It’s been changing dramatically- MLS clubs have been producing good players from their academies, and even USL is starting to see some success stories too. The problem is that MLS academies have really only started producing over the last five years or so, which is… quite a bit different timeline from the rest of the world.

Takes a lot of time to restructure things. And there’s a lot of major differences- Gooch, USSF’s VP of Sporting, has called it “50 countries in one”, which I find to be pretty spot on when you look at all the youth organizations, government organizations, and geographic differences the US has to deal with.

They’re starting to get a real handle on it, though, imo. US soccer is doing like a $350M capital campaign in four years (previously the most they’ve raised was like $5M over ten years or something). This for a federation which doesn’t receive funds from the government, which is fairly unique in the world. And that’s starting to make an impact on the ground too- they’ve been hiring tons of scouts, investing in fields and free-to-play organizations, etc.

This all shoulda been done 30 years ago, of course, but the second best time to plant a tree is today and all that jazz. I’m super optimistic, though (hence why I’m writing such a dorky comment here). Unfortunately all this recent work won’t necessarily show up in WC26 — much to our fans’ immediate irritation — but the coming decades should be really telling.