Sunday Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard made his last home appearance against main rival Manchester United, it didn’t last long as he was shown a red card after about 40 seconds. Next year, Gerrard is scheduled to play for the LA Galaxy in MLS. This will bring an end to Gerrard’s 26 year long relationship with Liverpool. Gerrard, soon to be 35, started playing with the club when he was 9.

From an early age, and I do mean early, soccer around the world is handled differently than it is here in the US. Kids are often scouted, recruited, and sign contracts with clubs, large and small, and begin training. Earlier this year Liverpool/England midfielder Jordan Rossiter made his first appearance with the senior squad at the age of 17, he has been with the club for 11 years already.

All of this is done under the watchful eye of the Football Association or the FA (their version of the USMNT). The clubs must adhere to strict standards of coaching and training at the youth level. It is much more than finding the biggest, fastest, and strongest kids and letting them do their thing. This happens at virtually every major soccer power in the world.

In the US things are done a little differently, sure we are starting to build from the top down, and our younger national squads are getting better, but make no mistake the LA Galaxy or Houston Dynamo do not have an Under-6 squad, coaching or recruiters. And until we do the idea of blaming our lack of success on the athletes that play soccer is absurd.

It would be naive to think that if the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL didn’t exist that some of these kids wouldn’t make their name on the USMNT, but the idea that we as a country would be better off is far-fetched. The lack of infrastructure is still a major issue. Coaching at the youth and teen level is still subpar.

So where do we start, it is pretty clear it needs to start with the MLS, the clubs have to be able to sink or swim financially and also open up youth training facilities where they can bring in kids to train with the club. Some of the owners within the MLS have the money and willingness to do this on a larger scale, because the reward would be so great. The USMNT will have complete oversight of the coaching and training in order to make sure they follow their standards and procedures they put in place.

Second, and this kind of goes against everything we do at the lower levels, in club baseball and basketball. The idea of these training facilities isn’t to beat other clubs and win trophies, but to prepare these kids for the senior clubs. To teach the technical skills required to play and win at the highest level. At the younger levels kids will stand out because they are bigger, faster, stronger, but what good will that do them when they get older and everyone is that way?