Knoxville has 2 large, youth clubs.
One is very prominent and continues to make a name for itself and place kids in college programs.
The problem is, men’s soccer needs another level after club or high school. Men’s college soccer is nothing like women’s college soccer and until that gap gets closed and we start training elite athletes from an early age, we will continue to be average in men’s soccer.
Look no further than the US keeper. Think if that guy had been training at goalie since he was 5 years old, how good he would be?!
I hate to say this, because the intentions are good but...AYSO hurts more than it helps, in some cases.
You have knuckleheads like myself, trying to teach kids how to play soccer and starting out, they don’t even have goalies.
So you have the really fast kids showing out and scoring numerous goals per game and then the kids getting their brains beat in, end up hating the game and the kid scoring all the goals eventually loses interest when the keeper is introduced and it becomes really hard to score goals, so he gives up soccer and concentrates on basketball.
