As we sometimes do this is a guest post from Gabriel Penaloza aka @FPLLEns on Twitter. He is a great follow on Twitter and has delivered a wonderful article about the game in the United States. Please take the time to read it!
Part I: Pay to Play
We live in a time of increasing nuance in the way we see ourselves and our intersectional identities. With this increased awareness of what makes us different, we have also experienced an increased divide in society. Indeed there are parallels to the division we see in soccer with those we see in the country itself, the social and cultural backdrops are inevitable.
The more we learn about ourselves, the more we realize that loss of identity, which should not be confused with loss of ego, is among the most destructive experiences we can undergo. To address briefly, loss of identity is a diminished capacity for an individual to know oneself. Loss of ego, on the other hand, is the dissolution of the concept that one is the center of existence. The prior is destructive, the latter is used in therapeutic techniques including meditation and treatment for PTSD, but I digress! The point is that cracks in our identity grow with time, like the grout lines of a poorly tiles floor. Our identity is our rudder, our homunculus is our guide.
When we think of ourselves and what identifies us, the factors we will consider range from our physical existence and appearance to our dreams and aspirations. We define ourselves using a variety of cultural identifiers (race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, education, values, political inclinations, socio-economic status, etc). Some of our identifiers are physical; all of them are social and psychological. I include dreams and aspirations because they identify what we see as optimal. They indicate creativity and imagination. Can we truly think of who we fundamentally are without including to what we aspire?
Youth soccer in the United States is either thriving, with more participation in the sport than any other in the country, and a growing professional league, or it is a viper pit of poor coaching, lack of opportunities, and an embarrassing lack of vision from any central leadership that cannot even produce a top men's team to qualify for the World Cup in one of the least competitive regions in the world.
I’d like to suggest that the former is a position of privilege held mostly by people with access to soccer resources and the means by which to procure those resources.
On privilege. From the combination of the latin words privi (private) and lege (law). Pay to play introduces the private law that one must have money in order to qualify to play. The introduction of this inequity strips a future footballer of their footballing identity as soon as the young player begins dreaming about the sport. Consider the cruelty. Once a young child begins dreaming of the sport they love, and they actually REQUEST education so they can study, work hard, and realize their dreams, they are told they must pay. Dreaming, it would seem, is reserved for those that enjoy the benefits of that private law, the exclusive club.
To compare, if all education were run like youth soccer, public schools would be taught by parent volunteers with no expertise in either teaching or the subject matter. The only students that would get accepted to college would be those that were able to pay for a private school education taught by teachers that have two or three other jobs in addition to teaching. Lastly, add a caste system that entrenches power and access in the hands of a very few, therefore limiting any upward mobility for your efforts, and you have the state of youth soccer in the United States. The caste system is, however, for another article.
I want to now turn back to identity by posing a question. If an american soccer player can’t envision themselves as a top-rated player because they have neither the means nor the access required to make that a possibility, are they being robbed of an essential component of their own identity? Moreover, does the collective effect of this incomplete soccer identity of the individual with less means handicap the development of the entire nation’s soccer identity?
It seems no wonder the American “brand” of soccer has been defined as gritty at best, and embarrassing at worst. Most of the time it is just rather confusing with strings of inconsistent tactics, styles of play, and players that don't seem to know the difference between the two. American soccer has looked outwards to white, eurocentric roots to guide it’s own nationalistic brand of soccer. Why does the United States constantly look away from America when searching for it's soccer soul?
There is, however, a European model that has been ignored by U.S. soccer ‘visionaries’; France.
France’s success on the global soccer scene is in large part thanks to its low-income, immigrant population. While the United States struggles with the seemingly obvious immorality of packing refugee children in cages, France (who of course is not without its fair share of equity issues) has seen a policy of inclusion lead to France having the most native players and coaches in the last 4 world cups. A staggering 50 players in the 2018 World Cup were born in France. 21 of those play for the French national team. 58% of French born players in the 2018 World Cup play for other countries. 87% of the French World Cup winning team are immigrants of children of immigrants.
In the 1960s and 1970s France experienced an economic boom thanks to the immigrants who were brought in to rebuild the country after WWII. In 1972 the Institut National du Football (INF) was created and it worked with professional clubs to set up academies to recruit and train local youth. For free.
Here are the results:
Pre-INF:
1962- Failed to qualify for World Cup
1964- Failed to qualify for European Championship
1966- Last in group World Cup
1968- Failed to qualify for European Championship
1970- Failed to qualify for World Cup
1972- Failed to qualify for European Championship
Since 1998:
2 World Cups and 1 European Championship.
Opening quality soccer education to everyone has brought France to the top of the soccer podium at many different levels. The French women’s team and the U20 men's team also looked to be among the best in the world after their good showings in the Women’s World Cup, the U20 World Cup, not to mention the ongoing U19 Euro team that is in the semi-final.
These players were given a path. They were offered a part of themselves. They repaid that gift by contributing to a unique football identity whose message of inclusion is resonates with every cheer in every game they play.
Few can walk the path from poverty to soccer glory like Pele, Maradona, Zlatan, Weah, Zidane, Ribery, Renard, and Mbappe. The question for Americans is, can ANYONE in this country walk it? Is it even possible?
-Gabriel Penaloza
Los Angeles, CA
