Tom Bogert

They've all given up hope of being able to attend a game.

I think one of my friends won the lottery to watch, I think, Senegal versus Germany.

A halfway decent game, but everybody I knew tried to get in the lottery, and one person won.

Damage check, do you mean the American interest in the sport of soccer?

No, that is totally fair.

And there has been a lot of great work through like the professional pathway system because the shortened version for those who are ignorant of European soccer is there is no drafts.

It is every game.

club team is responsible for developing young players to your academy the more you invest in it the better kids you get then they go into your team so you get what you get out of it rather than you know being the wizards of the jazz who are tanking and and you you the Cavs get get LeBron after you know being bad for all right so the the American system has caught up to at least mirror what Europe has done and South America and Asia and Africa and we are producing better players but the game has continued to get better and better

It's a great question.

And again, this is the number one thing around these circles and the people who are planning these things of why it feels like we have players at better clubs and our pathway should be rivaling and our level of coaches.

Why are we not seeing this?

This was supposed to be a golden generation.

And I use that a little bit loosely because.

When you said golden generation, that makes it sound like it's an aberration.

It's a one-off.

This was supposed to be the first of the new normal.

In 2022, the United States were the youngest team at the World Cup.

They got to the round of 16 with the youngest team at the World Cup and a lot of really good stars.

Since then, most of the top-end players have either gone backwards or not come anywhere near this potential they were supposed to get.

So things are more bleak than they were four years ago because that progress hasn't happened.