Is men’s college soccer a viable path to the World Cup? Here’s how it’s changing

When Sasho Cirvoski took over as the Maryland men’s soccer coach in 1993, the soccer landscape in the United States looked much different. For years, with more than 200 Division I programs and few professional teams, college soccer was the place for the top young players in the sport to prove themselves before moving on to the professional and international ranks. But so much changed after the U.S. hosted the 1994 World Cup. Major League Soccer launched in 1996 as the top-flight men’s professional league in the U.S., and since then the ratio between college programs and professional leagues has shifted. There are 55 teams between MLS and the USL Championship and even more in developmental leagues like MLS Next Pro and USL League One, plus top youth players filtering through MLS teams’ academies. So as the United States men’s national team tries to figure out what’s next after a Round of 16 exit at another World Cup on home soil, what’s next for college soccer? The men’s college game is hardly dead. As the sport looks to modernize itself with a two-semester schedule — a calendar similar to most professional leagues around the world, including MLS starting in 2027 — and navigates the struggles and benefits of the transfer portal, revenue sharing and name, image and likeness deals, many people in the industry still believe the college route can be successful for the right player. The World Cup has shown that. The United States had eight former Division I players on its roster, including captain Tim Ream (Saint Louis) and goalkeeper Matt Freese (Harvard). Five of Canada’s starters in its final game against Morocco were Division I soccer players. “It’s clear there’s still a pathway to realize your dream of playing professionally and then realizing your dream of representing your country in the World Cup,” Cirvoski said. “For a long time people thought the pathway through college would never get you to the World Cup, and I’m glad that’s been proven wrong. … Once we get this playing and practice season passed in October, college will play an even more important role for players who want to pursue their dreams, but also get an education.” It’s never been harder for college coaches to convince top domestic talent to play for them. On one hand, there’s a public perception that has swept social media since the World Cup began: that college soccer isn’t a viable path to the top levels of the sport. There are also MLS directors, coaches and general managers who have discouraged players from going to college. Seattle Sounders general manager Craig Waibel is not one of those people. He is a product of the college system. He played at Washington from 1995-98 and coached as an assistant at Michigan and Washington from 2011-13 before moving to MLS. The Sounders have 14 former college players. Waibel believes going to college is necessary for some players who might not be mentally, physically or tactically ready to make the professional jump at a young age. “There’s security in the knowledge that you do get to develop, you do get to make some mistakes, you do get another chance, inevitably,” Waibel said. “Not always, because you can screw up bad enough anywhere, right? But the idea when you go to college, knowing you got three years, four years to impress a coach and earn playing time is way different than, ‘I might get one chance in the next 18 months and if I don’t take it, they’ve got someone else or they’ll go buy someone else.’” That’s where the college game has thrived. Before Akron produced longtime U.S. defender DeAndre Yedlin — who played for top-flight professional teams in England and Turkey — he was a high-potential player who didn’t have a position to call home. He developed into a right back and has made 81 international appearances. Then there was Canada’s Richie Laryea, who needed the exposure that college soccer could bring and found it at Akron. Canada has three MLS teams in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. It can be hard to make an immediate impression elsewhere. “If you’re not playing for those three academies, it’s really hard to be seen at the level to be a pro at 18,” Akron coach Jared Embick said. “There’s a ton of guys that have come to college that didn’t start their careers at Toronto or Montreal or Vancouver; they were at smaller clubs in the Toronto area, or Vancouver, Montreal, or elsewhere, but came to college in America. Now, they see the talent, got developed together, fine-tuned and now they’re helping Canada.” Those international success stories have helped change the perception of soccer in the U.S. About 10 years ago, Cirvoski’s Maryland program would’ve been scoffed at on one of the international tours it does every four years. That’s not the case anymore, he said. “When we show up, they treat us like a top-level team,” Cirvoski said, “and whether it’s access to training or the teams they put up against us, there’s an immense amount of respect for the top collegiate program.” As that respect grows and more domestic players choose to play professionally, the international footprint in collegiate soccer has grown to almost 40 percent. “I think a lot of players around the world have figured out this is a good thing in America, to study and play,” Cirvoski said. While the number of high-quality players may have dipped due to the MLS academies, the talent is still there. That was eye-opening for Kyle Beckerman when he stepped into coaching at Utah Valley State in 2021. “There’s a ton of talent out there in college,” Beckerman said. “There’s a lot of hard workers and team camaraderie, and there’s a lot of teams out there that have earned a lot of tradition.” College soccer has been as competitive as ever, with eight teams winning a championship in the past 10 years. Finding that talent just takes more searching. “With MLS academics and the focus of teams trying to get younger players in and develop their own, we’re seeing less and less of the elite youth players going to college,” Waibel said. “So you’ve seen a natural thinning of some of the quality across college soccer as a whole, but the individual players are still there to be found — not in the same numbers, obviously, but the quality is there. You just have to be a little more picky on where to look.” Growing that talent pool is the next step for the collegiate landscape. And it can’t do that without first addressing its schedule, Cirvoski said. Division I soccer has long been a fall sport, but with most professional leagues playing from fall to spring, Cirvoski said it’s time for colleges to adapt. Expanding the season to a full academic calendar will give teams more time between games and give players more time to develop and physically recover. It will also place the championship in the spring, in April or May, much like the rest of the leagues around the world. “We’ve been held back and pigeonholed in a place where we haven’t been able to grow, and now I think we might have the opportunity to really grow the sport in a way that top young players will look to come to college,” Cirvoski said. “I’m not saying everybody is going to come to college; there’s going to be players at 18 or 19 who aren’t. Like, Lamine Yamal isn’t going to college, I’m not disillusioned, but there’s so many players around the world that will want to experience the American college lifestyle.” As college coaches, and administrators, fight that battle behind the scenes, the social media era is another layer that the sport has to deal with. Big transfers — like the recent Chicago Fire signing of Robert Lewandowski — or seeing players like 16-year-old phenom Cavan Sullivan become the youngest to appear in a major North American professional sports league can stir a frenzy of people saying the college game isn’t worth it. But as the World Cup puts soccer in the U.S. under a microscope again, there are still many people, including in the professional ranks, who believe otherwise. “The biggest problem I think people struggle with when it comes to college soccer is they walk in and all they want to do is complain about what it lacks compared to the Premier League or what it lacks compared to something else,” Waibel said. “I think the acceptance of all the phases of development in soccer in America right now is what’s lacking because everybody thinks they have to have a strong opinion on what’s right and wrong. And at the end of the day, I’ve seen kids make it in every pathway and I just think it’s too hypocritical for people to sit and say there’s only one way to do this or one level they’ll watch or one thing that they’re good at. Frankly, it’s disappointing when people sit around and take those stances. We don’t have room for that in American soccer. We’re going to end up crushing American soccer.”