Shoeless Soccer: Fixing the System and Winning the World Cup

by Carlo Celli, Nathan Richardson

Soccer youth participation in the US declined by nearly 25% in recent years . The US men’s national team went from the verge of a breakthrough to elimination from the 2018 World Cup. What’s gone wrong with American soccer and what can be done to fix it? “The Shoeless Ones” was Pele's first team. The greatest footballer of all time had no cleats, shin guards, grass fields, cone drills, or heroic soccer-parent carpooling from practices, games, and tournaments. Heck, he learned to play with a sock stuffed with rags. Let's return football to its roots, to the blacktops, vacant lots, and patios where kids play and creativity flourishes. Let’s undress the corrupted American version of soccer and shut down the club, travel pay to play system for a grassroots uprising so American kids can compete with the world's best. What we are doing now is not working, and even worse, everybody knows it. From what we’ve seen in our travels around the world and travails in America’s youth soccer programs, once we start playing what we’ll be calling Shoeless Soccer in honor of its stripped-down approach, the sky’s the limit.

188 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 3, 2018

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a refreshing manifesto. It's actually not so much about the US winning the World Cup as it is about everything that's wrong with youth soccer. Having played youth soccer for 9 years, and having coached it now for two years, it explained a lot of the regrets I have from my own time playing, and the discomfort I have coaching. I actually took some advice from the book during our game today and had the first graders I coach play 2vs2 on the sidelines during the quarters they were out. They seemed to have a ton of fun--more when they were playing on the sidelines than on the field--and although they were exhausted during the game, they had a lot more time to actually play and a lot less time just sitting or waiting for a turn to do drills. We would have lost the game anyway (we haven't won one all season), but I felt so much better about the experience the kids had with soccer.

[Asma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting read on how to fix American soccer. I’m definitely a fan of the ideas in this book especially since our current system hasn’t been working.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book regarding the broken culture of soccer in America. The current system is broken. This book provides simple ways to fix.