If there is one thing that we should learn from the fervor around Norwegians rowing up escalators in Boston, Vozinha-fueled Cape Verdean fever and blue walls of supporters each time Lionel Messi has stepped on the field during this World Cup, it is this: America is ready to be a soccer nation.
As soccer has grown in popularity, so have the youth systems that funnel American talent, turning kids kicking a ball around into serious players. Until the turn of the century, most youth training and development relied far more heavily on high school and college, which is often cited as one reason U.S. soccer has lagged behind other countries. As the 2000s rolled around, two new models sprouted that still dominate today: Pay-to-play and Major League Soccer academies. Pay-to-play clubs are unaffiliated with professional teams and charge parents thousands to travel and play against high-level talent, making them nearly inaccessible to low-income families. MLS academies are invitation-only club programs that select players based on performance and potential. The academies cover the costs of training and competing in the youth MLS NEXT league.
To better understand youth development and why it’s vital to the future of American soccer, we spoke with Amos Magee, who has been involved in American soccer since the early 1990s. He was the all-time leading goalscorer for the Minnesota Thunder, had stints with the Chicago Fire and Tampa Bay Mutiny, and then coached for the Thunder and D.C. United. He was also director of soccer development for the Portland Timbers, and now oversees the academy at Minnesota United. He told us where he sees soccer going in terms of popularity and talent among young players.
The following Q&A has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Q: As soon as you stepped away from the pitch and into the front office, you started looking at how to find promising young players. During your tenure in player development roles at Portland and DC, you helped draft MLS legends such as Darlington Nagbe. Looking back, what were you doing differently than other people to find talent?
A: We identified Darlington through a scouting network. I had played in Tampa with Caleb Porter, who was the University of Akron’s coach way before he became the Timbers’ head coach. So I called up Caleb, and Caleb said, ‘Darlington’s incredible,’ so I went out to Akron to see him play. That year, 2011, we had the second pick in the draft, and Vancouver had the first, so we were very anxious, since we thought Darlington was the clear-cut, number-one player and he might go to Vancouver.
He’s a Liberian, and his family was on temporary protected status, so they weren’t allowed to travel to Vancouver — he mentioned that to us. So we said, ‘When you interview with Vancouver, you gotta play up the story that you don’t want to go to Vancouver because you want your mom to be able to visit you.’ He did that; so Vancouver ended up drafting Omar Salgado. We drafted Darlington, and Darlington was one of the best draft picks of all time.
Q: What are some mistakes that scouts commonly make when evaluating teenagers for the academy — the pre-professional level? Where have you found talent that people overlook?
A: We have a super supportive ownership group here at Minnesota United, so they’re not telling us we have to win at an academy level, which is really important. When you prioritize winning with teenagers, you do that at the expense of development. We make sure we’re recruiting younger. What I mean by that is third and fourth quartile, which means born July, August, September for third quartile, and October, November, December for fourth quartile. Those kids tend to be a little bit behind because kids develop so quickly. If you are just trying to win games, you take bigger, better, stronger athletes, and you miss out on a lot of really good soccer players who were born later. We make sure our academy teams aren’t all first quartile kids.
We need to do a better job of finding talent in non-traditional environments and exposing them to higher and higher levels, and see how they do. We need to find Liberian players that aren’t playing TCSL, the club soccer league in the Twin Cities. We need to find Ethiopian players who are just playing with their uncle in a pickup game. There’s a ton of talent out there that we’re missing out on.
Q: Given that a lot of the traditional MLS scouting locations like USA Cup feature players from the pay-to-play system, how do you approach diversifying the youth talent pipeline?
A: One of the advantages we have is that we’re not pay-to-play in our academy, so there isn’t that barrier when we find a player. The only barrier is: Can they get to our facility? Even that, we’re trying to solve. We’ve got drivers that go and pick up kids who struggle with transportation. We’re trying to tap into more community clinics with certain community centers, so that we can expose our brand and our coaches to a different community that may not be able to afford a ticket at Allianz Field, or can’t go up and play USA Cup or some of the other traditional events that we scout.
We have a really outstanding group of staff that run free clinics. We did over 30 this past year, just to get kids excited about soccer — not to scout, but to spark interest, to spark excitement.
We don’t necessarily care about getting the next Weston McKennie; what we care about is getting people excited about soccer in Minnesota. We know that eventually, that’ll lead to the next Clint Dempsey because more people will be playing soccer.
Q: What could be the largest pitfall of developing the sport’s popularity with young people?
A: It is access to watching games. In the fall, the NFL is everywhere — you can’t escape it. You turn on your TV, you have five different options to watch five different games. For MLS, you have to get on Apple TV. It’s not ubiquitous. That’s the next big jump. Once that happens, more kids will want to be the next Clint Dempsey.
Q: You have spent all of your professional life growing soccer in America. Are you more or less optimistic about the future of the sport than when you started?
A: Way more. I’ve seen the quality of players that play in MLS NEXT — the pre-professional league operated by MLS — it is far better than when I was growing up; I’ve seen how smart people are in the industry; I’ve seen how passionate and excited people are about the sport. It’s more mainstream. If it’s on TV, if it’s advertised, if there are compelling games to be watched, people will watch it. And that just wasn’t the case 20 to 25 years ago.
