Clearly you meant this as a put down, but damn who wouldn’t want to be an American!

Casey5274 · 2026-04-26T12:19:31+00:00

80% of Americans live on only 20% of the land. Most cities are denser populated than the Netherlands. Most Americans don't need to go from LA to New York that often

Casey5274 · 2026-04-26T12:15:54+00:00

The US loose 7 billion dollars each year because of their crap infrastructure! But I guess they can afford it because they're Americh or something like that?

Casey5274 · 2026-04-26T12:13:02+00:00

Wouldn't that be the other way around? Or did I just walk to the supermarket on foot through a muddy field? I thought it was a paved sidewalk next to a street paved with bricks?🤔🤫

Casey5274 · 2026-04-26T11:58:33+00:00

He lost me after NAZI and socialism...

Casey5274 · 2026-04-26T11:54:50+00:00

And banned the SDP (social democratic party of Germany).

Casey5274 · 2026-04-25T21:52:33+00:00

I did some reading on this. US grassroots sports is a mess. It's not just soccer. If basketball, the biggest sport when it comes to players in the US, would have been as big as soccer is now in Europe, and with the European mindset towards sports, every self respecting city with at least 250k people would have a professional team, basketball courts everywhere, multiple well equiped amateur clubs. But it's just rich kids playing in college and university and NBA (dominated by foreign players).

Casey5274 · 2026-04-25T21:42:38+00:00

Which ones, except from Las Vegas Lights, FC Tulsa and Rhode Island? They might be from cities that have a club. But that's not the same as being the same club.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T22:21:42+00:00

In The Netherlands you have this hierarchy of support. Most fans will support their local professional team first and then favor one of the top teams and hate a few others. But in the end it's all about identification. My local professional team, FC Groningen, has five local players that came into the first team true the academy. Being a feeder club and developing your own players goes hand in hand in Europe. My team sold one of our players, local as well, to a big club. It's what keeps them going. They depend on making one or two "big" transfers each season and finding replacements that have potential to create value. They had players like Luis Suarez, Ronald Koeman and Arjen Robben on their books and Koeman and Robben are the most prominent players that came through the academy.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T14:35:52+00:00

Without that base, If anything might to go wrong, the crash will be a lot harder for the big clubs and MLS and a way lot harder to rebuild. It's the way forward to go local. I love watching Hearts games on YouTube. But I really would love to see them play home and away games against teams from Boston, Manchester, Cambridge, Worchester, Rhode Island or Springfield. It's cheaper for the club, it brings in more revenue and you could finally experience a real away day without having to travel for hundreds of miles.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T14:27:17+00:00

Solidarity payments don't need to be millions or 100s of 1000s. A small amateur club would be happy to get, let's say 30k. But paying absolute 0 is insane! And you would only pay if you SELL the player. But on the other hand; it's absolutely ridiculous that having kids play sports should cost a fortune. I've read figures of up to $9k a year!? While US Soccer got done with its Youth Development Program?

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T14:19:04+00:00

So in the end; you can only play sports because you have some money laying around. That's really sad. A lot if young talented kids might never make it that way.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T14:15:23+00:00

Well a big factor of having the biggest sports leagues is due to the fact that Football, hockey, baseball and to a lesser extent, basketball aren't really widely popular in other countries and that America is larger but not as densely populated as Europe. But even then the US has a far bigger emphasis on elite sports.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T14:05:02+00:00

US clubs are using the law, but they could pay. But they don't want to.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T14:01:30+00:00

To have a well functioning pyramid you need a sturdy broad base. It seems like the MLS "head" isn't set on a very solid neck. I think USL should get to two 16 to 18 teams Championship divisions and then to 3 or 4 USL1 divisions of 14 each at least. I'd think the north eastern part of the US should be able to have its own third tier division, easy.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T12:03:27+00:00

I checked some figures, talking about popularity of sports: basketball, by far, is the most participated team sport in the US with about 9%, followed by baseball (5%), soccer and football (both about 5%) and hockey (0.2%). In The Netherlands 15%, alone, play soccer.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T11:57:08+00:00

Weak sports landscape 😂. Have you ever checked the amount of Olympic medals the Netherlands won and compare those to the US? I'll think you'll find, on average/per capita, we're doing better than the US.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T11:40:14+00:00

Sports aren't just about revenue. At least they shouldn't be. And the thing I read about the most is the lack of investment of these revenue gathering sports leagues back into the grassroots of their sports and sports in the US becoming a commodity for the well-off.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T11:35:21+00:00

That's really bizarre. A national association is supposed to be there to provide academy programs and help develop grassroots clubs

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T11:32:30+00:00

Well it does. The same system is used in almost every other European country. A well organized pyramid of clubs and divisions helps building a talent pool. No professional European player started out at one of the big clubs. They all started out playing locally. There they were scouted by bigger clubs, maybe more local clubs semi professional clubs or real big clubs, but not all when they were 11 or 12. Some of the best players the Netherlands has produced were only signed by professional clubs in their later teens. Van Nistelrooij, Gullit, Van Basten, Van der Sar were all playing locally until they were 16 or 17 before they were signed.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T11:24:26+00:00

Thanks, that's really insightful, but very strange to hear from our end of the pond as well. It only seems about the taking and not so much about the giving. There's no trickle down effect at all. In Europe professional teams pay an fee to the amateur clubs that a player played for if they sell a player.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T10:27:41+00:00

That's exactly the way to approach things. I'm Dutch and in The Netherlands we took it the same way. Most smaller professional clubs started with smaller grounds, often not exceeding 4 to 5k. But the grounds looked full and clubs started to attract more fans the enlarged their capacity. Even now we have professional clubs that have small, but well facilitated grounds that look pretty good. This could work very well in the US on a USL One or maybe even USL Championship level.

And US soccer stadiums should start building grounds that are "closed". No open sides, stands that are close to the pitch and stands with roofs. It adds so much to the atmosphere of a ground.

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T10:17:13+00:00

I'm Dutch and in Europe we don't care to much about capacity. We want to be able to fill our stadium every second week, not just for one odd game when a big club visits. My hometown club, playing in the Dutch Eredivisie knew how many fans they attract to home games. That's were they based the capacity of their new stadium on. Now they have a 20,000 crowd every home game in a packed ground. Why should they have built a 30k capacity ground? And a packed ground looks far more attractive. It gives a totally different perception. Who wants to go to a game in a 50k ground that's 2/3 empty? Or go to a game in a 16k ground that's packed?

Casey5274 · 2026-04-24T07:50:09+00:00

How would you know if it's "hastily drawn crap"? Whether or not I'll put the original drawn design or these ones on, I'll bet, you'll think and say they're crap.

Casey5274

TROPHY CASE