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Switching Fields: Inside the Fight to Remake Men's Soccer in the United States
A Pulitzer Prize–winning sports journalist unravels why the United States has failed to produce elite men's soccer players for so long-and shows why a golden era just might be coming.
"George Dohrmann is one of our most perceptive chroniclers of youth sports in the United States, and here he brings his keen eye to the history and present of U.S. men's soccer development."-Grant Wahl, CBS Sports analyst and New York Times bestselling author of Masters of Modern Soccer
The contrast is striking. As the United States Women's National soccer team has long dominated the sport-winners of four World Cups and four Olympic gold medals-the men's team has floundered. They failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup and three consecutive Olympics, and have long struggled when facing the world's best teams. How could a country so dominant in other men's team sports-and such a global powerhouse in women's soccer-be so far behind the rest of the world in men's soccer?
In Switching Fields, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist George Dohrmann turns his investigative focus on the system that develops male soccer players in the United States, examining why the country has struggled for decades to produce first-class talent. But rather than just focus on the past, he looks forward, connecting with coaches and players who are changing the way talented prospects are unearthed and developed: an American living in Japan who devised a new way for kids under five to be introduced to the game; a coach in Los Angeles who traveled to Spain and Argentina and returned with coaching methods that he used to school a team of future pros; a startup in San Francisco that has increased access for Latino players; an Arizona real estate developer whose grand experiment changed the way pro teams in the United States nurture talent.
Following these innovators' inspiring journeys, Dohrmann gives ever-hopeful U.S. soccer fans a reason to believe that a movement is underway to smash the developmental status quo-one that has put the United States on the verge of greatness.
"George Dohrmann is one of our most perceptive chroniclers of youth sports in the United States, and here he brings his keen eye to the history and present of U.S. men's soccer development."-Grant Wahl, CBS Sports analyst and New York Times bestselling author of Masters of Modern Soccer
The contrast is striking. As the United States Women's National soccer team has long dominated the sport-winners of four World Cups and four Olympic gold medals-the men's team has floundered. They failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup and three consecutive Olympics, and have long struggled when facing the world's best teams. How could a country so dominant in other men's team sports-and such a global powerhouse in women's soccer-be so far behind the rest of the world in men's soccer?
In Switching Fields, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist George Dohrmann turns his investigative focus on the system that develops male soccer players in the United States, examining why the country has struggled for decades to produce first-class talent. But rather than just focus on the past, he looks forward, connecting with coaches and players who are changing the way talented prospects are unearthed and developed: an American living in Japan who devised a new way for kids under five to be introduced to the game; a coach in Los Angeles who traveled to Spain and Argentina and returned with coaching methods that he used to school a team of future pros; a startup in San Francisco that has increased access for Latino players; an Arizona real estate developer whose grand experiment changed the way pro teams in the United States nurture talent.
Following these innovators' inspiring journeys, Dohrmann gives ever-hopeful U.S. soccer fans a reason to believe that a movement is underway to smash the developmental status quo-one that has put the United States on the verge of greatness.
Editorial Reviews
"George Dohrmann is one of our most perceptive chroniclers of youth sports in the United States, and here he brings his keen eye to the history and present of U.S. men's soccer development. You come away with a deeper understanding of the pay-to-play system, how it developed, and why it left out so many Latinos and Black Americans-as well as why that may finally be changing. Writing about a culture isn't easy, but Dohrmann picks the right people to help tell the story in a book that's well worth your time."-Grant Wahl, CBS Sports analyst and New York Times bestselling author of Masters of Modern Soccer: How the World's Best Play the Twenty-First Century Game
"Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand why the U.S. men's team has disappointed in the past but should have a brighter future ahead . . . Dohrmann's reporting takes us beyond the up and down of results to find the structural causes-which, as so often in the United States, have much to do with race. This optimistic book is a pleasure to read."-Simon Kuper, New York Times bestselling co-author of Soccernomics and author of The Barcelona Complex: Lionel Messi and the Making-and Unmaking-of the World's Greatest Soccer Club
"A fascinating insight into how racism, the lust for profit, and a lack of basic infrastructure have held back U.S. soccer."-Jonathan Wilson, author of Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics
"An exhaustive and necessary examination of what has stood between the U.S. men's national team and relevance in international soccer . . . Dohrmann takes a microscope to the failings of scouting, youth coaching, and, often, imagination in the American game, all in the desperate hope that something will change-and the United States can finally build a winner."-Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg, co-authors of The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports
"Dohrmann masterfully reveals . . . the underlying flaws in the [U.S.] men's program. . . . . In an encouraging nod to the future, he highlights examples of coaches and programs ...
"Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand why the U.S. men's team has disappointed in the past but should have a brighter future ahead . . . Dohrmann's reporting takes us beyond the up and down of results to find the structural causes-which, as so often in the United States, have much to do with race. This optimistic book is a pleasure to read."-Simon Kuper, New York Times bestselling co-author of Soccernomics and author of The Barcelona Complex: Lionel Messi and the Making-and Unmaking-of the World's Greatest Soccer Club
"A fascinating insight into how racism, the lust for profit, and a lack of basic infrastructure have held back U.S. soccer."-Jonathan Wilson, author of Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics
"An exhaustive and necessary examination of what has stood between the U.S. men's national team and relevance in international soccer . . . Dohrmann takes a microscope to the failings of scouting, youth coaching, and, often, imagination in the American game, all in the desperate hope that something will change-and the United States can finally build a winner."-Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg, co-authors of The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports
"Dohrmann masterfully reveals . . . the underlying flaws in the [U.S.] men's program. . . . . In an encouraging nod to the future, he highlights examples of coaches and programs ...
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
The American Way
Tailoring soccer for success in the States
The meeting took place on August 15, 1964. That much is certain.
There have been reports that it was staged in the Torrance, California, garage of one of the participants, which conjures images of men in plaid pants sitting in lawn chairs, drinking Coors from yellow pull-top cans.
Later, at least one of the participants insisted they met at a restaurant, not someone's home. Given the date, small talk may have centered on the Angels pitcher who'd just been suspended for fighting a sportswriter, or race riots in New Jersey and Illinois.
One retelling placed the meeting at a hotel near Beverly Hills, which is about as far from a Torrance garage as one can get.
The archives of the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), from which most of this chapter is drawn, are fuzzy on the details, but there is no dispute over who organized the meeting: Duncan Duff, president of the Greater Los Angeles Soccer League (GLASL). Duff was a Scotsman who had played and then coached adult teams in the area. He had led the GLASL since 1953, and he set up the meeting because he believed the Los Angeles area was ready to expand beyond adult teams. It was time to try to bring youth soccer to the Southland again.
The again was why Bill Hughes was Duff's first call. About eight years earlier, in 1956, Hughes, who was British, had created a youth league within the GLASL. It consisted of fourteen teams, with kids ranging in age from nine to fourteen. Teams were divided along ethnic lines-a German team, a Scottish team, a Mexican team, and so on-just like in the GLASL adult league. The number of kids on each squad was determined simply by how many signed up, meaning some teams had dozens of kids and others had just enough to field a team. No consideration was given to where the children lived; some players on the Yugoslavian team had to drive twenty miles to practice.
Halfway through that 1956 season, Hughes asked for a "special meeting" to discuss the youth league's future. Youth soccer in the GLASL was doomed, he told league leaders. Coaches and referees were dropping out, refusing to make the long commutes. Players who were riding the bench all game were quitting. He hadn't gotten the numbers he wanted because, in part, some kids refused to be part of "ethnic" teams. Scores were too lopsided.
He suggested that the GLASL radically rethink their approach to youth soccer, and offered four proposals:
• Only fifteen players maximum per team. This would eliminate situations like the time a team showed up with thirty-three players and its opponent had only seven.
• Every player must play at least twenty minutes of each half. The league had seen too many kids quit because they didn't get to play.
• Eliminate ethnic names for teams. Some kids (or their parents) were refusing to join teams called Scots or Magyars or Croats.
• Keep teams within ten miles of a central point. This would eliminate the lengthy travel that caused coaches and referees to quit.
The leadership of the GLASL didn't have the appetite to remake youth soccer. Six weeks later, at the end of the season, Hughes's youth league folded.
Eight years later, Duff wanted to give it another try, and he asked Hughes to spearhead the effort. Hughes said he would get involved only if he had allies open to rethinking how to sell the game to American families. Hughes's GLASL experience taught him that just throwing the sport in front of Americans and hoping they saw its appeal wasn't going to cut it. You had to present soccer to them, craft the experience, in a way that made it seem less foreign. Hughes and others would refer to this as having to "Americanize" the sport. It was a core belief, a guiding principle. They talked openly and often about doing soccer "The American Way," which meant adopting the changes Hughes suggested.
Duff also contacted Hans Stierle, who had gotten a small soccer program off the ground in South San Gabriel but had recently moved to Torrance. Steve Erdos, Ralph Acosta, and Ted McLean were also brought in, all of them involved in local adult soccer in some way, all of them eager to grow the game in the area.
For the meeting at the Torrance restaurant (or the garage, or the hotel) Hughes brought with him a document outlining the changes he had tried to make to the GLASL's youth league years earlier. He asked the men to commit to bringing those changes to the new league.
They all agreed that the league should not be affiliated with the GLASL. Best to start fresh, without that association. Names for this n...
The American Way
Tailoring soccer for success in the States
The meeting took place on August 15, 1964. That much is certain.
There have been reports that it was staged in the Torrance, California, garage of one of the participants, which conjures images of men in plaid pants sitting in lawn chairs, drinking Coors from yellow pull-top cans.
Later, at least one of the participants insisted they met at a restaurant, not someone's home. Given the date, small talk may have centered on the Angels pitcher who'd just been suspended for fighting a sportswriter, or race riots in New Jersey and Illinois.
One retelling placed the meeting at a hotel near Beverly Hills, which is about as far from a Torrance garage as one can get.
The archives of the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), from which most of this chapter is drawn, are fuzzy on the details, but there is no dispute over who organized the meeting: Duncan Duff, president of the Greater Los Angeles Soccer League (GLASL). Duff was a Scotsman who had played and then coached adult teams in the area. He had led the GLASL since 1953, and he set up the meeting because he believed the Los Angeles area was ready to expand beyond adult teams. It was time to try to bring youth soccer to the Southland again.
The again was why Bill Hughes was Duff's first call. About eight years earlier, in 1956, Hughes, who was British, had created a youth league within the GLASL. It consisted of fourteen teams, with kids ranging in age from nine to fourteen. Teams were divided along ethnic lines-a German team, a Scottish team, a Mexican team, and so on-just like in the GLASL adult league. The number of kids on each squad was determined simply by how many signed up, meaning some teams had dozens of kids and others had just enough to field a team. No consideration was given to where the children lived; some players on the Yugoslavian team had to drive twenty miles to practice.
Halfway through that 1956 season, Hughes asked for a "special meeting" to discuss the youth league's future. Youth soccer in the GLASL was doomed, he told league leaders. Coaches and referees were dropping out, refusing to make the long commutes. Players who were riding the bench all game were quitting. He hadn't gotten the numbers he wanted because, in part, some kids refused to be part of "ethnic" teams. Scores were too lopsided.
He suggested that the GLASL radically rethink their approach to youth soccer, and offered four proposals:
• Only fifteen players maximum per team. This would eliminate situations like the time a team showed up with thirty-three players and its opponent had only seven.
• Every player must play at least twenty minutes of each half. The league had seen too many kids quit because they didn't get to play.
• Eliminate ethnic names for teams. Some kids (or their parents) were refusing to join teams called Scots or Magyars or Croats.
• Keep teams within ten miles of a central point. This would eliminate the lengthy travel that caused coaches and referees to quit.
The leadership of the GLASL didn't have the appetite to remake youth soccer. Six weeks later, at the end of the season, Hughes's youth league folded.
Eight years later, Duff wanted to give it another try, and he asked Hughes to spearhead the effort. Hughes said he would get involved only if he had allies open to rethinking how to sell the game to American families. Hughes's GLASL experience taught him that just throwing the sport in front of Americans and hoping they saw its appeal wasn't going to cut it. You had to present soccer to them, craft the experience, in a way that made it seem less foreign. Hughes and others would refer to this as having to "Americanize" the sport. It was a core belief, a guiding principle. They talked openly and often about doing soccer "The American Way," which meant adopting the changes Hughes suggested.
Duff also contacted Hans Stierle, who had gotten a small soccer program off the ground in South San Gabriel but had recently moved to Torrance. Steve Erdos, Ralph Acosta, and Ted McLean were also brought in, all of them involved in local adult soccer in some way, all of them eager to grow the game in the area.
For the meeting at the Torrance restaurant (or the garage, or the hotel) Hughes brought with him a document outlining the changes he had tried to make to the GLASL's youth league years earlier. He asked the men to commit to bringing those changes to the new league.
They all agreed that the league should not be affiliated with the GLASL. Best to start fresh, without that association. Names for this n...
