High School Soccer

[Kuiper]

For those who haven't had a chance to listen to Simple Coach's new podcast "Injury Report," (https://youtu.be/cHsCA6bBkfg) he probably provides the best case FOR high school soccer (as opposed to simply why it isn't that bad for those who want the social experience) that I've seen or heard. 

If there is a flaw in his positive case, it is probably that high school is too local to make certain broad claims about it. SC is generalizing from one type of HS experience that is not universal.  For example, at many schools, very few students OR parents are watching most games, which happen right after school when other activities are occurring and parents are at work (and both parents have to work and not at jobs where they have the ability to leave early for a kids' game).  Moreover, I know a lot of high schools that play at fields that don't even have bleachers for people to watch, let alone have 1000 people in attendance.  This is particularly true in a lot of inner city schools that don't have fields attached to their school (they play in a local park) and in school programs like charters and magnets where the school has no real connection to any particular community (so families live all in opposite directions).  No one is walking down the halls and holding the players accountable for their play at the last game in those schools.  Even the critique of the waiver option, which is a very valid point, is more local than national.  It sounds like in SC's area, waivers are granted pretty freely.  In other areas, however, where the supply of top players is high and the demand for MLS Next spots is strong, clubs won't even consider a player who wants a HS waiver or they tell them they can't promise they will still have a spot when they come back.  They can do that because most of those players want to go pro and they don't care much about HS. 

But I think SC's broader claim is that MLS Next shouldn't prohibit HS play for those who want it and have a school where it is a reasonable option.  That raises the question of why that matters given that I know of no MSL Next team in a place where there are no other options (ECNL or local/regional competitive play).  MLS Next simply couldn't exist without a robust enough population and club ecosystem to develop the kids before they are eligible for the MLS Next level.  So, the issue really isn't whether MLS Next should prohibit HS play since players have choices to play in plenty of competitive leagues that allow HS play.  Rather, the issue is people want to play in HS AND play MLS Next, rather than be forced to choose.   But, of course, life is full of choices.

SC implicitly responds by making the positive case that prohibiting HS is bad for MLS (rather than just unfair to the player to force them to choose) because HS play produces better players and MLS Next hasn't exactly been a pipeline to the pros.  I actually disagree with that latter point, but for reasons that are consistent with SC's views.  I think MLS Next has done a great job of identifying players that MLS Academies sign and Academies are producing more strong players who are getting time in the US and Europe than ever before.  You can argue whether those players are as good as they would have been with HS play (which SC explains well), but MLS will be satisfied if a few of those players are and they don't care much about the rest. 

Where I think SC is probably right is that many (not all) players aren't as prepared for college if they play MLS Next and not any HS play.  The average player is getting pristine field conditions (almost exclusively turf), the best refs, and being managed by coaches who are supposed to be really strong in MLS Next.  MLS Next actually sends site supervisors to observe games to make sure the fields are pristine and other conditions are met so the players won't have to grapple with the problems of bad fields (especially to garner a competitive advantage).  I'm not sure that the play is all robotic though.  If you go to national MLS Next events, you do see different styles of play from teams around the country that reflect cultural and even physical differences.  Nevertheless, SC is certainly right that you don't have as many teams that are trying to bunker, foul to disrupt, and play to win on the counter-attack.  MLS Next officials will even contact coaching staffs if they see that too much in national events because they believe that every player should be developed to solve those problems tactically and technically and not adopt a cynical approach from the get-go.  The problem is that this is absolutely part of the pro game (as we've seen in the Champions League and elsewhere) and it is certainly part of the college game too.

One interesting thing is whether D3 coaches agree with SC.  Coaches always want the best quality players, and they differ on the intangibles where they have a choice.  So, if the best players are gravitating to MLS Next, then coaches will too.  Nevertheless, I wonder if some of the variability reflects differences in opinion over the value of HS soccer.  I see some college commitment announcements that are heavily MLS Next players, others that are heavily prep school players (who also play MLS Next on waivers or because their MLS Next team is the HS team, like in Shattuck St. Mary's or IMG/Barca academies), and others that come from a lot of strong HS programs and mention those rather than their clubs in the announcements.

[SimpleCoach]

@Kuiper -

Thanks for the cool post breaking down my video and some of the points I was trying to make.  Grateful for the time and thought put in to it.

To address some of the point you made.

1.  Generalizing the HS experience.  Indeed you are spot on.  There is a bit of the Sociology of Me in that section.  But I do think they HS athletic experience is more similar that not.  And what I meant by accountability is that I think by and large athletes are known.  And if an athletes misbehaves during a game, there are consequences beyond the soccer field.

2.  Re: MLSNext not surviving with a robust population.  I think, and I will save this for another episode, it is one large subsidy/support system for MLS Academies.

3.  Re: better players.  Better players or not, I think HS soccer gives a much more rounded experience for the whole player.  Something MLSNext does not.  I think MLSNext has done two major things.  First, is that it has coopted college coaches by consolidating the "top talent" in one place making it easier for recruiting.  And second, I think it has successfully gotten players into the MLS Academies because there is a natural funnel that is created.  Bottom line though, MLSNET has produced a paltry 40-ish players per year that have made it to MLS Clubs.  So out of say 6,000 kids, only 40 made it to MLS.  Now there are a bunch of structural issues with MLS that have made this.... emphasis on foreign players, etc. but the intent... originally was to create an avenue for players to go to MLS teams... which hasn't happened in any significant way.  Again, for another episode.


Again, thanks for the commentary.  Most appreciate that you noticed I was trying to make a case FOR high school soccer, not a case AGAINST MLSNext.  Glad that at least to a certain extent, I may have succeeded.  Thanks again.

SC.

[Kuiper]

@Kuiper -

Thanks for the cool post breaking down my video and some of the points I was trying to make.  Grateful for the time and thought put in to it.

To address some of the point you made.

1.  Generalizing the HS experience.  Indeed you are spot on.  There is a bit of the Sociology of Me in that section.  But I do think they HS athletic experience is more similar that not.  And what I meant by accountability is that I think by and large athletes are known.  And if an athletes misbehaves during a game, there are consequences beyond the soccer field.

2.  Re: MLSNext not surviving with a robust population.  I think, and I will save this for another episode, it is one large subsidy/support system for MLS Academies.

3.  Re: better players.  Better players or not, I think HS soccer gives a much more rounded experience for the whole player.  Something MLSNext does not.  I think MLSNext has done two major things.  First, is that it has coopted college coaches by consolidating the "top talent" in one place making it easier for recruiting.  And second, I think it has successfully gotten players into the MLS Academies because there is a natural funnel that is created.  Bottom line though, MLSNET has produced a paltry 40-ish players per year that have made it to MLS Clubs.  So out of say 6,000 kids, only 40 made it to MLS.  Now there are a bunch of structural issues with MLS that have made this.... emphasis on foreign players, etc. but the intent... originally was to create an avenue for players to go to MLS teams... which hasn't happened in any significant way.  Again, for another episode.


Again, thanks for the commentary.  Most appreciate that you noticed I was trying to make a case FOR high school soccer, not a case AGAINST MLSNext.  Glad that at least to a certain extent, I may have succeeded.  Thanks again.

SC.

Thanks! 

1.  On accountability, if you mean that a fight on the field could lead to an academic suspension or expulsion, I'm with you.  Obviously, the most a club team or league could do is suspend or kick you off the team (which MLS Next does do, often by reviewing film in a fight situation or interviewing witnesses in a racial epithet incident).

2.  Totally agree that MLS Next is a support system for MLS Academies.  Not only are  MLS Next teams OK with releasing their players for an Academy (which is not always the case when a player in most leagues tries to get a waiver to leave for another team in the league during a roster freeze), they actively cooperate with the Academy to try to make it happen, while sometimes negotiating to keep the player until the end of the season if they don't have cover (e.g., if they have only one GK).  This is all a feature, not a bug, of the system and is part of what attracts kids who want a chance to play with an Academy.

3.  As for the number of players who have made it to MLS clubs (and you probably have to add players who made it to Europe if they were sold before they played for the clubs), I think the small number is what was expected.  MLS teams just believe those 60+ players are better than what they can get through the college system, which is why the draft is pretty under-utilized these days, or utilized for depth primarily.  In other words, MLS didn't take over the Development Academy hoping to run their teams primarily off the products of the league.  They did it to help provide stronger competition to identify and push the small number of tippy top players who will actually make them money.  As a parent, you can question if it's rational for your kid to go through that funnel considering the low odds, but as a league I think MLS is happy the player identification and development results thus far (plus the marketing and engagement advantages), even if some MLS Academies lag behind others in that respect.  The kids definitely want to have the chance to play against what they perceive as the best, which is why, at least in some places, that's where those kids choose to go and consequently where many college coaches follow.

As I said, though, I think you make a good case that it's not clear even those tippy top players are as good as they might be if they had to play more against different types of players/teams/tactics on different types of fields with different types of refs.  And, of course, you're right that it's possible that it's not the best environment to produce the best college players, although if it was systematically poorer we should see college coaches opt out of recruiting MLS Next players, which I don't see happening yet at least.  It might be interesting to do a study of captains on D3 college teams to see if they come from particular club/HS backgrounds to gain some insight into your claims about the leadership advantages of playing on a HS team, but I suspect that coaches and teams have too many different ways to select captains and those ways may not fully capture the actual leadership skills you are describing. 

One other interesting phenomenon is the MLS Next player who leaves their MLS Next team for their senior year so they can play for their HS team.  I don't know how common it is, but where I have seen it, it's usually a situation where a player has either already committed to a college or is about to do so, or they get cut from an Academy team and realize that the pro dream is probably over.  It's typically described as a way for the kid to get the social aspects of HS play and have fun their senior year, but maybe some system of early development in a year-round club soccer program and later play in HS soccer in their last year or two of HS provides some of the best of both (although it wouldn't replicate the advantages of working for four years within a program to develop leadership skills and fight for playing time).

In any event, my apologies for blurring the HS and MLS Next discussion.  I think the problem with trying to separate them, as you saw in your podcast about it, is that the story is typically about DA/MLS Next prohibiting it.  If the story is framed as college coaches should preference recruiting players who played HS soccer, it's a little easier to disengage the two, although even there it begs the question why some kids aren't playing HS soccer, which brings us back to the MLS Next model.  After all, if a kid didn't play HS soccer because they were cut for performance reasons, then a lack of HS soccer is a signal about ability, not necessarily lack of leadership, adaptability etc, whereas if they didn't play HS soccer because MLS Next prohibited it and the college coach believes MLS Next is full of high ability players, then the signal about ability might be positive rather than negative.

Bottom line - if you haven't already, watch the podcast!  Like I said in my original post, it's the best affirmative case for playing HS soccer that I have seen (my critiques notwithstanding).

[jknezek]

I think one thing we have to accept is that we are never going to have the depth of professional players in this country as we see in other nations. A lot of you are going to know most if not all of this, but it's worth pointing out.

In England, there are 20 EPL teams. There are 24 Championship teams, 24 League One, 24 League two, 24 in the National League (Step 1). Those are the 5 levels of professional football, encompassing 116 teams, though 2 of the teams in the lowest tier were still semi-pro this year. The average pay in the National League, the 5th tier, is between $1000 and $1500 pounds per week, with top players earning 3-4K pounds per week. League 2 averages about 2500 pounds per week, League one 5000, and the Championship 7000 pounds per week on average. These wages are paid year round, so in League One, you can make a living at 54K pounds to 81K pounds per year. It's 1.25 pounds to the dollar right now, so that's about 81K to 100K dollars per year, for the average player, in the 5th tier.

It's not a fortune, and you can't do it forever, but it's a livable wage. So how many full-time, full-salary professional soccer players are there in the English system? The average of foreign players in the English pyramid is about 30-40% per year, obviously much higher in the higher leagues (17 or 25 in the EPL!), much lower in the lower leagues. But the fact remains that they have 104 teams, with 25 players per first team squad (roughly), that's 2500+ full-time pro players. If 35% are foreigners, that's 1850 English professionals.

Academy and B squads are common in at least the top 3 levels and double or triple the number of players making a professional wage. So conservatively, there are 2500 English soccer professionals at any one time that can make a year round living, out of about 60 million people in England and Wales.

On to the U.S. and a bit of Canada since I don't want to split it all out. The average MLS salary is about 530K per year, about 10K per week, which adjusted for the pound is not far off the 7k pounds a week on average a player in the English Second Tier makes. Oddly enough its also where I think the average MLS team would fall in the middle of the table as well, but that's not really where I'm going with this post.

The average salary in USLC is $38.5K per year. About $750 dollars a week, adjusted for the exchange rate it's less than half of what the average player in the 5th tier of English soccer makes. I'm not going any lower, I only optimistically think this counts as a year round pro salary. I can't find the numbers for MLSNext, but given the pro/amateur combination, I'm not sure it would make any sense anyway. There are 29 teams in MLS, there are 24 in USLC.

Average rosters of 28, MLS allows 30 (20 against the cap 10 more in various categories), USLC 26, that's 53 teams, 1500 players, roughly. So about 870 players in MLS. There are 224 International Slots. And a whole lot of ways for teams to have more if they go over those slots. It's so easy that in the 2022 season, 400 domestic players were on MLS rosters, about 350 from the U.S. and 50 from Canada. If the International Slots were more hard and fast there would have had to have been closer to 650.

USLC limits to 7 foreigners per roster, I doubt all teams take advantage, but I'd also imagine there are lots of ways around it. I'm going to guess 21/26 on average USLC rosters are domestic. 24 teams, 504 players. So that's about 900 American/Canadian players making full time money (and I'm choking about USLC salaries as I write that). There are 332 million Americans, 38.25 million Canadians.  So 360 million population.

There might be a few hundred more Americans on various MLS Next teams that fit the bill as well, so let's say 1000 out of 360,000,000 in the U.S. and Canada. Or 2500 vs 60,000,000 in England and Wales.

Why do so many kids at the Academies, in MLS Next programs, at D1 colleges on first team all conference not sniff a pro living? Because we don't provide one. To be even close to the system in England, we would have to support 600 full-time professional teams in the U.S. and Canada. To put that in context, there were just over 200 total minor league baseball teams across the U.S., Canada, and the Dominican Republic (the number is always in flux because the economics for unaffiliated lower tier pro teams is... poor). There are 120 minor league baseball teams at all levels in MiLB, the new cut down designation, and many of those are not what I would consider full-time professional, despite the stated intention when they announced the cuts.

We are never going to have the professional depth of other countries, on a proportionate or even an absolute level. So we have an incredibly tight spout on the funnel. Oddly enough, due to the size of the country and popularity of the sport at youth levels, it's a massively wide mouth. What does that mean? We pour a lot in at the top, but nothing drips down to the bottom.

There is no way MLS Next is going to produce very many MLS players because there are so few spots. About 20-30% of an MLS roster turns over every year. USL teams are higher, more like 30-40% and, due to instability in the league and low pay, sometimes much, much higher. At the MLS level (no idea about USLC, it's hard to find) about 50% of that turnover goes to a player who is already in the league. So if there are 900 players in MLS, 180-270 get turned over but only 90-140 "new" spots are opened. Of those, MLS is about 40% domestic, so 40 to 60 new domestic players per year from outside MLS rosters.

Just to put that in perspective, 4.5 million boys played h.s. soccer in 2018-19.

I'd assume the numbers are much higher in USLC, but again, much harder to find. There just isn't any room. So the "feeder" programs look huge with dismal success, but that's hardly the case. There was never going to be any success because there simply isn't any place to put these players. They aren't good enough to displace the foreigners in MLS, which is a huge problem, but overall there is just no place to go.

While it would hurt the quality of the league in the near term, I wish MLS would strictly enforce their International Player limits. It would add a few hundred spots, which doesn't move the needle in terms of percentage, but might catch a few more of the later bloomers. I wish USLC would go to 1 or 2 non-U.S. passport players per roster. Of course, I also wish it didn't cost $8000 on average to play ECNL per year, or $540 in general to play on rec/low level club team (somehow tackle football, despite astronomical insurance costs, is only $485, but they also only have one season vs soccer's typical two). But considering how many kids play soccer, cost becomes an issue more in the teens than in the beginning.

Anyway, for anyone who got this far, I hope this was at least somewhat interesting. I think we all recognize most of the problems, maybe this helps fill in the actual numbers.

I don't think the feeder programs, whether it is MLSNext or Generation Adidas or Academy teams are failures. I just think the opportunities shrink so rapidly that they are always going to look like failures.

[Hopkins92]

I'm going to come back and take my time reading this, but on first blush... This is REALLY informative. Yes, we could intuit the gist, but these numbers really paint a picture.   

[SimpleCoach]

@Kuiper, @JKNezek, @Hopkins92.

Not saying I got everything right.  Not saying I got everything wrong.  But what I am saying is that I am glad I made the video because this thread is awesome.  Will be stealing some of this information for the episode on MLSNext/Academy soccer.

Thanks.  You make this place awesome.

SC.

[SierraFD3soccer]

One other interesting phenomenon is the MLS Next player who leaves their MLS Next team for their senior year so they can play for their HS team.  I don't know how common it is, but where I have seen it, it's usually a situation where a player has either already committed to a college or is about to do so, or they get cut from an Academy team and realize that the pro dream is probably over.  It's typically described as a way for the kid to get the social aspects of HS play and have fun their senior year, but maybe some system of early development in a year-round club soccer program and later play in HS soccer in their last year or two of HS provides some of the best of both (although it wouldn't replicate the advantages of working for four years within a program to develop leadership skills and fight for playing time).

Can't say as to how common.  I am guessing that it would depend on how good the HS program as well as the coaches.  My son's former HS team had three or four kids opt out and play HS soccer for their senior years.  They have a phenomenal coach who could easily be coaching the college level, but has a great business and makes more than college coaches make.  At the end, they ended up making the state large school finals but lost 1-0.

[Newenglander]

One other interesting phenomenon is the MLS Next player who leaves their MLS Next team for their senior year so they can play for their HS team.  I don't know how common it is, but where I have seen it, it's usually a situation where a player has either already committed to a college or is about to do so, or they get cut from an Academy team and realize that the pro dream is probably over.  It's typically described as a way for the kid to get the social aspects of HS play and have fun their senior year, but maybe some system of early development in a year-round club soccer program and later play in HS soccer in their last year or two of HS provides some of the best of both (although it wouldn't replicate the advantages of working for four years within a program to develop leadership skills and fight for playing time).

Can't say as to how common.  I am guessing that it would depend on how good the HS program as well as the coaches.  My son's former HS team had three or four kids opt out and play HS soccer for their senior years.  They have a phenomenal coach who could easily be coaching the college level, but has a great business and makes more than college coaches make.  At the end, they ended up making the state large school finals but lost 1-0.

I think it depends on a number of things as you noted - I do know that if the player is committed, they may want to have a conversation with their coach ahead of time as they would want the player to be playing in the best situation they can (whatever that is) for their program. 

[Kuiper]

One other interesting phenomenon is the MLS Next player who leaves their MLS Next team for their senior year so they can play for their HS team.  I don't know how common it is, but where I have seen it, it's usually a situation where a player has either already committed to a college or is about to do so, or they get cut from an Academy team and realize that the pro dream is probably over.  It's typically described as a way for the kid to get the social aspects of HS play and have fun their senior year, but maybe some system of early development in a year-round club soccer program and later play in HS soccer in their last year or two of HS provides some of the best of both (although it wouldn't replicate the advantages of working for four years within a program to develop leadership skills and fight for playing time).

Can't say as to how common.  I am guessing that it would depend on how good the HS program as well as the coaches.  My son's former HS team had three or four kids opt out and play HS soccer for their senior years.  They have a phenomenal coach who could easily be coaching the college level, but has a great business and makes more than college coaches make.  At the end, they ended up making the state large school finals but lost 1-0.

I think it depends on a number of things as you noted - I do know that if the player is committed, they may want to have a conversation with their coach ahead of time as they would want the player to be playing in the best situation they can (whatever that is) for their program.

That's definitely true.  I wouldn't advise doing it without speaking with the coach of the college you're committed to or the coaches of the colleges you're considering.  The reality, though, is that HS seasons are still pretty short, so the conversation probably should be framed around the benefits of the club environment where you are going rather than just the advantages (or disadvantages) of HS soccer.  In some places, moving from MLS Next to Boys ECNL, for instance, can be a lateral move, in other places it can be a real drop, and in some it can be a step up other than for the opportunity to play against MLS Academy teams.  Moreover, in the last case, by U19 (a player's senior year), there are very few MLS Academies playing in MLS Next (and those that still existed as of this year were playing much younger players or players who have no MLS future and are just there to fill out the team), so that advantage is lessened.  MLS Next Pro and UPSL are the preferred options for MLS Academies with their U19 players these days.

In D3, I also think the HS soccer piece is pretty well accepted regardless of whether you are in ECNL or getting a waiver from MLS Next.  Many of the MLS Next NESCAC kids are prep school kids who have waivers already, so coaches know the drill even if they have a preference for year-round club.

[D3 Dad]

Just our HS soccer experience,

In the summer of 2022, my son  competed for playing time on a USL Academy soccer team. The pressure was intense, and during practices, he made some mistakes that resulted in horrendous criticism from the coaches. His confidence took a severe hit, and when the fall season arrived, he also lost his starting position on his ECNL club team. My heart sank as I witnessed him go through a downward spiral.

He found solace and hope in his high school team's voluntary practices. Against my initial wishes, he decided to attend both the club team and high school team practices on the same day. Little did I know that this would lead to a remarkable transformation.

Something happened during those extra sessions with his high school team. Surrounded by supportive teammates and coaches, he began to believe in himself once again. His confidence grew, and with each practice, he played with newfound enthusiasm and creativity. It was as if he had rediscovered his  game.

As the weeks passed,  he earned back his starting spot on the club team, and this time, he played with renewed sense of purpose. It was a joy to watch him on the field, showcasing his skills, and making clever decisions.

As the Club season continued, my son's performances caught the attention of college coaches. The confidence and skills he rediscovered on the field during those vital high school practices opened doors he had thought were lost. He has received interest from several reputable Division III college soccer programs, and suddenly, playing soccer in college is becoming a tangible dream.

[Kuiper]

Just our HS soccer experience,

In the summer of 2022, my son  competed for playing time on a USL Academy soccer team. The pressure was intense, and during practices, he made some mistakes that resulted in horrendous criticism from the coaches. His confidence took a severe hit, and when the fall season arrived, he also lost his starting position on his ECNL club team. My heart sank as I witnessed him go through a downward spiral.

He found solace and hope in his high school team's voluntary practices. Against my initial wishes, he decided to attend both the club team and high school team practices on the same day. Little did I know that this would lead to a remarkable transformation.

Something happened during those extra sessions with his high school team. Surrounded by supportive teammates and coaches, he began to believe in himself once again. His confidence grew, and with each practice, he played with newfound enthusiasm and creativity. It was as if he had rediscovered his  game.

As the weeks passed,  he earned back his starting spot on the club team, and this time, he played with renewed sense of purpose. It was a joy to watch him on the field, showcasing his skills, and making clever decisions.

As the Club season continued, my son's performances caught the attention of college coaches. The confidence and skills he rediscovered on the field during those vital high school practices opened doors he had thought were lost. He has received interest from several reputable Division III college soccer programs, and suddenly, playing soccer in college is becoming a tangible dream.

Great story D3 Dad.  It's fantastic that he had an opportunity for a re-set and he made the most of it.

[Saint of Old]

Just our HS soccer experience,

In the summer of 2022, my son  competed for playing time on a USL Academy soccer team. The pressure was intense, and during practices, he made some mistakes that resulted in horrendous criticism from the coaches. His confidence took a severe hit, and when the fall season arrived, he also lost his starting position on his ECNL club team. My heart sank as I witnessed him go through a downward spiral.

He found solace and hope in his high school team's voluntary practices. Against my initial wishes, he decided to attend both the club team and high school team practices on the same day. Little did I know that this would lead to a remarkable transformation.

Something happened during those extra sessions with his high school team. Surrounded by supportive teammates and coaches, he began to believe in himself once again. His confidence grew, and with each practice, he played with newfound enthusiasm and creativity. It was as if he had rediscovered his  game.

As the weeks passed,  he earned back his starting spot on the club team, and this time, he played with renewed sense of purpose. It was a joy to watch him on the field, showcasing his skills, and making clever decisions.

As the Club season continued, my son's performances caught the attention of college coaches. The confidence and skills he rediscovered on the field during those vital high school practices opened doors he had thought were lost. He has received interest from several reputable Division III college soccer programs, and suddenly, playing soccer in college is becoming a tangible dream.

Great Great story. You and more importantly your son have learned  a very important lesson. The most important thing in football and life is CONFIDENCE. Only 2 sources of CONFIDENCE for a player, unselfish and your Coach. This is why a good coach is important!!
Took me my first 2 years of college soccer to learn that lesson, but once a player does...he becomes unstoppable.  Great work on your amazing support of your boy!

[Freddyfud]

I think one thing we have to accept is that we are never going to have the depth of professional players in this country as we see in other nations. A lot of you are going to know most if not all of this, but it's worth pointing out.

In England, there are 20 EPL teams. There are 24 Championship teams, 24 League One, 24 League two, 24 in the National League (Step 1). Those are the 5 levels of professional football, encompassing 116 teams, though 2 of the teams in the lowest tier were still semi-pro this year. The average pay in the National League, the 5th tier, is between $1000 and $1500 pounds per week, with top players earning 3-4K pounds per week. League 2 averages about 2500 pounds per week, League one 5000, and the Championship 7000 pounds per week on average. These wages are paid year round, so in League One, you can make a living at 54K pounds to 81K pounds per year. It's 1.25 pounds to the dollar right now, so that's about 81K to 100K dollars per year, for the average player, in the 5th tier.

It's not a fortune, and you can't do it forever, but it's a livable wage. So how many full-time, full-salary professional soccer players are there in the English system? The average of foreign players in the English pyramid is about 30-40% per year, obviously much higher in the higher leagues (17 or 25 in the EPL!), much lower in the lower leagues. But the fact remains that they have 104 teams, with 25 players per first team squad (roughly), that's 2500+ full-time pro players. If 35% are foreigners, that's 1850 English professionals.

Academy and B squads are common in at least the top 3 levels and double or triple the number of players making a professional wage. So conservatively, there are 2500 English soccer professionals at any one time that can make a year round living, out of about 60 million people in England and Wales.

On to the U.S. and a bit of Canada since I don't want to split it all out. The average MLS salary is about 530K per year, about 10K per week, which adjusted for the pound is not far off the 7k pounds a week on average a player in the English Second Tier makes. Oddly enough its also where I think the average MLS team would fall in the middle of the table as well, but that's not really where I'm going with this post.

The average salary in USLC is $38.5K per year. About $750 dollars a week, adjusted for the exchange rate it's less than half of what the average player in the 5th tier of English soccer makes. I'm not going any lower, I only optimistically think this counts as a year round pro salary. I can't find the numbers for MLSNext, but given the pro/amateur combination, I'm not sure it would make any sense anyway. There are 29 teams in MLS, there are 24 in USLC.

Average rosters of 28, MLS allows 30 (20 against the cap 10 more in various categories), USLC 26, that's 53 teams, 1500 players, roughly. So about 870 players in MLS. There are 224 International Slots. And a whole lot of ways for teams to have more if they go over those slots. It's so easy that in the 2022 season, 400 domestic players were on MLS rosters, about 350 from the U.S. and 50 from Canada. If the International Slots were more hard and fast there would have had to have been closer to 650.

USLC limits to 7 foreigners per roster, I doubt all teams take advantage, but I'd also imagine there are lots of ways around it. I'm going to guess 21/26 on average USLC rosters are domestic. 24 teams, 504 players. So that's about 900 American/Canadian players making full time money (and I'm choking about USLC salaries as I write that). There are 332 million Americans, 38.25 million Canadians.  So 360 million population.

There might be a few hundred more Americans on various MLS Next teams that fit the bill as well, so let's say 1000 out of 360,000,000 in the U.S. and Canada. Or 2500 vs 60,000,000 in England and Wales.

Why do so many kids at the Academies, in MLS Next programs, at D1 colleges on first team all conference not sniff a pro living? Because we don't provide one. To be even close to the system in England, we would have to support 600 full-time professional teams in the U.S. and Canada. To put that in context, there were just over 200 total minor league baseball teams across the U.S., Canada, and the Dominican Republic (the number is always in flux because the economics for unaffiliated lower tier pro teams is... poor). There are 120 minor league baseball teams at all levels in MiLB, the new cut down designation, and many of those are not what I would consider full-time professional, despite the stated intention when they announced the cuts.

We are never going to have the professional depth of other countries, on a proportionate or even an absolute level. So we have an incredibly tight spout on the funnel. Oddly enough, due to the size of the country and popularity of the sport at youth levels, it's a massively wide mouth. What does that mean? We pour a lot in at the top, but nothing drips down to the bottom.

There is no way MLS Next is going to produce very many MLS players because there are so few spots. About 20-30% of an MLS roster turns over every year. USL teams are higher, more like 30-40% and, due to instability in the league and low pay, sometimes much, much higher. At the MLS level (no idea about USLC, it's hard to find) about 50% of that turnover goes to a player who is already in the league. So if there are 900 players in MLS, 180-270 get turned over but only 90-140 "new" spots are opened. Of those, MLS is about 40% domestic, so 40 to 60 new domestic players per year from outside MLS rosters.

Just to put that in perspective, 4.5 million boys played h.s. soccer in 2018-19.

I'd assume the numbers are much higher in USLC, but again, much harder to find. There just isn't any room. So the "feeder" programs look huge with dismal success, but that's hardly the case. There was never going to be any success because there simply isn't any place to put these players. They aren't good enough to displace the foreigners in MLS, which is a huge problem, but overall there is just no place to go.

While it would hurt the quality of the league in the near term, I wish MLS would strictly enforce their International Player limits. It would add a few hundred spots, which doesn't move the needle in terms of percentage, but might catch a few more of the later bloomers. I wish USLC would go to 1 or 2 non-U.S. passport players per roster. Of course, I also wish it didn't cost $8000 on average to play ECNL per year, or $540 in general to play on rec/low level club team (somehow tackle football, despite astronomical insurance costs, is only $485, but they also only have one season vs soccer's typical two). But considering how many kids play soccer, cost becomes an issue more in the teens than in the beginning.

Anyway, for anyone who got this far, I hope this was at least somewhat interesting. I think we all recognize most of the problems, maybe this helps fill in the actual numbers.

I don't think the feeder programs, whether it is MLSNext or Generation Adidas or Academy teams are failures. I just think the opportunities shrink so rapidly that they are always going to look like failures.

This post is eerily similar to a recent blog https://scottmartinmedia.com/blogs/news/americas-pro-soccer-landscape-reimagined-through-an-8-tier-utopian-lens, down to the comparison of the USA to England.  Pretty remarkable result of using AI to develop a tier model in the US, even if you're not a stat geek.  Shows how massive that funnel mouth really is.  Bonus points for another perspective on the US Soccer pyramid.

I found some of his other blog posts insightful, such as the data-based analysis of international players in D1.  https://scottmartinmedia.com/blogs/news/hes-a-d1-player-but-is-he-ncaa-d1-mens-soccer-data-analysis   

[deutschfan]

For all the high school nay sayers two words--Cristian Roldan.  As for the funnel, before the USSDA most of the prestigious boys clubs had one, maybe two teams for a single age group.  Now there are some clubs with national reputations with 5 or more.  There are a lot of expectations being created when a player dons the jersey of one of these clubs but in reality their chances of making it to the top team for that club be it ECNL or MLS Next are remote.

[Hopkins92]

I'm not being snarky... Is Roldan a good or bad example?

(Full disclosure, he was one of the guys I point to when helping my less savvy soccer friends see the embodiment of the problem with MLS guys being dropped in with our current batch of highly technical, fast-thinking European players. He's had a GREAT career. I just don't need him on the national team.)