From my view, there have been a number of stories this winter that show the desire of some US soccer fans to trade great in the future for being better now. I’m sure this is not a conscious decision, but merely one born from a desire to be better without regard to what that means for the future. In economic terms, what these stories deal with are resources. If there is an excess of a resource, short term gains and long term gains do not conflict. However, if a resource is limited, the use of the resource for short term gain can preclude its use for long term gain. Talent, playing time, and money are all resources that USSF or MLS have that have been questioned by contributors and commenters on this blog and elsewhere in the soccer blogosphere this winter.
Talent
After the loss to Honduras, Jason Davis addressed the issue of depth and what depth means. Depth is an excess of the resource, talent. An excess of talent affords not have to bring a player along faster than his natural development. Right now that is not a luxury that the US has. To use a cliché, great teams don’t rebuild, they just reload. The ability to reload instead of rebuild is predicated on having mature, developed players ready to step in to fill the shoes of players that have hit their down slope.
Reloading versus rebuilding requires two components; a solid, mature core team and the developing youth to step in. With an excess of talent, these components do not conflict. However this has not been the case with the US. The last two cycles for the US show the two possible approaches when this occurs.
The run up to the 2006 World Cup produced the long stretch of consistent success typical of a solid core. But it did so at the expense of not cultivating talent to replace that core. After the 2006 World Cup, the US had to rebuild, sacrificing short term stability for long term growth. Michael Bradley was too immature to see as much of the field as he did for the Yanks in 2007, but Brian Carroll and Kyle Martino were the only central midfielders between the ages of 20 and 26 to see the field for the US in 2006 and they combined for a whopping 51 minutes of playing time. The central midfield was not the only place where such holes existed, as the continued struggle to find top quality strikers and a consistent left back can attest.
The core is again beginning to solidify, as evidenced by the results this summer. The US now has a team capable of going toe to toe with the big boys. But a team putting its resources into development is often an inconsistent team, which is what we have seen from the US in these last three years. With the core stabilizing, the next challenge is to attempt to find a balance between dedicating resources to make the core group more consistent while dedicating resources to ensure that an experience drop off like that seen from 2006 to 2007 does not occur.
This cycle has seen a focus on developing the youth that will be necessary to eventually replace members of the core. One of the problems of developing young players is that they do not always pan out. No manager has a 100% track record of identifying or cultivating talent. To correctly compensate, volume must be used. Volume for countries like Brazil, Italy, England, and Germany occurs naturally. Large talent bases, solid development, and strong reputations mean only a small percentage of top talent needs to reach its potential to restock their national teams. The US is different. Competing sports, inconsistent development, and a lack of exposure limit the talent pool. Therefore, youth development must be cultivated in other ways.
Playing time
In 2009 and 2010 games, Bob Bradley fielded 29 players who will be 30 or under come 2014. Some have criticized him for not being decisive in his lineups; I call it a shotgun approach. With this shot gun approach Bradley has used a resource, national team playing time, to develop youth. The odds state that some, if not most, of these players will not pan out to become consistent national team contributors. By taking a wider aim, Bradley not only has the opportunity to evaluate them in person, but also gets them exposure. Exposure that likely helped players like Maurice Edu and Stuart Holden make moves abroad. Cultivating these moves abroad puts developing players into more competitive environments resulting in the more natural development that the major powers rely on.
If Stuart Holden does not see much of the field before the World Cup, many will call his move to Bolton a failure because he will not be in top form for South Africa. This view is caused by the US’ lack of depth. As a 24 year old developing player, a good version of Stuart Holden should suffice. By the time 2014 rolls around, Holden, as the heir-apparent of Clint Dempsey, would need to be great. His move from Houston to Bolton should help him achieve that. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but his future potential was increased by this move. For a similar reason, moves by Adu or Altidore back to the US would be a step backwards. While regular playing time would benefit the sharpness of their current games in the short term, their long term prospects would be lowered. For 20 year old players, their current development track are natural.
Money
This battle of resources is being paralleled right now in MLS. The success of some markets in MLS combined with the expiration of the current CBA has driven some to call for drastic changes to the way that MLS does business now in an effort to make MLS better by improving its core. But making a league, just like making a team better in the present without having the infrastructure to continue that success just leads to a rollercoaster effect that ultimately slows progress. The next couple of years will test MLS enough with at least the three more expansion teams playing their first seasons, stadium issues to be resolved, and a continuing poor economy. If these expansion teams draw more like Seattle and Toronto than San Jose, if no team is paying rent on a stadium, if the economy improves, then money that has been earmarked for long term investment can be shifted to fixing short term problems. Using this opportunity to frame that future debate is wise, but players are a shorter term investment than clubs or stadiums.
Consistency across the years is easier to obtain when resources are spent in development rather than on the present. Those who claim that a different coach could get better results out of the Yanks than Bradley has are probably right. But if that’s not his goal, then it is tough to hold him to that standard. Those who claim MLS could attract better talent with a player friendly CBA and higher wages are probably right. But if it puts the sustainability of the league in peril, then is it the most effective use of resources? I hope a time will come when the resources available to USSF and MLS are not so limited that short and long term advancement do not conflict. But until that day, I’ll judge moves by both organization on both timelines to determine if we’re moving toward greatness.
