Quote:
Originally Posted by shermanator
I'm not going to act like I know much about youth soccer in this country, but taking it to the higher levels, I think that until there is a Canadian Division 1 league that can at least pay a median living wage, there just won't be enough opportunity for Canadian players to make a living playing this sport in this country. You know why Central American teams produce good talent? Because the talent dedicate their lives to the sport as it's one of the few ways they can improve their standard of living. That reality just doesn't exist in Canada, unless you make an MLS club you'll be making comparable or less to what you can make in retail.
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I'm working in a town in Northern Alberta that has a population of 1,200ish. The difference between this town and a town in Northern Argentina with a population of 1,200 is that the kids in Argentina are taught the fundamentals of the game at an early age. When I asked a few of the kids on the team I coached this summer how they were liking their first year of playing soccer, I was gobsmacked when they told me that they had been playing for years.
While grassroots football is at a different level in Calgary and most Canadian towns/cities, it is still in the dark ages. The level of coaching is not close to the level it needs to be where coaches can teach children how to master the basics and equip themselves with the level of skill required to actually making a living playing football if it was possible to do so. If more Canadian kids could making a living playing football, how many could? If American-born players were deemed foreign rather than domestic on the roster of Canadian MLS clubs, could the Impact, TFC or Whitecaps field competitive teams?
To begin to fix the sport in this country, we need to coach the coaches so they can properly coach/teach our young players.