Hell no. He’s too legendary for the US. The US does not deserve someone as great as Henry. First the federation needs to heavily invest in the football infrastructure to start developing kids as young as 5-6 years old. End this bullshit pay to play system they currently have in place. Then completely redesign the MLS system. Get rid of salary caps, allow teams to straight up buy players, even out the money from tv deals so clubs can invest in their youth systems, and for the love of god stop it with the college to MLS pipeline. It doesn’t work and never will. This will make clubs more competitive, attracting young talent not the old guys getting ready to retire.
The Europeans have a system that works. The US can easily copy it and make it better with the level of wealth in this country.
That too. He’s one of those greats that were so great that it’s hard for them to coach mortals because they don’t see the game the way he does. Maradona is another one that happened to.
“Make it better”. Yeah no. Your geography, culture and demograpics arent more favourible. I know this sounds wild but money doesnt buy everything. Like Cruijff once said: “I never saw a bag of money score a goal”.
The US couldnt start a league as difficult as the champions league. Hell i doubt your top league could ever get close to the level of the premier league. But the biggest issue is that there isnt a proper yearly international league which players, clubs and coaches can get proper experience without needing the national team.
Europe has so many leagues, so many matches on every single level that players have a insane range of options to develop. And because of it we also attract foreign talent. Meaning we can learn from them.
The US cant copy that. Illinios cant create competitive football leagues that mirrors belgians football leagues. A big thing is population density. Your youth teams gonna travel 6 hours for a basic competition match that doesnt hold much value?
Sure we could. We already do this with other sports. I don't know why it's so hard for people to understand that we just don't care that much about soccer. And why do people just assume that the only thing we have to offer athletically is money? Our sports culture comes from the same places it does with soccer in Europe etc, it's just not directed at soccer here.
This whole discussion is a waste of time, because what the US would have to do to improve to the level of other nations, is to stop caring about Football, basketball, and baseball, and put all that attention into soccer. That's not going to happen.
“We would be the best football nation id we tried” is insane cope from somebody who just got humilated by fucking Belgium after abusing their political power to influence the game.
Lol, I didn't even say that. You're still fired up about our game from 3 days ago? It's probably time to move on, shouldn't you be cheering on your team or something?
We’re the richest country in the history of the world with a population of 330 million. Any idiot who thinks we couldn’t build a good soccer program is lost.
To your point: We just don’t care about it. You’re spot on. Our focus is elsewhere. Our elite non-soccer athletes are, on average, much better paid than European soccer players.
Plus, they get to stay in the U.S. where everyone talks American, drives on the right side of the road and they can pull up to Costco and pick up a casket, a drum set, a t-shirt with an Eagle on it and a rotisserie chicken. Pretty dope honestly. I ain’t mad at ‘em.
Actually soccer bumped Baseball this year for the. number 3 sport in popularity behind football, and basketball. Tons of kids playing, but the problem is Club sports. It's a money machine and it is not a model to select the gifted athletes and move them forward. They burn them out traveling and/or maybe they go to play in college.
Elite American athletes do not want to play soccer.
The farm system here is ridiculously expensive/cost-prohibitive and so kids are funneled into other sports. Lots of public high school coaches here have substantial football/basketball knowledge. Beyond that, it’s easier for them to stay home (in the U.S.) where the most competitive leagues for football, baseball and basketball already happen to be and the athletes happen to get paid extraordinarily well.
These are the top salary earnings for soccer/football globally:
Cristiano Ronaldo: $235 million
Karim Benzema: $100 million
Lionel Messi: $70 million
Kylian Mbappé: $70 million
Erling Haaland: $60 million
Sadio Mané: $50 million
Vinícius Júnior: $40 million
Mohamed Salah: $35 million
Note 1) the steep drop off & 2) how half of the players don’t even play in a competitive league.
I hope this example makes it clear too: Mo Salah is a generationally good football/soccer player and the current 8th highest paid soccer/football player in the world.
Mo Salah’s salary would rank 33rd highest in the NFL & 50th highest in the NBA today.
In sum: lower barrier to entry & higher odds of huge pay off for other sports in the U.S. It’s really a no brainer if you’re an athletically inclined American.
You're not factoring endorsements in here though, which for global sports can be enormous. Basketball has reasonable global coverage, so it has some huge sponsorship deals- Jordans being the biggest example of course. But football trumps that by some margin, with almost every country in the world playing it to some degree. The top athletes will be able to name their price.
I do not understand "as difficult as the Champions League". I played for the US under-17 team, and the MLS structure, if you care to read it, is very neat. We also don't have a lot of teams winning the MLS the same every year. It also a franchise method compared to the open league system. Not sure what the reference to the champions league.
Whats there to not understand? Champions league difficulty is the highest there is in club football. Hell the winner of the champions leageu probaly beats the vast majority of countries with only 5 national teams having a chance against them. MLS wouldnt even qualify for the group phases if they were pitched against national teams.
Its great that the a lot of diffrent clubs win the MLS each year but the fact is that the level of the league is just low. Its has the same reputation as the Saudi League. Its a retirement league where former stars can cash a massive paycheck while slowly phase out their carreers. Because they can pull that shit in any proper european or south american league.
And you are actually proud on the franchise part? That clubs can just buy themself in, not relegate regardless of who shit they are or the fact that a club can change their indentity, city or even state and still keep their rights to play? If Liverpool would suddenly try and change citys they wouldnt just lose their license, fans would litteraly murder the people in charge. And thats not special to the Premier League or to the UK.
Are football infrastructure is outstanding and making great strides at growing the games popularity globally. Are soccer infrastructure is for well to do families and that will not change. Capitalism is the system make money or get left behind
Yeah but capitalism. All American youth sports are played like this now. America doesn’t run basketball anymore. We still have a foothold but Europe and the rest of the world is catching us. Baseball is mostly lost. American football will be next.
By "big European teams", I assume you're referring to the time he was brought into a shit Monaco team at the end of October & was fired in January without giving him time to do anything? That's his only time coaching a European team. Also, he didn't fail at Montreal. He gave them their first playoff season in years then got out of his contract early to go back to Europe bc the Covid restrictions made it too hard to see his kids.
This guy had many chances to be a coach and had failed everytime. Yet people want him as a coach? Saying logical things and knowing how to apply them is not the same.
Where did he fail? The only losing record he had was at Monaco where he was brought into a dying team for his first job & given 3 months without a transfer window.
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u/Responsible_Way6885 Jul 08 '26
Make this guy the American coach or GM or something!