Here's why it'll be tough for the US to win the World Cup | Opinion

The World Cup is coming to North America this month, but the chances of our country hoisting the championship trophy at the end of the monthlong soccer tournament are pretty slim. The main reason has to do with economics, but not in the way you might expect.

From June 11 through July 19, teams from around the globe will compete in the world’s most-watched sporting event, with matches held in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The tournament will highlight soccer’s global reach and ability to connect communities across backgrounds and borders. Yet in the United States, access to the game is the primary barrier to success, enforced by a system unwilling to remove that barrier.

Even at the highest levels, meaningful attempts to reform the youth development system in our country have struggled to overcome a structure that prioritizes financial investment over player potential.

The result is a system that does not reward merit unconditionally. It rewards merit that can afford to participate.

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The U.S. Soccer Foundation and Soccer Forward are growing the game at the recreational level, by running programs in underserved communities to build fields, lower costs and get soccer into schools. While they and other organizations run those types of initiatives, “pay-to-play” remains the foundation of American youth soccer.

Participation often requires thousands of dollars each year in club fees, travel expenses, showcases, private training and exposure events. As players advance, those costs increase rather than ease.

Therefore, opportunity is shaped by household income, rather than ability, skill or long-term potential.

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In Europe, professional clubs identify and fund talented kids as young as 6, covering coaching, equipment and travel, at little or no cost to the families. In Spain, FC Barcelona’s La Masia and Real Madrid’s La Fábrica provide world-class training for free. In France, the government works with regional academies to identify gifted players early.

Pay-to-play isn’t disappearing, and we should stop pretending we can work within the system that sustains it. While Major League Soccer is doing a good job of equalizing access at the top by linking academies to professional clubs for free, the system still lacks mechanisms to elevate deserving, elite talent.

You can’t change the system from the inside, which means those of us on the outside need to stop waiting for permission and build something different.

MLB’s Youth Academies are a start, providing free, sponsor-backed programs in underserved cities.

Yet the cost of all youth sports programs is rising. According to the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, the average family spent $1,016 on a child’s primary sport in 2024, a 46% increase since 2019.

In soccer, a lot of the needed ingredients already exist. The coaches are there. The players are there. What is missing is a reason for anyone with institutional resources to show up, and a mechanism to reward the people doing the work at the ground level.

Organizations like ACCESS U are trying to remove financial barriers for elite players who cannot access competitive development pathways because of cost. But individual organizations operating at the margins are not enough. What the sport needs is a restructured, sustainable system.

Here is one concept worth building toward. The first piece is a national network of camps for talent evaluation run by community soccer programs in socioeconomically challenged communities across the country, where competitive elite player development is already happening outside of the U.S. Soccer infrastructure.

Quarterly camps in dozens of cities feed into a national camp. Sponsorship from brands invested in the sport covers the costs.

United Soccer League and MLS clubs have already shown interest in scouting programs like these because they know the talent is there.

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March 21: Orlando City goalkeeper Maxime Crapeau (71) blocks the header by Nashville SC’s Sam Surridge during the first half at Geodis Park. Nashville SC won the match, 5-0.

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March 1: Inter Miami’s German Berterame controls the ball against Orlando City during the second half at Inter&Co Stadium. Inter Miami won the game, 4-2.

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Feb. 28: Los Angeles FC’s Denis Bouanga and the Houston Dynamo’s Antonio Carlos (left) compete for possession during the first half at Shell Energy Stadium. LAFC won the match, 2-0.

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Feb. 21: Fans watch during the national anthem before the game between Los Angeles FC and Inter Miami CF at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. LAFC won the game, 3-0, knocking off the defending MLS champs.

The second piece is a financial incentive structure that rewards discovery. Local scouts and coaches from the communities where this talent lives provide player recommendations and receive real compensation when those players advance.

Scouts could get bonuses for finding promising players. The players and their coaches could get financial incentives as the players progress through the system. Sponsors would support the program, and there is no shortage of deeply invested soccer fans with real resources willing to fund an initiative like this.

Imagine what a private entity willing to take the risk (and profit from) building a national system activated in partnership with and to the benefit of U.S. Soccer and MLS could do with this.

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The World Cup brings a global audience and a moment of genuine excitement for soccer in this country, but visibility does not inherently create equity.

The kids who should be representing the United States in the tournaments that follow this one are out there right now, playing in communities and leagues that the existing system will never reach. The question is whether anyone is willing to build the bridge.

Multiple reports indicate about 25 million people play soccer in the United States, but fewer than 4 million participate inside the U.S. Soccer system.

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The next Lionel Messi or Diego Maradona may be developing his game right now, with real passion and a real dream, somewhere in an American city that U.S. Soccer doesn’t know about.

The structure is not going to reform itself, and the burden cannot keep falling on existing soccerorganizations to fix what they helped build. Even so, the market for finding the next great American player is wide open, and the tools to reach it already exist.

What’s missing is the will to use them.

Brad Rothenberg is the founder of ACCESS U Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing equitable access to soccer players from underrepresented and socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds.

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