{"id":304933,"date":"2022-11-14T15:13:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T15:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/?p=304933"},"modified":"2022-11-14T15:42:32","modified_gmt":"2022-11-14T15:42:32","slug":"how-a-controversial-youth-soccer-overhaul-put-the-usmnt-on-a-path-toward-world-cup-contention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/news\/how-a-controversial-youth-soccer-overhaul-put-the-usmnt-on-a-path-toward-world-cup-contention","title":{"rendered":"How a controversial youth soccer overhaul put the USMNT on a path toward World Cup contention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On a steamy summer day in 2006, nervous energy wafted off a field in Zarephath, New Jersey, where U.S. Soccer had convened its most talented 14-year-old boys to brighten the future. They milled about the aptly named Players Development Academy, their host for a week-long training camp. They tugged on cleats, slapped on sunscreen and chugged through drills. And as they did, unknowingly, they became a case study in American soccer&#8217;s defects.They were, in theory, as Under-15 national teamers, among the early candidates to star at the 2018 World Cup. But their coaches noticed, more blatantly than ever before, that they&#8217;d arrived with &#8220;bad habits,&#8221; and &#8220;looked tired,&#8221; &#8220;exhausted,&#8221; &#8220;totally overplayed,&#8221; &#8220;stale&#8221; and &#8220;burnt out.&#8221; The coaches huddled that night at a local hotel. They rued regression since their last camp. Charlie Inverso, the goalkeeper coach, suggested they conduct a simple survey. They ran off a few dozen copies, and asked players at their next team meeting: In a given<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a steamy summer day in 2006, nervous energy wafted off a field in Zarephath, New Jersey, where U.S. Soccer had convened its most talented 14-year-old boys to brighten the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-soccer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omni48.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}