Fifty million people watched the USMNT lose 4-1 to Belgium. That's the uncomfortable truth sitting underneath all the optimism coming out of U.S. Soccer's new national training center in suburban Atlanta — the biggest soccer audience in American broadcasting history tuned in for a round of 16 exit.
But CEO J.T. Batson isn't pretending otherwise. He's using it as the starting gun.
"This summer has given me incredible belief in our ability to actually go do it," Batson said this week, seated in the federation's glossy new facility. He's got a point — the wave was real, the interest genuine. The question is whether U.S. Soccer can do something with it before the World Cup hype naturally fades, as it always has before.
The Holes They Still Need to Fill
The most pressing business is structural. Matt Crocker left the sporting director role in April, and the position is essentially being run by committee — with COO Dan Helfrich technically holding final authority while assistant sporting director Oguchi Onyewu, Barry Pauwels, and women's head coach Emma Hayes all feed into decisions. That's a lot of cooks, and a lot of deferred accountability.
Pochettino's situation is slightly cleaner. The federation extended a new contract to the World Cup boss before the tournament began, and Batson confirmed they're still in "active discussions" — but there's no timeline. Make of that what you will.
The one hire they've moved quickly on: Steve Cherundolo, ex-LAFC manager and former national team player, will lead the U-23 side at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The Americans failed to qualify for three consecutive Olympic tournaments before that. Cherundolo has a lot of ground to recover.
Batson said Pochettino played a key role in that appointment — which, if true, suggests the two men's futures are more intertwined than the vague contract language implies.
Youth Development: The Real Long Game
Arsene Wenger — now FIFA's chief of global football development and a collaborator with U.S. Soccer for several years — put the structural problem plainly: "In the States, there's no tradition of sports where you use your feet. To develop the skill of your feet, you need to start very early. You cannot start at 14 years of age and become an international."
That's not a new diagnosis. What's different now is the proposed treatment. U.S. Soccer has announced plans to bring soccer access to every school in Atlanta, with rollouts to other major cities to follow. The federation is partnering with local governments, private sector backers, and nonprofits — and Helfrich was clear that the goal isn't making the existing pay-to-play system cheaper. They want to tear it down and build something different.
"We are not seeking to make the current system more affordable," Helfrich said. "We're trying to create a new system that then we make highly affordable." The main target: slashing the travel burden — both weekly commutes to training and long-distance showcase events — which he argued is a larger driver of accessibility problems than club fees in many regions.
Wenger's reference point is instructive. France opened its first academy in 1973. They won Euro '84 eleven years later. "It takes a few years," he said, with the kind of measured patience that tends to make impatient federations uncomfortable.
Philanthropic funding is part of the equation — donors already contributed to Pochettino's salary and the $250 million training center. Batson is also eyeing local government investment, pointing out that American taxpayers already spend $3 to $5 billion annually on high school football infrastructure. "Think about how many development academies you could have for that sort of money," he said.
It's a compelling argument. Whether local governments buy it is a different matter entirely.
