about LA FINCA
La Finca Futbol is dedicated to developing real futbol in the United States.
We want to see an American version of the beautiful game because we love futbol and it pains us that the US is not even participating in the global futbol conversation. Our style of futbol is stunted and isolated. We're not really playing the game.
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We know that's harsh.
The more than 800 men playing in Major League Soccer are all incredible athletes. But our professional league is ranked 10th in the world (some say even lower), and our men's national team 16th.
We think this is because so few of even our best players actually play the beautiful game. (The US Women's National Team history may seem to suggest this is just a men's problem, but we don't think so. More on that elsewhere.)
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And we think the problem lies in how we introduce the game to our kids.
Early development in the US rewards physicality and league success over individual artistry and our players have suffered because of it. We try to compensate by overcoaching -- running young kids through passing drills and telling them where to make their next pass to how to position their bodies defensively -- and our player's creativity is stalled before they are teens. Strength, speed and force, rote passing patterns and set plays do win youth soccer matches; they have little to no value in real futbol. And even though much of this critique has become commonplace, the fix is not straight forward. There is tremendous financial pressure and tradition working to maintain our youth system.
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Because of this we don't think the change will come from the top.
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Instead, we believe that by changing how we introduce our kids to the game -- the earliest level of youth development -- and the period when the systematic underdevelopment begins, we can produce a new kind of player that will inspire an entirely new, alternative pyramid.
Achieving true excellence in America professional soccer will also require reforms to the structure of premier and elite youth leagues including MLS Next and ECNL, as well as our collegiate system (which currently sends less than 1% of D1 graduates on to the professional game). But none of this is possible without a sea of young talent, so we're starting with the kids.
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Why We Are Hopeful
Contrary to the popular and self-defeating belief that some players are just born with more skill, or that soccer is just "not part of our culture," we've taught high level ball mastery to even so-called non-athletes. Will they all go on to become pros? That's not the point. Creating a sea of young talent is the only way for some to reach the true pinnacle of excellence.
Our approach is based on the simple idea that we build competent players first, then we teach them the game.
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This won't be easy.
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Youth soccer clubs do not have a tradition of teaching skill development. That's not just a critique of the USA. Professional futbol academies around the world don't teach basic skills either; they don't have to because kids growing up in established futbol cultures learn skills before joining clubs. So there is no existing model for this. In most of Europe and South America for example, juggling 100 times is a pre-requisite to joining a club team. Imagine that!
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At La Finca, we're familiar with the popular explanations of America's poor standing in international soccer, there are too many competing sports, it's just not part of our culture, we don't pay the player's enough, soccer isn't commercial-friendly, no pro-rel. The list goes on. None explain why our professionals just aren't very good.
By raising up an entire generation of highly-skilled futbol artists, we aim to deliver the talent needed for the US to finally develop a style of play all its own and one capable of competing on the world's stage.
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We welcome everyone to check us out, ask us questions -- we love to talk futbol -- and most importantly, we hope you'll come play.​​​