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Cameron: U.S. Soccer ‘got too comfortable’

U.S. Men’s National Team defender Geoff Cameron has a lot to say about the state of American soccer.

Cameron took to The Players’ Tribune to express his desire for change in U.S. Soccer on Friday, the eve of a very contentious election for the federation’s next president. In his piece, he calls out their complacency and backwards system as the reasons why the USMNT failed to make the upcoming World Cup in Russia and why this presidential election is so important for the future of the game.

“For too long, we have seen a revolving-door system,” he wrote. “We saw the return of an old-school regime, one that may have worked a decade ago, but not now. Not anymore. One that did not adapt to a changing soccer culture. One that couldn’t lead a team – that despite what some may feel – had plenty of talent and depth. And this was a regime that certainly wasn’t equipped to lead us to the next level and the next phase in U.S. Soccer. After Jürgen Klinsmann was fired, and Bruce Arena took over, we got too comfortable. We lost our ambition and sense of progress. But more than anything, we lost any sense of competitiveness.”

He went on to talk about how Klinsmann pushed his players in a way Arena never could and how MLS used to support players like him moving overseas to further their careers. He mentions how he came up “in the most ‘American’ way possible,” by playing youth soccer, travel soccer, college soccer, professionally in the USL, and, finally, in MLS before jumping across the Atlantic to play for Stoke City, a move that his coach at the time, Dominic Kinnear, supported.

“Give me two good years, and if anything comes in, you have my word that I’ll do whatever I can to make it happen,” Kinnear told him.

A couple years later, Cameron was playing for Stoke City in the English Premier League.

He wishes more players would take the same route he did. He wants young Americans to push themselves as hard as they can to reach the biggest competitions in the world.

Most importantly, he wants MLS to be proud of the players they send to Europe.

“Brazilians don’t think this way when Neymar goes to Barcelona. The Dutch don’t think this way when their Ajax academy kids go to Chelsea or Bayern. Why don’t we go the other way entirely? U.S. Soccer should take out ads with pictures of all the players, past and present, who have made a huge impact on the world stage.”

Comments

  1. The divide between the US based players and the Euro based players is the most puzzling part of the whole qualifying debacle. Arena’s homer player selections appear to have been the tip of the iceberg. The level of MLS resentment towards Klinsmann was toxic and given the cozy relationship between the MLS and the USSF you know what was said in private was probably much harsher than what made it into the papers. Eventually all that resentment carried over to the locker room. To me, this is why Michael Bradley needs to go. He was the captain. He needed to nip that crap in the bud and didn’t.

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  2. Mary Stock “MNT’s Bundesliga Boys” YouTube Geoff, I think your analysis of much of this is right on. I LOVE your support of moving to Europe. I’m impressed w/your background– playing several places here in order to get to Europe to play.

    Cordeiro, the new President of USSF, plays money, not soccer. But he operates out of Florida where I’ll bet there are plenty of Latinos who do. Perhaps he will do something w/that.

    I have been working behind the election scene exhaustively for the “Change” faction, but it didn’t go anyplace.

    Geoff, we don’t need to worry about American players not playing in Europe.Tons of them are going to Europe now, recruited by the best teams after they saw the huge audience in the U.S. on the tv in 2014.

    I work closely with that scene in Germany. Both in the UK and Germany. As you have probably noticed there are many in the UK. In Germany, Schalke has 1 on the first team and 1 loaned, plus one fantastic #10 type in academy who will come out to play next fall. Bayern Munich has 4 or 6, including one truly amazing player -all in academy.All Americans. Plus Wolfsburg, Many more.

    Right now, the best striker ever for the American Red Bulls team just went awol to go play with Besiktas (Turkey, vy. good). The Red Bulls coach was SO pissed!. But he finally had to let the player stay there for good.

    ALSO, we need the best coach on the planet if we’re going to win the World Cup in 2030–the earliest I figure that we can do it. I have in mind a coach who is great at developing the youth we have been focusing on, and has a great winning record. He has a great reputation, too..

    NOW, HOW TO GET CARLOS CORDEIRO’S EAR TO INTRODUCE THIS COACH!!

    So, Geoff, it’s all looking up. And the players are doing their part by going on their own (being recruited first, of course). Once they saw how well Christian Pulisic succeeded over there, you couldn’t stop them.

    Best, Mary Stock

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  3. Cameron’s comments help to highlight a disturbing trend, and was fairly accurate IMHO. Look back over the last couple decades of the USSF and the truth of “we have seen a revolving-door system” becomes soooo clear. Look at the coaches….we had 12+ years of Arena & his disciples…a brief interlude with JK (5+ yrs) than back to more of the same.
    Look at the youth coaches…Tab, Williams, Cabrara, Rogan, etc… They all keep being recycled under the USSF umbrella.
    MLS should aspire to be a feeder league for the big boys 1st divisions (EPL, Bunda, Italy, & Spain). The Dutch, French, Portuguese, & other nations leagues are all feeder leagues (except for a couple teams). MLS should focus on being the best league in North America by keeping the best US/Can talent out of Mexico and 2nd tier leagues in Europe, then selling them for a profit to the big boys if there is interest. If there isn’t interest or players fail in the 1st division let MLS be a place players can return to.
    My hope is that now that Suni is gone that we’ll get a USSF president who’ll stop the revolving door, and put us on the path towards becoming a true soccer nation.
    1) New President…Elected
    2) New Technical Director hired by President
    3) New USMNT Head Coach hired by President & Technical Director
    4) Head Coach hires new staff
    5) New YMNT coaches hired by Pres, TD, & Head Coach
    6) New Scouts hired by TD & Head Coach.
    7) Scouts, Head Coach, & Assistant Coaches select a player pool to work with….

    I had issues with Bruce remaining the Head Coach for a 2nd term in 06, I had issues with Bradley getting a 2nd term after 2010, I had issues with Klinsmann getting a 2nd term after 2014, and I was worried with Arena was named coach in 2017. Historically few coaches have ever done well over multiple cycles. But USSF seems to not have learned or recognized this trend.

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    • Too much comfort in the second cycle. Just like too much comfort in pay to play. Put them under pressure so that they may mature.

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  4. People kept saying that JK had lost the locker room but have any players came out and talk about him the way Cameron has about Arena? He even said he had his problems with JK but still supported him.

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    • Not sure thats a fair argument to make. Both Klinsmann and Arena made major mistakes in qualifying. I think if we are being honest with ourselves most of us supported the move from Klinsmann to Arena at the time.

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      • I did. Like a whole lot of people I thought he was what we needed at the time.

        I was frankly shocked at how many missteps Arena made in so short a time, though.

        I remember him being a whole lot better than that. There were some LA Galaxy fans here cautioning us prior to his hire that Arena had lost his touch…I dismissed the notion at the time, but they surely did appear to have it right.

        Disappointing. To put it mildly.

        The bigger problem to my mind was the complete absence of any sort of greater tactics or systemic talent development. The USSF STILL does not have any sense of itself and that’s a problem.

        It’s a big, far-flung, scattered pool…but our approach to managing it seems even more scattershot at the moment.

  5. Obviously it’s one perspective but it’s a durn interesting one.

    Really raised my eyebrows. One thing that’s apparent is that Cameron is really intelligent and articulate…suggests he may be a coach and maybe a very good one somewhere in the not too distant future.

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  6. US Soccer got by for decades on having a top keeper. Meola, Friedal, Keller and Howard in their prime kept the US in matches they often didn’t deserve to be in. Having to hang on to Howard past his prime because no one displaced him became a real liability.

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  7. Most interesting quote: “We showed up in Trinidad and expected that it was going to be a cakewalk. The day before the match, the entire pitch was under water. It was pretty clear that the game was going to be complicated. It wasn’t going to be football. It was going to be a grind. But the whole coaching staff was just … honestly, it was like it was all a big joke. They were so loose that, in retrospect, it was actually ridiculous.”

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    • pretty much confirms what has been suspected for a while now. Complacency, arrogance, no sense of urgency from Arena filtered down to the squad. They all but declared victory after the Panama game. There is plenty of blame to go around to almost every player who was on the field that night, but the buck stops with the manager.

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  8. …after reading the full commentary, there is a lot more truth and honesty here…sounds less like sour grapes and more like a true description of the problems we face as a soccer nation trying to compete against countries that are more experiences than we are….

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  9. This quote says it all:

    “The powers that be in U.S. Soccer have created a poisonous divide between the MLS players and the so-called “European” players, and until that culture is torn down, the USMNT will continue to slide backwards.”

    Read the article folks, he has more first degree information than we all do.

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  10. “We lost our ambition….”

    Yes the PLAYERS did and it showed on the field. The only ones, THE PLAYERS, that have failed to take responsibility are the ones that would have grabbed the glory had they won. Which of course they didn’t. (There are some exceptions)

    You want to be brutal and honest about US soccer like he thinks he is doing.
    The reason that US soccer needs change, is to get better than a guy like Cameron. Not because he is the answer. Stoke is 6-14 with the worst Goals Against at 52 and his nat team which he played a lot on, didn’t qualify.

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    • Quit,

      I have supported MLS since 96, but I discount everything you basically say on thus site because you push regardless of what is in the best for USMNT, individual players, and, honestly, MLS. That blindness leads to failure of what is really the issue. Frankly, you are an enabling parent who fails to see their free hand is turning their into a monster at 16.

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