The current US Women’s National Team is an example of what happens when the bureaucracy takes over a game.  They don’t come close to the last US Women’s Team to win the World Cup – the super-team that featured Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, and Brandi Chastain.  To watch them play is just depressing.  If you think I’m over-reacting, check out a vintage game – watch the passing.

So what’s wrong?

The System.  Former players are not part of the system.  This is by design.  The bureaucrats that run US Women’s Soccer don’t want the former players involved.  

Abby Wambach wonders why so many former players don’t find their way back into the U.S. Soccer fold when they playing days have ended. “I’ve been asking that question for a long time and I think the German Federation, they do it the right way,” says Wambach. “They put the women in their full national team, they give them positions, whether it be full administrative side or the coaching side. You see it in their youth teams— they are former players. And right now, we have a few former players, but not as many as some other federations, so I think we have things to learn from different federations and maybe that’s a conversation we have in the near future.”

“I’m not sure they want us involved,” says Michelle Akers – the former star of US Women’s Soccer.

WTFoolishness is this?!!

Lack of Diversity. No women of color, period.  This is a testimony to the economic divide in the US.  Unlike the rest of the world, in the US soccer is a game for rich white kids – not unlike tennis or golf.  US Soccer doesn’t have the money or the will (take your pick) to reach out to our talented immigrant communities and develop a pathway for poor kids to make it.

“In France, they have immigrant players who come from French-African countries who play soccer,” says Tony DiCicco, the former U.S. coach. “Most of the good Mexican-American players here are playing in Mexico. What you’re pointing to is the need to do a better job getting the programs into the inner city.

The Politics. If the US fails to win this World Cup, it will be because, like FIFA, something’s rotten in the head.

What can be done?

For starters, let’s say all future coaches must be ex-players.  Again – Germany has promoted coaches from within for years. Women’s national team coach Silvia Neid won the UEFA Women’s Championship three times and was on the 1995 World Cup runner up team as a player, and she’s been the German national team coach for the last 10 years. It was recently announced that when she retires in 2016, former German national team member Steffi Jones will take her place.

I’m not rooting for Germany, but if we lose, we’ll need to own our incompetence.