I watch a lot of youth soccer in SoCal, and the US kids (up until about age 12), can (and do) compete with and beat just about anybody. If they ranked countries based on 12 year olds, we'd probably be top 3.
http://blog.3four3.com/2013/05/10/fc-barcelona-youth-academy-video/
If you want to cover the bleeding edge of youth soccer development in the US - follow the blog linked above.
So, what happens at age 12? In Europe and S. America (and Mexico) the kids that differentiate themselves at that age are essentially taken out of the home and put into soccer academies. The guys who write the blog above produced a kid named Ben Lederman - who is now in Barcelona (Spain) training in the same academy Messi did.
http://americansoccernow.com/articles/calling-america-s-next-top-soccer-player
Since this kid made the plunge - there have been 5-6 other SoCal kids jumping into foreign academies - in Mexico, Brazil and Europe. In the US, culturally, we just aren't willing to part with our kids at such a young age and devote them to entirely to soccer the way they do in other parts of the world. Parents are just not willing to concede soccer apprenticeship for our kids at that age - and this is where the real differentiation kicks in. All the cultural stuff about the kids playing on the streets - etc. is a factor, but most of it is just BS. Soccer in this country is very structured, the way basketball in Europe is very structured. In both cases the 'street' produces more and better players (in the US for basketball and in Europe/S.America in soccer) but it is not the only path. The foreign clubs are already starting to pour money into SoCal development academies. Most big clubs here now have at least 1 team at every age group where the kids don't pay a dime. Things have changed very rapidly from the ground up in the past 5 years. The creation of the US Soccer Dev. Academy for boys has also helped.
The good news is - there will be a huge crop of US born kids coming through the ranks who have been in foreign academies or even domestic ones during the most important ages 12-17. Kids like Ben Lederman may be training for/with Barcelona - but he is an American. Soccer is immensely popular in SoCal for obvious reasons - and this area is primed to produce huge talent for the next decade. IMO, the US will be a contender for world cups in the future.
US Soccer has its ups and downs, but I think it has turned the corner in terms of being able to compete well internationally.
The US beat Spain in the last Confed Cup and lost to Brazil in the final by 1 goal. That same Spain team went on to dominate the world 1 year later. And here we have some bozo telling us all that we'll never be able to compete with those teams? I guess we can't compete with Germany or Mexico either?
Our U20's got bounced in pool play in Turkey in the U20 WC. This will be the last group of U20's that are 'weak' as compared to the world. If you want to see how we will do in the future - you need to look no further than the youth national teams international performances.
And - not that anyone cares, but the US women will continue to dominate the sport for the next 2 decades. The youth infrastructure for US women's soccer goes WAY beyond what any other country does right now.
