In the U.S. system, too often the best player on an under-17 team will be treated like a 'star' - not having to work for the ball, being the focus of the offense at all times, etc. - at a time when they should be having to fight tooth and nail for their spot.
In July 2011, U.S. Soccer announced that they'd fired Bob Bradley and hired Jurgen Klinsmann as head coach. Jurgen had once been a world-class German striker; now he was regarded as a successful, if controversial, coach.
The people of Cleveland hate soccer. But it's my favourite thing and I follow the U.S. men's national team around when they play whenever I can.
I think I'm being conservative when I say there are more people playing soccer in the United States than in 90% of the world's other countries, probably 95%.
I would love to play for Real Madrid. And I want to win a World Cup for the U.S. so bad. When the women won it, everybody went crazy. I would love to be part of something like that.
I have been involved with U.S. Soccer for 30 years, and I don't remember one senior woman in the organization that you would deal with on a daily basis in a position that was making decisions. That is a huge issue. How many times do you hear, 'There are no women around?' Well, they are fishing in the wrong pond.
U.S. Soccer has no justification for paying us as little as they do.
I would love to inspire our nation and continue the success of U.S. women's soccer.
I never knew that Americans would take up soccer, and it's a gender-free sport in high school there.
Many American players - Paul Caligiuri, Claudio Reyna, Eric Wynalda, Kasey Keller, Tony Sanneh, Michael Bradley and Steve Cherundolo, just a partial list - have sought the income and challenge of Germany.
Frankly, I loved playing there. The Americans are incomparable for the sport's business, and they're beginning to truly love football.
I get asked this a lot: Why has soccer not succeeded? My answer is, soccer has succeeded. It is already the fastest growing youth participation sport in the U.S. It has already succeeded at the youth level, no question.
We want the N.W.S.L. to grow. It is growing; it's continuously growing every year. We want it to be sustainable. It's separate in the sense that this is a U.S. Soccer thing, but the idea is to grow soccer in general, and we want to do that any way we can.
The thing that made it so hard to get that call from Jill Ellis in 2015, letting me know I wouldn't be at the World Cup, was that I felt like I'd lost what I love most about putting on the U.S. kit: representation.
Ten years ago, the level was nowhere near what it is today. (on soccer in the United States)
My wish is that soccer in the U.S. become on the same level like the Premier League, Spanish league, or the Bundesliga.
My sole focus is to help bring a World Cup back to the U.S.
I think it's important to make clear, you know, that the problem with American soccer... it isn't talent.
I think - I hope - that we're going to be able to build something here with U.S. Soccer, where it's not just going to be about one lost match or one lost cycle or one lost team. It's going to be about an entire country rallying around an entire sport in a way that lasts.
I'm a little skeptical of foreign coaches in our league and in U.S. Soccer just because of how different our league is and our players are than other players around the world.
Klinsmann should be remembered as a great coach; I don't think a lot of people see it, but as players, we really appreciate what he did for America soccer. He opened American soccer up. He gave it a lot more variety of players. You see German-Americans and Mexican-Americans, and you see the guys that were born in America.
Probably the Liga MX or the American league, there are a higher number of competitive games than in the Spanish league or the English league.
You can't obviously predict the future, but I am a fan of the United States and soccer over there continues to grow.
