Football is definitely on the up in the states, biggest participant sport there now, they will win World Cup eventually http://www.orlandosentinel.com/spor...-10000-season-tickets-sold-20150120-post.html
Many of us here hope that FIFA keep denying us the World Cup until we set up a plan for relegation and promotion. We have plenty of teams and leagues to begin a plan to transition to it. MLS (20 teams soon to be 24 teams with long term plans to expand further), NASL (11 teams including 3 new teams in the last 3 seasons), USL Pro (24 teams including 10 new teams last season). If we are not forced into relegation and promotion we are going to end up with a system like baseball that has AAA, AA, A, and the MLB. This being an international sport we should be forced to model our league system after the system everyone else uses.
I was on holiday on Florida last year, there were two new football training centers which had hundreds of kids playing under floodlights at 9pm midweek, I know they have the climate so that must help, it's no coincidence that the worlds best players come from hot countries. The yanks are going to produce a very good crop of home grown players soon they way that are going..
The numbers of youth players is increasing but we do have a ways to go. We currently have ~4 million people playing between the ages of 6 and 17 but when you look at this graph you will see that it is only 19% of our registered youth sport population. The bottom graph shows sport participation and you will see that it is now up to the 4th most popular sport for youth to play. please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
No promotion or relegation in Australia either. Same in other major ball sports Australian Rules and Rugby League. Football is the fastest growing ball sport here too.
I notice there's a sharp increase from age 13, do the rules change at that age, maybe introducing bigger pitches/larger teams etc?
My first guess would be that it has something to do with school teams as that is about just about the age that kids enter high school here. I will try to figure it out though.
I believe that at 13 the minimum field is now 100 yards the 12 age group the field is a minimum of 70 yards. At 13 it is recommended that teams filed 11 players each at 12 it is 8 per side although 11 vs 11 is allowed. I would also think that high school sports would do something to that increase at that age as I was playing JV High School Baseball at the age of 13. Recently a couple changes were made to that age group 2013: US Youth Soccer National League expands to include the Under-14 age group. 2012: US Youth Soccer establishes Under-13 age group at National Championships; to be played beginning in 2013 I doubt this conclusively answers your question but the internet isnt being that helpful.
The US team performances at the World Cup were a joy to watch, that Portugal game springs to mind. Hopefully Allam isn't watching though, the last thing we need is more name-change type nonsense
