The Lines on the Field

Major League Soccer midfielder Noel Caliskan ’22 needs to look no further than the pitch in his tiny hometown village outside Cologne, Germany, to understand the gulf separating player development success in the United States and Europe.

The emerald oasis is immaculately maintained and, as important, the field is used solely for soccer.

“In the United States, you have fields where there’s soccer lines, football lines, and lacrosse lines,” says Caliskan, who has competed for Utah’s Real Salt Lake team since last year, after being drafted by the Portland Timbers. “I’ve played on those fields before, and I’ll tell you, it’s really difficult. Sometimes you’ll get confused by which line is which. That’s not the case in Germany at all.”

But there are other more formidable challenges in creating top-flight American players, he adds. They’re the logistical ones. As land mass goes, the United States is 28 times larger than Germany, meaning the best American youth athletes compete for club teams that travel long distances — at great expense — to play against like talent. German teams typically don’t travel more than a couple of hours by car for games.

In Germany, Caliskan notes, soccer players are developed starting at age 5 in community clubs, where participation is robust. Even small villages host teams, he adds, and annual membership is a scant 100 Euros. In the United States, pay-to-play club membership is nearly $10,000 annually for a family with two children competing, according to Money magazine.

“In Germany, soccer is the sport of the people because it’s cheap,” Caliskan says. “All you need is a ball. Back in the day, we’d make a goal with shoes, backpacks or a couple of jackets.”

As German players show promise, they’re routinely sought out and recruited by higher-level clubs — as Caliskan was at 12, when he joined the Cologne Academy. Other recruiters include the Bundesliga Youth Academy, an arm of the country’s largest and most successful professional football league.

It was at Bundesliga that Caliskan was able to study his sport as much as play it. There, he played left back, winger, center back, and striker. The diverse experience is a hallmark of the German system, which aims to develop well-rounded players who understand the game beyond their primary position.

“I wouldn’t be the player that I am today if it wasn’t for my training in Germany,” Caliskan says. “The best metaphor is cooking. You put all of these ingredients in from all of the different coaches, and hopefully in the end you’ll have a good soup.”

The German model’s emphasis on exposing players to a breadth of coaching styles was a crucial distinction for Caliskan. Coaches — from those with deep tactical knowledge to former professionals who bring their own insights — ensure that players learn different philosophies behind game strategies.

Caliskan was recruited to play at LMU after he was unable to secure a professional contract following his time in the academy system. He’d bring that German pedigree to the Lions, for whom he was named West Coast Conference player of the year as a junior (when he tied for the team lead with 10 points).

In the MLS, he sees evidence of an American soccer renaissance. The league was once a last stop for aging European stars. But in the last decade, MLS is attracting talented players from competitive leagues in Europe and beyond. MLS, consequently, has seen its popularity surge, and with that has come better facilities and an increasingly competitive environment for players.

The heightened exposure, Caliskan says, will pay dividends for the sport at large, even as player development is a work in progress.

“People understand that American soccer is coming,” he adds. “It’s developing very well.”—Andrew Faught