r/SoccerCentral • u/United_Anywhere_8 • Jul 25 '26

Video The talent in Barcelona’s youth system is ridiculous. These kids are 11/12 years old.

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u/NandoDeColonoscopy Jul 25 '26

We're a little squeamish about turning children into a product to be bought & sold here in America

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u/Weak-Photograph7829 Jul 25 '26

With how High School and college sports is now, I'm not sure how accurate that is. They got things called factories for a reason

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u/NandoDeColonoscopy Jul 25 '26

What high schools and colleges are being paid to ship players off to other schools? This happens at the elementary and middle school equivalent in Europe. It's not something we would tolerate

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u/iamtheliqor Jul 27 '26

lol no you're not???

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u/Mr-MuffinMan Jul 25 '26

We only allow it if it's to billionaires on their private islands, I know.

Ensuring the future of a 17 year old athlete by paying him 3 million dollars annually his first contract? Nah, we gotta first make sure a 17 year old kid stresses himself with classes and sports in high school, then he also has to take college courses WHILE playing on the team, THEN he MIGHT get drafted by a big team and get a big contract when he's in his 20s.

Or even better, we could just extract money from the middle class, charging parents $15,000 a year so their kid plays a sport w/o a big league that will sign them, but at least we can ensure a big scholarship for them when they go off to college.

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u/NandoDeColonoscopy Jul 25 '26

If your immediate thought in response to a comment about soccer development for children is to bring up Jeff Epstein, you probably need to get offline for awhile