Marcos: We had always wanted to be a part of the US Youth Soccer family. However, it was impossible for us to bring together the differing opinions of 55 USYSA state associations. They all have different rules and regulations and, given the time available, it would be unrealistic of us to gain assurance that we could control the product in every state. We tried our best to get everyone onboard, but every state youth association has its own philosophy.

US Youth Soccer was essentially born to be a recreational organization charged with spreading the gospel of the sport and encouraging kids to play soccer. Its initial charter was not to develop World Cup quality players. However, over the last 15 years, it has been painfully evident that this type of elite player development is necessary.

U.S. Soccer has learned through the years that this process is something that must be done from the ground up, not the top down. It is only in the medium to long-term development of players that the USA will see quality players emerge to lead America to more success at the highest international levels.

Weibe: There is a lot that USL can provide to US Youth Soccer state associations at the SYL and other levels within USL. We hoped that USYS would have partnered with the USL family to nurture the game of soccer in the United States. Since there were no other options in the U.S. Soccer family, we decided to go on our own as members of US Soccer without a relationship with USYS. With the emergence of US Club Soccer in the last year, we have found it more beneficial to partner with US Club Soccer for development of the game in the United States.

Since we are only going to be the top 25,000 players in the U.S. and Canada it is important for the league to have a strong base. Although, we had an agreement with USYS in 1999, we had to terminate it because of the communication difficulties in dealing with all 55 of their state associations. Imagine, every time you needed you needed an answer you had to get the answer from 55 separate people. You can see the conflicts that this was causing.

US Club Soccer provides one national system, without the fragmentation of dealing with autonomous state associations and the different rules that they have. As US Club Soccer grows to be 600,000 to a million players we will have the system in place that will benefit the growth of soccer in the U.S. Since we are now the recognized highest level of US Club Soccer, we are able to both create a system that grows the game in the U.S. at the youth level.

Ultimately, all the members of U.S. Soccer are responsible for the outcome of our senior National Team Programs. We would hope that it is everyone’s goal to win a World Cup. Unfortunately, this is not the case sometimes. I'm sure that US Soccer would like to see our teams win every FIFA event that exist at the youth and senior levels. If there is some way for us to bring the best of our resources together and work on projects together, there will be significant improvement at all levels in the country. I think a start is with the SYL. There is something here that can only get better and better.