It was a full-ride scholarship to the University of North Carolina, and the Richards family couldn’t believe what they were considering.

Were they really going to walk away from it? Were they going to say thanks, but no thanks to UNC, and the goal their family had made so many sacrifices to achieve?

Chris Richards of Hoover, who is currently playing for the U.S. U-20 Men’s National Team in the FIFA Under-20 World Cup, chose soccer over basketball while in high school, and that was hard enough on his dad. Last year, Ken Richards and his family found themselves considering something almost completely foreign to the traditional role of American preparatory sports.

Most kids in the U.S. play sports growing up to learn the importance of physical activity, and, if they’re good enough, maybe one day earn a college scholarship. That’s the way it has always been, and especially so in soccer. That was Chris Richards’ initial goal, too, but then scouts for the mega-club Bayern Munich saw him play and invited him to Germany for a tryout.

Bayern offered Chris a professional contract worth $1.5 million to forget about UNC and American college soccer and join their academy system. Chris was ready. His parents were not.

“There were a lot of sleepless nights,” said Carrie Richards, Chris’ mom.

The family chose Bayern Munich over UNC, and now Chris Richards, who grew up playing for the Hoover Soccer Club, represents the next generation of elite U.S.-born soccer players. The U.S. U-20 Men’s National Team plays France’s U-20s at 10:30 a.m. CDT on Tuesday in Bydgoszcz, Poland, in the tournament’s first knockout round, and not a single player on the U.S. U-20 roster plays in college. All are already professionals.

The U.S. U-20s advanced to the U-20 World Cup round of 16 with victories against Nigeria and Qatar in the group stage. Now the Americans face France, and the outcome will be an important measuring stick for U.S. Soccer, which is still recovering from World Cup-qualifying humiliation and October 10, 2017 — a day that will forever live in infamy for fans of the USMNT.

This U.S. U-20 team represents a necessary shift in focus for U.S. Soccer, which missed the 2018 World Cup two years ago after that embarrassing loss to Trinidad and Tobago, and has struggled for generations now to compete with the world’s best national teams. The message is clear: not only is college now an unnecessary step in player development for the USMNT, it is considered a detriment by U.S. Soccer.

For many years, the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world in men’s soccer for one main reason. It wasn’t because the “best athletes” were playing other sports. That has always been the uninformed answer. The U.S. has a population base large enough and wealthy enough to dominate in international soccer. The problem was a cultural one.

In the upside-down world of American soccer, most middle-class families view the sport as a means to an end, a college scholarship. Those goals no longer fit into the plans of U.S. Soccer, which has abandoned the part-time collegiate developmental model in favor of full-time European-style academy systems.

Will this put the U.S. on a path to developing an elite national team? This U-20 World Cup is one of the first big tests.

The two starting center-backs for the 2017 USMNT that embarrassingly lost to Trinidad and Tobago, Matt Besler and Omar Gonzalez, were both college soccer stars. Besler played at Notre Dame and Gonzalez played at Maryland. There is little chance that the two starting central defenders for the USMNT in the next World Cup qualifying cycle will have any college experience.

College soccer is a speed bump in the road to player development, and U.S. Soccer has made a commitment to phasing out the collegiate game. How will that affect the future of men’s college soccer? The long-term health remains unclear. In the short term, the NCAA is losing the best talent this country has to offer.

Richards is one of two players on the U.S. U-20 National Team originally from the Birmingham area. Midfielder Brandon Servania played youth soccer for Birmingham United Soccer Club and Vestavia Hills Soccer Club before moving to Dallas and entering FC Dallas’ academy system. Servania played one season at Wake Forest and then turned pro. U-20 teammate Mark McKenzie also played just one season for Wake Forest.

Forgoing college soccer was an agonizing decision for the Richards family, but that’s where Ken’s life experience played a valuable role.

A former college basketball player for Birmingham-Southern, Ken wanted his son to play basketball, and, according to his wife, Ken had no interest in learning the game of soccer when his son chose the sport over hoops. Dad did offer valuable wisdom, however, when it was time to choose pro soccer over college.

Ken played professional basketball in Europe, and understood the rare opportunity Bayern Munich was offering his son. Still, it was a tough decision.

“Me and my husband were both like, what are we doing?” Carrie Richards said.

Friends of the Richards family in the Birmingham area still don’t quite completely understand Chris’ new life in Germany, according to Carrie. Yes, Chris is seeing the world now, but it’s a job.

“People think it’s just a vacation, but there are a lot of sacrifices that you have to make,” Carrie said. “There are a lot of things you have to give up.”

Living apart has been the biggest one.

When Chris committed to playing soccer full time, the Richards family was approached by an independent youth soccer academy in Houston, the Houston Texans, about joining its system. From there, Chris’ budding career as a soccer player took off. He then joined FC Dallas’ system, where Brandon Servania had already found a foothold. Servania now plays in MLS for FC Dallas.

Perhaps soon soccer players from Alabama won’t have to leave home to develop into pros. The next step for either Birmingham or Huntsville, the two cities in Alabama where soccer is most prominent, is to develop players like Richards and Servania here in the state. Birmingham’s new USL club, Legion FC, has partnered with local youth clubs around the city to centralize a spring league. The Legion FC D-League seems like a good first step towards a permanent academy system in Birmingham.

With two players from the area on the U.S. U-20 National Team, including one playing for Bayern Munich, it appears the city is ready.

Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group. He’s on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.