The fastest non-German player to reach 150 #Bundesliga appearances, #USMNT’s Joe Scally.

Great achievement for Scally, who continues to be a consistent player for Gladbach.

Photo Credit: Borussia Moenchengladbach pic.twitter.com/BnPsVxoKPT

— Larry Henry Jr (@lhenry019) April 25, 2026

USMNT World Cup roster announcement event May 26 set for Pier 17 at the Seaport in lower Manhattan, 3 pm ET on Fox platforms.

Open to public, with registration:https://t.co/DJYnl2OlYf

— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) April 30, 2026

Hell yeah! Nothing like a hype party at 1400 central on a Tuesday.

Not sure where to put this but figured here works, I'm curious to listen to the rest of the discussion.





Full ep is here:

Quote:

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"Youth soccer in America is horrific"

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Fact.


We are now a decade removed from Jurgen Klinsmann being fired in 2016. The senior men's national team had under-performed in WC qualifiers and the powers that be decided that Bruce Arena was needed to try to qualify down the stretch.

Maybe that was needed at the top then, but consequences of that meant the decade Jurgen had put into revamping youth soccer: the cohesive and comprehensive national programming, standards, and guidelines of the Development Academy, the competitions, the scouting network, etc., was all thrown out the window.

USSF got rid of the DA completely. Left development up to MLS academies with different goals and motivations. Left MLS clubs competing with US Youth Soccer leagues and programs like ODP and US Club Soccer leagues with programs like ECNL. In cities across the country, youth soccer has been in disarray with high costs, dirty politics, and no good scouting or development standards for the USSF to help the USYNTs and USMNT pools get deeper and more talented.

Also, there may be an uptick or even a little surge in the next few years with the WC being on our soil, I think the popularity of the sport has been struggling. High cost of club soccer, our lone professional league moving off cable networks and onto apple TV+, probably a lot of factors.

I wish they had gone deeper there. But I agree with them that it's a uniquely American problem that's going to need a uniquely American solution.

I think the biggest gap is the lack of opportunity at the college level for men's soccer.

College athletics drives youth sports in America. Period. I've grown to loathe it now, btw, but since it's our uniquely American thing, we maybe ought to lean into it.

So maybe NIL presents an opportunity. USSF starts somewhere where people are nuts about their schools… SEC for example. And you approach donors and get an NIL structure that subverts Title 9. Don't give scholarships to men and mess with the school's ratio… just NIL it. Take advantage of rich donors who want to one-up their rich buddies and make men's soccer lucrative. These schools already have good soccer infrastructure for their women's programs, so it's low-hanging fruit. Do this after the World Cup when people are excited (hopefully). And maybe it needs to happen in the B1G or somewhere else where more of the rich elite donors might be amenable to such a project… but I think it could happen.

And then it takes years of this but it builds a culture where boys want to do soccer because they could have fun and get paid while going to school and then go to MLS or who knows what. Youth programs would naturally grow from there.

yes- big problem for boys youth soccer in USA.. all other sports have scholarship opportunities. all other sports have that as the big carrot. ...but Title XI means 100 men's scholarships are taken by football at most universities and thus most universities don't have men's soccer as a sport. so few scholarships drives Americans away and drives the popularity of the sport down and impacts competitiveness and overall development. ..and despite such efforts, a pro-track model with MLS youth academies cannot come close to emulating the pro tracks in other countries and would still have the whole college scholarship aspect with other sports to compete with. The MLS academies continue to sign youths that aren't American. and there aren't enough clubs with only one viable professional tier in the USA anyway. no money for that many professional soccer players here.

spot on.

but look at MLB.

Almost all the Americans are kids who grew up playing travel ball. Middle to Upper Middle class.

Guys like Jorian Wilson are rare.