Damn, that's a take. Soccer isn't big enough in the US for me to put national fandom over the Kings/9ers. Now if it it came down to Kings or 49ers, I would rather see the 9ers get another ring over the Kings just because of how close we've been in the last decade as an elite franchise. With the Kings, we've always been a longshot anyways. We were robbed in 2002, but never came close and have always been a poverty franchise. Not winning a ring in the next 15 years wouldn't sting much compared to the 49ers.
Soccer has no ties at all to American culture and that's why it'll will never be big here. USMNT missed a big marketing opportunity with Pulisic when they missed out on the 2018 World Cup. He could've been the new young face of American soccer, but all the momentum got killed.
How do you convince a bunch of 10-year-olds that they should take on soccer instead of football like Patrick Mahomes or basketball like Steph Curry?
We're a country with abundant resources, but why would anyone willingly dump money to develop youth soccer in the US? There has to be a financial aspect. The NBA are the ones pouring millions of money into these youth camps via indirect partnerships because they want to develop the next generations of NBA players. The NFL does the same in order to develop a wave of prospective candidates. But who would be the one funding it in the US? The MLS is not even among the top 10 best leagues in the world. Our best American players end up overseas, while MLS teams desperately try to appeal to a) international soccer players not good enough to player in Europe or b) over-the-hill European stars looking for a cozy retirement tour.
The only thing that could realistically push a shift in youth soccer development is if we had a Soviet-era tape measuring contest and the U.S. government was really hell bent on proving that America is #1.
I think USMNT fans place too much unrealistic expectations on the squad, but the coach needs to go.
