American soccer is not accessible to everyone.

“I don’t think we have enough people in the federation who understand Hispanic or African-American communities to have conversations with them and make them feel like they’re part of the American soccer community,” says Hugo Perez. He would know — he’s a Salvadoran-American former United States men’s national team player and former youth national team coach. “When I tried to do that it was difficult because I didn’t feel I had full backing.”

All across the country, there are thousands of talented youth soccer players who never get spotted by the professional soccer apparatus. Whether it’s due to where they live, a lack of financial resources, or both, these players never get to show their skills in front of the right coaches or scouts. Perhaps more concerning, many of the disadvantaged players who do find their way into the American soccer system against the odds eventually leave it after discovering they’re not valued as highly as players who were on a path towards a place in the Development Academy — the league for U.S. Soccer’s designated elite youth soccer clubs — from a young age.

These issues have been apparent for decades but are regularly swept under the rug by everyone — U.S. Soccer, MLS, fans, and media alike — for two big reasons. One, they’re difficult problems to solve in a country as expansive as the United States, and it always seemed like plenty of people were working in good faith to solve them. Two, the national teams performed well enough for U.S. Soccer to sell everyone on progress.

Then the USMNT failed to qualify for the World Cup. Three months after that, 18-year-old Jonathan Gonzalez — a star midfielder for CF Monterrey who had grown up playing for U.S. youth national teams — switched to Mexico. Gonzalez had proved he was good enough to make an immediate contribution to the USMNT, and losing him could come back to haunt the team in the future. One day after his decision, an interview with the co-founder of the camp where Gonzalez was discovered by Monterrey sparked outrage.

The interview suggested American soccer executives simply don’t care about Hispanic talent, which is worse than being incompetent. They systematically ignore large groups of young Hispanic players even though another organization, Sueño Alianza, does most of the work of locating and identifying the talent for them. These are players who could help MLS clubs and U.S. youth national teams, but for a decade, those organizations weren’t interested. Their reasoning is almost impossible to discern.

When asked why U.S. Soccer and MLS clubs struggle to cast a wide net in their search for talent, ESPN soccer analyst and former United States men’s national team player Herculez Gomez was unequivocal: “It’s guidance. It’s leadership.”

A lot of people occupying powerful positions in American soccer are not making a good faith attempt to recruit the best talent possible. The USMNT is not getting better. For those reasons alone, American soccer needs new leaders.

Complacent leadership leads American soccer down the road to mediocrity

Gomez sees a lack of diversity at the top as one of the key issues plaguing American soccer.

“How many people in charge can relate to what’s going on with players? You have Hugo Perez — who was let go by the U.S. Soccer federation — who discovered Jonathan Gonzalez and valued him,” he says. “There are not enough minorities in key positions.”

When asked if U.S. Soccer is hurt by a lack of minority leadership, Perez simply says: “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

“This is a good old boys club,” says Gomez when asked if American soccer has a problem with key figures putting themselves above the greater good of the program. “The same leadership has been recycled for a decade or more. It’s that simple.”

Perez agrees. “Right now it’s too much friendship, too much status quo,” he says. “People fail and there’s no accountability. People who think it’s fine that we didn’t qualify for the World Cup, that’s not true. People who know football know we haven’t been good for years. It has to do with our vision and plans. At the end, what it came down to is that we didn’t know what we were doing.

“The only thing I can tell you is this: We have to have accountability. Without accountability, you tend to relax, you tend to be careless.”

U.S. Soccer will elect a new president in February, and that person will have a chance to make big changes to the federation’s structure, personnel, and overall philosophy. According to Gomez, the new president will be inheriting numerous staff members who aren’t receptive to criticism.

“This is a good old boys club.” — Herculez Gomez, on U.S. Soccer

“Here’s the problem with U.S. Soccer officials,” Gomez says. “They almost get angry when you bring up the point that they’re not doing enough. For as much as it angers them — and they text and call and email and try to bully people behind the scenes — it doesn’t change the fact that they’re not doing enough.”

In the case of Gonzalez, in particular, it’s very clear the federation did not do enough to keep him.

“We have one federation who says, hey, he’s part of our program, we’ve sent our scout to see him three times, [USMNT under-20 coach] Tab Ramos calls him. And you have this other federation doing everything they can to get him, sending the head coach of the senior national team going to meet him,” Gomez says of Mexico’s successful effort to recruit Gonzalez to their team.

U.S. Soccer acknowledged a request for comment for this story but had not provided one as of Wednesday morning.

You’re allowed to feel equally Mexican and American

This story is about much more than Gonzalez, but he was certainly the catalyst who sparked a larger discussion. Following Gonzalez’s decision to switch to Mexico, Soccer America ran an interview with Brad Rothenberg, co-founder of Sueño Alianza, an organization which runs free-to-play soccer camps mostly aimed at Hispanic youth. It’s where Gonzalez was spotted by Liga MX scouts, leading to him landing a contract with Monterrey.

“If anybody at U.S. Soccer thinks they did enough to keep Jonathan, then they should resign before the new Federation president fires them,” Rothenberg told Soccer America’s Mike Woitalla. “Our Federation lost Jonathan either by its own arrogance, apathy, or incompetence. You pick it. We screwed up and I’m angry about it. I’ve grown tired of watching our Federation neglect this community. We didn’t do enough, not nearly enough, to keep him. And the worst part is that it will continue if wholesale changes aren’t made in the approach to finding talent in this community.”

There were dozens of talented dual-national players who chose to represent another country instead of the United States before Gonzalez, and there will be dozens more after him. Mexican-Americans are often the best known players but hardly the only ones.

“What’s amazing is actually how much of the youth national team players have eligibility for any other country,” says Jack Gidney, a British-American youth coach who works with FRAM Soccer Club in southern California. Gidney also helps American players find opportunities in England through his work with agency Sterling Sport Management. “It’s a high percentage of them can represent someone else. Mexico are just the neighbors and they strike early particularly here.”

So why don’t U.S. Soccer officials take retaining dual-national talent more seriously?

“I don’t think they believe the players will leave,” Gidney says, “And if they do leave, they think, ‘So what? Fine. We don’t need them.’”

That opinion is strongly supported by quotes from an interview that Ramos gave to Ives Galarcep at Goal.com:

“If we have players in this country who feel Mexican and want to play for Mexico, I think they should play for Mexico. If we have players here who feel American, who want to fight for the U.S. and represent America, they should play for us. I think it’s as simple as that.”

It was a surprising sentiment to hear from Ramos, who was born in Uruguay and went on to represent the USMNT. Both Perez and Gomez disagreed strongly when asked for their thoughts on what Ramos said.

“I always say that I’m a lucky guy,” Perez says. “I wasn’t born here, but I came here when I was young, played in the national team. I’ve had the opportunity to learn different cultures. And for me personally, you have to understand that each culture is different. You have to deal with their cultures, their parents, their families differently. You can’t just say we’re going to do it one way, it doesn’t work like that. You want to be treated of respect regardless of your color, regardless of your nationality, regardless of if you’re Hispanic or African-American. I have a different opinion.”

Gomez expressed a similar sentiment. “I know Tab; I know him very well,” he says. “He’s a great coach, I think he can do great things with the program. But it’s so out of touch. Especially coming from a dual national, it’s so sad to me. People don’t understand what it is to be a dual-national, what it is to be a Mexican-American, what it is to make a decision that will disappoint many.”

What Ramos misses in his assessment of players choosing their national team is many players feel equally attached to two countries. There are dozens of players who would happily represent either the United States or Mexico because they love both nations and both national teams.

“I have a Mexican wife, my daughter was born in the States, I was born in the States, my parents were Mexican immigrants.” says Gomez, explaining his attachment to the United States and Mexico. “I have love for both countries. Mexico gave me everything I have, but America made me. I share immense love for both. You’re not going to make me feel different about my love for both countries.”

Feeling American and feeling like a member of another nation are not mutually exclusive. It’s unreasonable to ask a player to only feel American. And it’s arrogant to assume a player picking another country because they feel more valued by its soccer federation is no loss to the USMNT.

Working with Sueño Alianza is a no-brainer ... right?

When asked why they’ve failed to make stronger inroads into Hispanic communities, American soccer coaches and executives often cite cost and the size of the United States as the biggest obstacles. So surely, if there was an organization that could help them clear those obstacles at little cost, U.S. Soccer and MLS clubs would want to work with them? Apparently not.

Dozens of players have won professional deals with Mexican clubs after playing at Sueño Alianza, but for several years, MLS and U.S. Soccer scouts were absent from the organization’s events. Those who did show up made it clear they weren’t interested in actually engaging. According to Rothenberg:

“Many of the Mexican club scouts and all the FMF scouts pay their own way to fly to the Alianza events week in and week out and I can’t get U.S. Soccer to commit to even sending local scouts each week. ... The Federation has told us not to promote their brand to the 250,000 Latinos who attend our events and [U.S. Soccer director of talent identification] Tony Lepore actually notified us in 2016 that they weren’t interested in participating in Alianza since they haven’t found any elite players. On more than one occasion, U.S. Soccer scouts and coaches have secretly watched games hiding behind bleachers or our event inflatables but, when I asked, were unwilling to address our Alianza players directly for fear of endorsing an ‘unsanctioned’ event.”

Rothenberg’s interview was a scathing takedown of American soccer leadership, inviting new questions about the attitude the federation and MLS clubs have towards recruiting talent.

“It’s a huge opportunity,” Gomez says of Sueño Alianza. “It can’t be that these kids have to leave their country to get top-flight opportunities. MLS has done great things over its 20-plus years, but it can’t be the only avenue for every aspiring soccer player. We have how many MLS teams? Twenty-three? How many states are there? How big are those states? You’re telling me unless you’re around those clubs you have no chance of being developed?”

Perez saw value in Alianza — he spotted Gonzalez there — but his opinion was not popular with his bosses.

“When I was with U.S. Soccer I did go to Alianza,” Perez says. “But obviously U.S. Soccer didn’t want to continue that for political reasons, which sometimes get in the way of the reality of what we need to do.

“The perception of Alianza is that they help Mexican teams, but I don’t think that’s true. They provide an opportunity for Hispanic players who are being passed up by our own system. MLS teams have forbidden players who play for their academies to go to Alianza and I don’t agree with that. We need to do what’s best for the players. I think U.S. Soccer should work with Alianza.”

Sending scouts to Sueño Alianza and other so-called unsanctioned events would not cost U.S. Soccer or MLS clubs very much money at all. It’s a system to identify previously untapped talent that’s already set up for them, and that Liga MX clubs are already using to their benefit. It is becoming more and more clear: Creating a better and more diverse talent pool is not the top priority for enough of the people with positions of power in American soccer.

Want to develop better players than your competition? Just show up.

Why MLS clubs initially failed to see the benefit of scouting Alianza is difficult to figure out, but at least one club, FC Dallas, has been taking advantage for a long time.

FC Dallas currently has 10 homegrown players — players who sign directly with teams they’ve trained with instead of entering the MLS SuperDraft — on its roster, the most in MLS. The club has also signed 21 homegrown players since the designation was put in place in 2008, again the most in the league. Dallas finished with the best record in MLS and won the U.S. Open Cup in 2016 with homegrown players like Kellyn Acosta, Jesse Gonzalez, and Victor Ulloa playing significant roles for the team.

Development Academy teams — especially those not run by MLS franchises — tend to be made up of players who had talents that were recognizable at a young age and who had the financial means to play at the highest levels of youth soccer. Conversely, homegrown players provide a salary cap incentive for MLS teams to go find previously overlooked teenage talent — players who often did not have the means to join expensive youth soccer leagues — as well as put resources into coaching and youth facilities.

“I think they see, when you look global, you develop players, provide first team opportunities to players, [those players] could be Messi tomorrow.” — Fernando Clavijo

FC Dallas technical director Fernando Clavijo is in charge of the club’s youth and scouting operations. As Dallas laps the field in putting its own academy players into its first team, more people have gradually taken notice.

“We started first, before everyone else,” Clavijo says about the Dallas academy. “Right from the start, we showed those players how serious we are. The transition from the academy to the first team is clear to see with the players that we play and the players that we sell.”

Clavijo has ownership’s support and thinks that’s a key component to Dallas’ success, but the club’s humility might be just as important.

“This is a huge country and some people still believe they have all the answers, but they don’t,” Clavijo says. “In soccer we need to work together and reach out to people. Brad [Rothenberg] has been around, he’s been checking out all different communities forever, communities MLS kids don’t come from. So when someone like that who is very professional goes out there and looks at players, you have to support them, because we don’t have all the answers. We’d be crazy not to take that opportunity. We were the ones who started it, and I was doing it before I came to Dallas, because I felt there was value in those tryouts. We need all the help that we can get.”

In short, FC Dallas shows up and listens. That’s one of the big secrets to its success. Clavijo and head coach Oscar Pareja do not believe that a player needs to have a certain playing background to become a star. They’re willing to look outside the Development Academy. They believe there’s merit in a wide range of ideas about soccer. FC Dallas has become America’s gold standard by being open-minded.

Thankfully, Clavijo believes that FC Dallas’ days of standing on its own in this department are numbered. He thinks that owners will see the long-term financial value in player development.

“I do believe in my heart that MLS technical directors are working hard to figure out a way,” Clavijo says about recruiting more talent from underserved Hispanic communities. “I think they see, when you look global, you develop players, provide first team opportunities to players, [those players] could be Messi tomorrow.”

Here’s what an MLS spokesperson had to say when approached for comment on this story:

Major League Soccer has a deep history of Hispanic outreach, especially with securing talented players and developing those athletes in MLS academies. More than 250 players from MLS academies have signed first-team contracts with MLS clubs. MLS youth academies are free for the youth players and provide first-class coaching and facilities. Among the dozens of players of Hispanic descent that have developed in MLS youth academies and play in MLS are: · Juan Agudelo – New England (product of the Red Bulls academy) – U.S. national team player · Jesse Gonzalez – FC Dallas – starting goalkeeper and part of the USMNT pool · Diego Fagundez – New England Revolution – 41 goals and 135 starts in his seven seasons since turning pro with the Revs at 15 · Sebastian Saucedo – Real Salt Lake – 20 appearances for Real Salt Lake in 2017 · Danilo Acosta – Real Salt Lake – 16 starts in 2017 · Marky Delgado – Toronto FC (product of the Chivas USA academy) – key contributor in TFC winning the treble in 2017 · Victor Ulloa – FC Dallas – 125 appearances in seven seasons since turning pro at 18 · Memo Rodríguez – Houston Dynamo – rising star saw action in nine matches in 2017, despite a knee injury · Marco Farfan – Portland Timbers – another rising star, he started five matches at the end of the 2017 MLS season. Also, for 10 years the Sueño MLS program produced many talented individuals who joined MLS youth academies and first teams. Notable players who came through the Sueño MLS program include Jorge Villafaña and the Fuenes Mori brothers.

Massive changes are needed immediately

There will be another Jonathan Gonzalez. There will be more than one more Jonathan Gonzalez.

They’re not nearly as famous yet, but California products Abraham Romero and Edwin Lara both went to United States Under-17 camps before signing with Pachuca in Liga MX and switching national team allegiances to Mexico. There are dozens more talents like them in the youth national team system, willing to take an opportunity elsewhere if they don’t see a way to move up in American soccer.

Changes are also needed to decrease the number of players with pro-level talent who never get spotted by the system at all. It’s impossible to prevent all talent from falling through the cracks in a country the size of America, but as Sueño Alianza and FC Dallas show, a lot of good can be done by just showing up.

“If we don’t change we’re going to keep producing the same country-club type of players who fold when you push them.” — Lorne Donaldson

U.S. Soccer can start by putting players first.

“We need to understand something,” Perez says. “U.S. Soccer belongs to the people. It doesn’t belong to an organization. It doesn’t belong to those in charge. It belongs to the kids who are growing up.

“If they want to do a favor for this country and really be the best,” he continues, “win the World Cup, it’s not going to happen if we don’t go to the bottom and take care of the people. Hire the people who have a good foundation on the ground to be able to change this.”

“First you have to identify the problems,” Gomez says about what U.S. Soccer can do immediately. “Start a diversity task force. Use some of that surplus to get into the inner city and recruit kids,” he says referencing the reported $140 million the federation has in reserve.

Real Colorado coaching director Lorne Donaldson agrees with Gomez about what to do with the surplus. His club has produced young USWNT star Mallory Pugh, USMNT goalkeeper Ethan Horvath, the Nos. 1, 3, 10 and 19-ranked girls in the class of 2018 according to Top Drawer Soccer, and numerous other male and female professional players.

“If we really wanted to get the urban kids,” Donaldson says, “last I saw there’s $140 million in U.S. Soccer’s account. Where is it going? Put in futsal courts, spend some money. Germany did it, France have done it, Belgium have done it. We supposedly have the most money but there’s a reluctance to spend it in the city.”

He continues, “If we got that money sitting in the bank, we’ve got to look at the clubs that are producing national team players and say you know what? Can we get you guys to get into the inner city? If we don’t change we’re going to keep producing the same country-club type of players who fold when you push them.”

This is not to say that there’s nothing good about the American soccer system or that it hasn’t improved recently. “You don’t have to blow things up, because things are immensely better now than they were a decade ago,” Gomez says. “But you can make it better, you can make it more available to all walks of life.”

With more diverse leadership and a goal to find the most talented players possible, regardless of where they come from or who they play for, American soccer can finally reach its potential. What its professional and national teams need badly is a more diverse player pool so coaches have players with a wider variety of skills available to them.

“Every player in this country, regardless of background, has something to offer,” Gomez says. “You can look at Hispanic players and say they’re more technical and less athletic, but we’ve lost sight of how valuable those players can be. How come these players are integral players in different teams, in different styles of soccer, but American soccer doesn’t see value in them?”

American soccer is not built to identify talent or serve a wide range of players. It protects the positions of a privileged few. If U.S. Soccer actually cares about competing to win a men’s World Cup and remaining on top of the women’s game, it has to start caring about players from all communities.