By: Victor Olorunfemi

It is time to throw away the American inferiority complex with soccer, where many blindly claim that skill should come above all in choosing and developing the best prospects and that the U.S. is not an international power because it cares too much about athleticism.

Contrary to that popular belief, I propose the U.S. should lean further into physically gifted athletes in youth development, not away from it.

I am sure you have heard it at some point. Maybe from that friend who presents as an expert and is 100% confident they have diagnosed why the U.S. is not a soccer power, regurgitating the same cliches about how the country is too backward and lacking in soccer knowledge to do youth soccer correctly.

"In American youth soccer, all we care about are the best athletes, not the best players. And that is the problem because the best countries don't care about athleticism. They only care if you can play soccer."

The problem is that cliche is a half-truth. Should there be an increased focus on technical development? Yes. However, the notion that there is no room for prioritizing athleticism is misguided and not grounded in the reality of the soccer world.

The reality is that many of the best countries in the sport make a concerted effort to lean towards physically gifted youth. They then put those kids through years of focused technical development to make prospects that combine elite athleticism with skill.

Look at France and their trip to two straight World Cup finals. Their star player and generational prospect, Kylian Mbappe, is a 5-foot-11 tall forward whose recorded top speed of 23.6 mph is faster than any player in NFL history. And yes, including Tyreke Hill, whose record is 23.24 mph.

And if you look at most of the France team over the last decade, you see the likes of Theo Hernandez, Jules Kounde, and Ousmane Dembele, three of the fastest athletes in the sport; Paul Pogba, a 6 foot 3 midfielder whose strides eat up massive blades of grass; and N'Golo Kante, whose top tier agility and lung capacity provide a combination that catapulted him to legendary heights.

Does this mean France solely focused on finding the most athletic players in their youth systems? Not at all, but it does show a concerted effort for their developmental platforms to marry elite athleticism with elite technical training. And what are the results? Two World Cup finals and a Euro Final in six years, one of the best international runs in history.

In a 2019 interview with ESPN, Gerard Bonneau, the former head of youth recruitment at Lyon, who is one of the premier developers of talent in the sport, spoke about how France became a hotbed for young talent. 

"French players are very clean, technically, and lots of our players are naturally very athletic."

Simple isn't it? Elite technique with elite athleticism.

England is another example of a country who mastered this marriage. In their case, they were similar to the U.S. in that for decades, they produced great natural athletes but lacked behind their competitors in technical proficiency. Rather than throw athleticism out the window in place for smaller technical prospects, like some would suggest the U.S. should do, England reworked its youth system to increase on-ball training while still leaning toward the best natural athletes.

That belief led to the English FA establishing what was called the Elite Player Performance Plan in 2012. Since then, England won the U17 and U20 World Cups for the first time in 2017 and are in the midst of their best run in a half-century, as Euro 2020 marked their first major international final in 55 years, and was followed with another final in 2024.

The results are players like Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, Declan Rice, Jude Bellingham, Reece James, Trent Alexander Arnold, and so on, forming a golden generation of talent marrying elite natural athleticism with extreme technical proficiency to reach world-class levels.

And this is not to say elite athletes are the only way to soccer domination, but rather to say that the countries whose population provides those qualities do and should lean into them.

Take Pep Guardiola, the coach who popularized tiki-taka, a tactical style whose name is often used by those who point to technical superiority over athletic. Even that man has pivoted his approach to team building over the last decade. His Barcelona team that won the 2011 Champions League final had an average height of 5 foot 9. 12 years later, his Manchester City that won the same trophy had an average height of 6 foot tall, equipped with physical behemoths in the back line and Erling Haaland at striker, one of the best athletes the sport has ever seen.

Guardiola recognized that the ideal combination in soccer is an elite athlete who is also technically exceptional, not one who sacrifices one for the other.

And this is not to say 'athlete' always means big and tall, as that is another common misconception. For example, people credit Cristiano Ronaldo as a better athlete than Lionel Messi due to his 6 foot 2 muscle-bound frame and outstanding vertical leap, ignoring that Messi, at his peak, was measured to have accelerative abilities comparable to NFL running backs. And if you watched Messi in that era, you saw a player whose breath-taking ability to change directions and hit top speed in the flash of an eye were the foundation for his legendary dribbling.

So, then you look at the U.S., a country with a vibrant sports culture that produces elite athletes of all shapes and sizes, and you have to conclude that it would be a massive oversight not to lean into that. There should absolutely be an effort in youth soccer to find players with great natural athleticism, as long as that goes along with a coaching focus on technical development.

Rather than shying away from physicality in place of technique, the two should be valued side by side, as that will be how the U.S. reaches world dominance.