What's behind Klinsmann's Mexican quest?

The current fuss in México's footballing environment raised by the call-ups to the US national team for Ventura Alvarado and William Yarbrough may make us neglect the serious troubles that Jurgen Klinsmann now has. Such are the limitations within US Soccer grassroots levels that the California-based German boss pursues a selection agenda based on foreign scouting and -you may wanna call it- free riding.

As tough as 'free riding' sounds, I believe the concept fits this situation. A good illustration of it is the fuss raised back in 2008 when Ivan Rakitic, amongst many other Swiss-born Croatian players, switched allegiance from Switzerland to Croatia. During that year's European Championships, co-organized by the former country, it wasn't uncommon to hear angry Swiss fans supporting every rival that the latter country had within the tournament. "The thing is that players like him (Rakitic) and Mladen Petric (former Dortmund and Hamburg striker) have benefited from our youth ranks system and also from playing in our clubs so they could jump to big Bundesliga sides and now, quite talented as they are, they turn their backs on us by playing for Croatia ", went the Swiss rant.

The scheme is the following: within a world of ever-increasing migration trends, a national federation whose domestic youth ranks system is unable to feed its national side with an adequate pool of eligible players must look for talent abroad by means of constant scouting. Of course, a constant foreign scouting program sometimes implies tug-of-wars with foreign federations, foreign clubs, foreign media and foreign egos.

When Mexico coach Miguel Herrera went unapologetic by remarking that the Club León goalkeeper Yarbrough was only one amongst other eight or nine Mexican goalies, he was in fact reflecting the big egocentrism that pervades Mexican football when it comes to players being lured by US Soccer: that's reminiscent of the cases of Francisco Torres and Edgar Castillo. When these players end up finding little to none playing time with the United States at major tournaments such as World Cups, Mexican pundits regard this as confirmation of an alleged lack of talent that wasn't worthy of consideration for the Mexican side in the first place. What it actually reflects, however, is that those Mexican-American Liga Mx players haven't followed a consistent youth process that enables them to compete against American players who have, and against American imports from Bundesliga and Eredivisie.

Indeed, the USMNT roster for the friendly games in Denmark and Switzerland is full of men scouted abroad: Aron Johannsson, Danny Williams, John Brooks, Tim Chandler, Alfredo Morales, Michael Orozco, Greg Garza, Fabian Johnson, Julian Green, plus the abovementioned Yarbrough and Alvarado. Homegrown talent (defined as individuals who both played for MLS youth ranks and US underage teams) accounts for hardly 12 out of 23 footballers. Almost a fifty-fifty proportion unthinkable for certain national sides such as Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia and Belgium.

Things were not always like this for Klinsmann. When he took over the national job, many good American players were plying their trade in the Premier League, Serie A and Jupiter League to name but a few European leagues. As soon as early 2014, nonetheless, the MLS began repatriation of those good players that everyone knows and the pool of eligible ones shrank dramatically.

Klinsmann's Mexican quest is actually an international quest that stands for a constant scouting program that sometimes turns into free riding, since the US grassroots levels are facing serious troubles which compromise the near future of the national squad. For foreign scouting should come as complementary to youth development, and not as a substitute.