The World Cup: We Suck at Spotting Talent

The Best 12-year-old almost never makes it, what actually develops great players, and the lessons that reach far beyond soccer.

In a clip that went viral, former USMNT star Landon Donovan lamented the state of youth soccer in America. His 8 year old son got ‘demoted’ to the B-team at his local club, moving him away from the friends he’d played with for the past few years. His son said, “I just want to play with my friends,” which caused Donovan to ask what are we doing when we prioritize competition over fun for 8 year olds?

On the flip side, others online point to teen phenom Lamine Yamal, who started in an academy at 7 years old. They declare for the US to be competitive we’ve got to start development early. That by the time most Americans start their Academy journey, they are years behind in development.

When it comes to talent ID and development in soccer, what in the world matters? In most sports, we’ve generally agreed that early exploration through multi-sport development with later specialization is the key. In soccer, there’s a strongly held belief that early and often is the key, much like sports like Gymnastics.

With the World Cup in full swing, let’s unpack what the science and real world experience actually tells us about talent ID and development, with lessons that reach far beyond soccer.

Identifying Talent

The USMNT breakout star may be Alex Freeman. The 21-year old son of former NFL star Antonio Freeman. Growing up, everyone asked if he’d follow in his father’s footsteps. He played everything from football to tennis, but harbored a “secret love for soccer.” As Alex said, “I wanted to chase my own dream and make my own path.”

Seems like a slam dunk for talent ID, right?

At 15, he tried out for the closest MLS youth Academy, Inter Miami, to chase that dream. And he didn’t make the cut. They passed on him. It was only thanks to a former coach who encouraged him to try out for Orlando City’s academy. But Orlando offered him a different path. They moved him from a focus on attacking to right back. Miami saw an attacker who wasn’t good enough. Orlando saw a defender who didn’t exist yet.

Even with making it into the youth talent pipeline, he spent years in the reserves, playing on the B teams. Even once he became a pro, he only accumulated 11 minutes of MLS league play before 2025. So up until a year and half ago, he was a fringe pro, and now he’s starring as a key piece on the national team.

I love this story as it gets at the heart of talent ID. We suck at it. Genuinely, we’re terrible.

Not just soccer or the US, everywhere. Consider how many NFL or NBA first round draft picks miss, even though teams have gotten to see them play from 18-22 years old in the exact game they are going to play as adults…

In soccer, it’s just as bad.

In a study of German youth academies that tracked over 14,000 under 12 players in the national talent program, only 0.6% ever made it as professionals. That’s in a program designed to help develop elite players, the success rate is tiny. In a follow up study, trying to identify youth talent, when they used an assessment that included a full barrage of tests including speed, endurance, dribbling, tactics and coaches expert opinions it only explained about 15% of who reached a pro academy. The researchers concluded the metric “wasn't sensitive enough to justify individual selection decisions."

A broader study that looked at youth almost 10,000 players in football powerhouses of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, found only 15% of U17 selected players successfully made it to a senior team. While another study looking at Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, and Denmark, found that U17 experience was either a non-significant or negative predictor of making it on the senior level (being a part of the national team, champions league, or Europa League). They found that youth performance explained only 3.2% of variance in the number of elite senior appearances.

And we could go on and on:

• In Italy’s national system, only 9% of U16 and 15% of U19 made the national team. Fewer than 20% of those on the senior team had been on a part of the U16 selections

• In Sweden’s national selection system, out of all the senior team members over a 13 year period, 34% entered the national training system at U15–U16, 33% at U17–U18, and 33% at U21 or senior.

• Across multiple sports, a meta-analysis found the best juniors and the best seniors are often different people. Even just comparing U18 versus senior teams, the two groups are up to 93% different. And the overlap is even smaller the younger you get. But you don’t need research to tell you this, all you have to do is look at the U-13 track records...

• Future Bundesliga players first entered a youth elite academy at an average age of 14. In the researchers words, "only a minority of the current Bundesliga players were already involved in these programmes during the earlier age categories."

• Among the players who reached the senior German national team, only 48.2% had debuted in a national youth team by U19. Meaning more than half of senior German internationals weren't in the elite national-team setup through the junior years at all.

In other words, being the best under 12 year old is a near-worthless predictor of who turns pro. The younger the age group, the worse off the predictive ability. Yes, at some point as we reach our teens, it becomes easier. But the early we “select” for talent, research shows what we’re often doing is selecting for those born earlier in the year (relative age effect), those who hit puberty earlier, or those who have been highly trained from a young age so they appear more talented but don’t have as high of a ceiling.

The younger we try to evaluate talent, the more we are evaluating things that have nothing to do with talent. We’re looking at advantages that wash out by the time athletes reach maturity.

Which brings us back to Alex Freeman. We are awful at Talent ID. One of the reasons is that what makes a great 10 year old is often different from what makes a great 22 year old player. And to Landon Donovan’s point, if we’re selecting based on performance right now, then we dismiss the Freeman’s of the world, without realizing what they might be able to develop into with time. We ask ‘is he good enough right now?’ instead of ‘what could he become?’

It’s why every researcher and soccer professional I’ve talked to says the same thing: Keep as many kids in the pipeline for as long as possible. And allow multiple points of entry or re-entry as possible. The US does a great job of this in Olympic sports. For example, in track, we have free school track and field which is one of the most popular high school sports. And then we have D1, D2, D3, NAIA, JuCo, etc. to extend college careers to give late bloomers a chance to develop.

Okay, so we’re awful at talent ID, but what actually matters when it comes to developing soccer talent? Do we need early specialization, to play in academies early on, what matters?

Developing Talent

One of the arguments in soccer goes something like this, nearly all soccer players start young, so we need to get kids started early! There’s some truth to this, and some misconceptions.

First, most soccer players who make it do start young. A study of MLS players put it on average at 5.1 years old.

But there’s also a caveat here. Even in the US, the most popular U-6 sport is soccer… Why? Think about it. I’ve got a 1.5 year old who kicks the ball around. Our 3 year old can kick and chase and shoot. Why? It’s not because I’m trying to create some soccer phenoms, it’s because it’s the simplest sport to get right away (simple to try, hard to master.) Contrast that with even something like T-ball that takes understanding way more complicated rules. Or even basketball, which requires dribbling, which does not come as quickly to a 3 year old. All kids start soccer young. It’s often the first sport we try.

Now, that doesn’t mean starting soccer young doesn’t help. There’s an argument to be made that learning to kick and dribble with your feet early is important for skill development. There’s data to back up that early play with a ball helps develop our perceptual abilities. But too often, we point to “look all these pros started at 5, we must start practicing early.” But that’s not what research tells us. It’s not drills and practice, it’s something else.

What is helpful with early engagement is developing an early love of the game itself. Because it’s easy to pick up, it’s easy to enjoy. If you can foster and develop that early love, it leads to something we’ll talk about soon which is much more important: lots of chosen free play.

Before we get there, does this mean we need more early deliberate practice or early Academy selection and training? Not necessarily.

In a study looking at the 2022 World Cup, the median academy entry age was 13.2 years old. In Europe specifically, it was slightly lower (11.1) with England being among the earliest to start playing for Academies (8.4 years). For comparison, USA was 12.0. Even Argentina, the champions, had five players enter after age 15.

Most of the research, including that out of Germany and Sweden, shows that what’s more important than early Academy selection is multiple paths into, out of, and back into academies. The turnover rate is very high. And without paths back in, you miss talent. Which again, makes sense, because we suck at talent ID. And if we treat selection as a final verdict, we’re going to miss lots of talent.

What about specialization?

• Sweden- early specialization not related adult play.

• A series of studies out of England found future elite players did engage with soccer early, but they tended to play more sports, and none of the early-exclusive specializers in one study made it as adult pros.

• In a study of Bundesliga pros, they played other sports more and had later specialization.

• In a study on elite German youths, the biggest improvers over a 2 year period had more non-organized soccer play and more practice in other sports.

Most of the research points to early engagement, but holding off on specialization until their junior high years. Why? Similar to what we see in American basketball and baseball. Early specialization is linked to higher levels of burnout and injuries. Which makes sense. If your entire identity and world is on whether you make the U12 team or not, it’s a large burden for a kid developing their identity to carry. And from a physical standpoint, if most of your training is geared toward soccer specificity, you develop more overuse injuries, and less of a robust body that more diversity in movement entails.

Now, in other sports, the generalize than specialize research is much cleaner and clearer. In soccer, it’s less about play other sports early, it’s more about make sure you aren’t just playing and practicing regular soccer.

Practice vs. Play

In the US in basketball, for decades a culture of pickup games drove development. More recently, there’s been a switch to younger and younger AAU/Travel team ball, and it’s now seen as a culprit for changes in our players skill development. In soccer, the same

What we’re left with is a development conundrum, how much organized practice matters early on versus play.

USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino made a similar point recently, pointing to early play with the ball. “This isn’t taught at universities or in soccer schools. What happens is many methods are copied. They set up soccer schools in the United States and tell kids: ‘Pass the ball from here to there, go back and shoot when you get there.’ That’s not soccer. When we learn, when we relate to the game, it’s with absolute freedom. I take the ball and my brother, my cousin, or my friend two years older takes it away from me. How do I get it back later? That’s the game; it’s not something robotic.”

Similar arguments have been made in Brazil’s recent lackluster performance compared to their historical success. Brazil developed their talent through street soccer and Futsal, which lead to a kind of creativity that could seldom be matched. A study on Brazilian female professionals found more futsal practice was related to better offensive decision-making. As the street soccer culture has disappeared, their development may have taken a hit, similar to US basketball.

Research backs this up. In a study on German professionals, the key wasn’t organized drills, it was play that made the difference. Approximately 68% of the soccer ‘training’ that occurred in childhood was non-organized casual play. Researchers found that national team players:

• Played more informal football as kids.

• Played other sports during adolescence.

• Started serious, focused training later.

In a study out of England, those who got a pro contract at 16, tended to have more soccer specific play. Now, not all research backs up the play argument, as some studies find that unstructured play wasn’t related to performance or advancement. But overall, the trend is relatively strong.

One of the reasons this is important is what Poch pointed out. Play develops not just our technical skills, but our ability to see the game in a specific way. Instead of an overly technical game of decision making, we develop a natural variety. In sports psychology, we call this utilizing affordances. We connect perception and action in a free-flowing way. For the Americans, think of it as Patrick Mahomes playing QB versus a mechanical rigid college QB. Mahomes is able to improvise and create on the field. A mechanical QB reads through his progressions like a decision tree and can’t pivot or create if those options aren’t there. It’s the same in soccer.

This often occurs because it feels like you’re actually coaching when you are running drills or giving explicit instruction. It also looks good to parents on the sidelines who are paying you. It doesn’t look as productive when you roll a ball out into the field and step back, getting out of their way.

Most agree that the path for development in soccer is early natural engagement, with lots of informal play. It’s developing a love of the game, without adults ruining it. And having the freedom, with just enough skill development, to develop creativity and a better perception-action system.

It’s a balancing act. Yes, to a degree, it helps to learn the game early on, but often it’s best in an unorganized fashion. Too much technical training, too much specialization, creates a rigid and fragile player who peaks early, gets burned out, or suffers injuries.

It’s the right balance of engagement, play, and gradual movement towards specialization during the early teen years.

So what?

We suck at Talent ID. If we make it a final verdict, we’re going to miss out on players like Alex Freeman. We need multiple paths of entry and re-entry to talent development pipelines because predicting who makes it, even in their late teens is notoriously difficult.

When it comes to pathways, too often we focus on the wrong things, predicting talent instead of developing it. Development early on should involve more play. In this case, Landon Donovan is spot on in his analysis of the plight of his 8 year old. You took him away from his friends, all in the name of ‘winning’ an 8 year old league or whatever have you. Yes, kids will want to compete. Let them. But at 8, 9, or 10, that competitiveness should be driven by the kids, not the adults.

We need to give time for talent to express itself. The older we get, of course we move towards a model of specialization and more development of technical skills and abilities.

While it’s easy to point to Yamal and say we need more 7 year olds in professional Academies, the real solution is much more nuanced. Yamal is a freak talent. And even he agrees that we need more play, "60% to 70% of my game comes from the slyness of playing with other kids."

What we really need is kids trying soccer early, lots of informal play, developing a love of the sport, and a talent development program that provides lots of avenues for entry and re-entry.

In the US, we often have kids start soccer, but then pick another sport during the Junior high period. And we often overly focus on technical and organized development, as there’s little culture of pickup soccer. Instead, we have a pay to play club system that ultimately excludes talent who can’t afford the travel fees, and overly focuses on showing their worth by being the best U-9 team in their area.

While soccer has its own specific nuances, the overall message is similar to other sports and performers:

1. We suck at talent ID and overestimate our ability at predicting future success.

2. We often do things that develop performance RIGHT NOW, and neglect things that develop skills and abilities that help us in the future.

3. We overestimate technical and organized coaching, and under appreciate the value of play and unstructured learning. (This is rampant in education as well!)

There are many paths to the top. Too often, we try to over-engineer a process, to proclaim that we can become a factory of productive players or talent. It’s arrogance. Over and over again, the research and real world experience points to the same thing. Give people a shot to develop their talent. Some will do so quickly, others take time. At the heart of it all is a love of the game and lots of unstructured play, with just enough coaching early on to develop their skills. Just look at Alex Freeman. He’s starting at a World Cup because someone reopened a door one MLS squad had shut. And they gave him a new path to develop on, one that didn’t blossom until much later into his career.

-Steve Magness

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