Wetzel that that wrote, maybe
8:18
somebody else
8:20
the the kids, the parents are the
8:22
customers.
8:24
>> Oh, yeah.
8:24
>> have to keep them retained. And so you
8:27
keep the same kids, you keep the same
8:29
rosters, you keep the same travel
8:31
schedule because you want their
8:32
experience to be good because they are
8:34
paying you your salaries and your
8:36
infrastructure. Well, that's completely
8:38
opposite of how you would develop say a
8:40
basketball star. LeBron James' mom,
8:42
Gloria, is never forking over $20,000
8:45
so that LeBron can play in an a youth
8:48
tournament. Those coaches or those teams
8:50
are going to pluck him and say, "Hey,
8:51
you need to be with us. We will cover
8:53
all expenses and we will make sure that
8:54
you are
8:55
you know, properly taken care of."
8:57
>> The only body
8:59
the only body rather in in US soccer
9:02
where, you know, like
9:05
I'll give you my experience from New
9:06
Jersey. You're allowed have what's
9:08
called an elite academy. If it's an
9:09
academy in England, though like you
9:11
said, those players are brought into
9:13
that club's academy. They're looked
9:14
after, their kids provided their travel,
9:16
everything. They they get looked after.
9:18
Here you pay to be in an academy. That's
9:20
insane. Now MLS academies are obviously
9:23
um
9:24
those that have been developed, that's
9:26
not how they work. They want they want
9:28
the really good players and get them
9:30
into the academies and hopefully at some
9:32
point they'll be able to sell them onto
9:33
European clubs.
9:34
>> And there's been some wins there like
9:35
Tyler Adams with the Red Bulls, right?
9:36
That's like our
9:37
>> Huge, huge. Um and uh I think Weston
9:40
McKennie came through FC Dallas.
9:42
So, there are those academies those are
9:44
what you want to
9:45
um develop and you really want to cut
9:49
those other guys out.
9:51
But like again, you're interfering in
9:53
something that I So, I spoke to Governor
9:54
Mikey Sherrill the other day of uh New
9:57
Jersey.
9:58
And we were talking about this very
10:00
issue.
10:01
And yeah,
10:03
New Jersey's got the a a massive problem
10:05
in youth sports because you feel you
10:08
have to pay money to get There's no
10:11
There's no like holistic for the
10:13
athlete, for the program system.
10:17
It It It It doesn't exist. You're paying
10:20
to get to a certain level so you can get
10:21
the scholarship you so you can get this,
10:23
you can get that or you're told that's
10:24
what you're going to get. And US Soccer
10:26
needs something that is free.
10:29
That is That means it can access all
10:31
these players. And I think the money is
10:33
there.
10:34
But here's another thing.
10:36
We The US Soccer had to get help from
10:40
hedge fund owners and billionaires to
10:42
pay Pochettino $7 million a year salary.
10:46
Those were the very people who then
10:48
intervened with with with arms of the
10:50
Trump administration to try and get
10:52
Balogun back into the side.
10:55
I like that money should be going
10:57
somewhere else. If I've got a
10:58
billionaire and a hedge fund guy If US
11:00
Soccer has access to that money,
11:02
it's not to pay a coach at the top
11:04
level. That's a That's a top-heavy
11:06
system. Get that money down to
11:08
grassroots level. Pay for the free
11:10
programs. Go into the hoods, go into the
11:12
neighborhoods, the disadvantaged places.
11:15
All [snorts] those places and have
11:16
soccer as a pathway
11:19
to having a career, to have it Just make
11:21
it part of the
11:23
the sporting fabric of the country.
11:24
Instead, we're paying this guy to come
11:26
in for 4-year cycles.
11:28
Like it It doesn't make It actually
11:29
doesn't make sense.
11:31
>> That's an excellent point.
11:34
It feels like there's this huge gap of
11:36
if you are a a young Latino kid growing
11:39
up in a in a tough neighborhood, is
11:42
there any pathway for you to find your
11:44
way to a US national team? It does not
11:46
feel that way.
11:47
>> No.
11:48
>> If you are a kid in, you know, in in a
11:50
rough section of of Chicago, the
11:51
Southside, or you're growing up in
11:53
Brownsville in New York, you're growing
11:54
up on, you know, in a in a rough
11:56
neighborhood of Los Angeles.
11:58
If you're if you're coming from a
11:59
disadvantaged household, a one-parent
12:01
household, you know, you're barely, you
12:03
know, you're you're maybe your rec team
12:05
in town might have enough kids to play,
12:08
maybe your high school team, but like is
12:10
there any way that that kid can get into
12:13
a funnel to get to the US men's national
12:16
team? It feels like there's I mean like
12:18
it would be a miracle to find those
12:20
kids.
12:21
>> You could you could pay 1,500 or three
12:24
grand per season, depending on where you
12:26
are,
12:27
to be on a travel soccer team. And you
12:29
know, look,
12:31
it's probably so much fun. You're with
12:32
your friends, you're traveling around,
12:33
it's absolutely great. But you can pay
12:35
all that money
12:36
and it may not have any link
12:39
to the next level, to the next step. It
12:41
may not even have any link particularly
12:43
with US soccer, except US soccer is the
12:44
governing body looking
12:46
you know, oversight body. They're not
12:48
necessarily
12:50
involved in how that program runs or or
12:53
how the competitions are structured,
12:55
none of that. Those are all their own
12:56
fiefdoms. So I can't say to someone
13:00
uh I can't say to a kid
13:02
uh in in like one of those disadvantaged
13:04
neighborhoods in Chicago, "Hey, if you
13:05
pay if you save up and you pay if your
13:08
parents can pay afford it, pay the
13:09
1,500, pay the two grand,
13:11
uh you know, cuz you're talented enough,
13:13
you'll make it to the top." I can't say
13:15
that. But again, that's what that's what
13:17
we were told Crocker was doing and then
13:19
and um
13:20
and I believe he probably was.
13:22
Uh and then he's gone. So
13:25
the hard work has to be done. I I do
13:27
think I come from a country where for
13:29
far too long the national team was the
13:32
focus.
13:34
We had to qualify for tournaments cuz of
13:36
the money that it generated. And for 20
13:41
years we ignored or longer, we ignored
13:43
what was below that, what supplies the
13:44
players, your domestic league,
13:47
your academies, your coaching
13:49
structures. We ignored all of that.
13:52
And we just piled the money into
13:53
managers. We paid millions and millions
13:57
for managers just to get us to qualify
13:58
and maybe get grouped or get to the
14:00
second round.
14:01
That is
14:03
That is not the thinking you want from
14:04
administrators.
14:06
That is not the thinking you want. It
14:08
cannot be the be all and end all. And I
14:10
I do fear we've we were in that position
14:12
with the US men's national team.
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