LA Galaxy attacker Landon Donovan says the improvement in youth development has been key to the rise for US soccer.
Donovan was part of the USA's U17 World Cup semifinal team in 1999.
"[Kids today] have a lot more options than we ever had," Donovan told MLSsoccer.com. "When I came up, your option was to either sign with a pro team at 16 or 17 if you wanted that, or you go to college. And all those teams you were signing with were overseas.
"Now we have really good academies in the States where kids don't feel they need to go overseas. We have a number of kids here in LA [with the Galaxy] that have opportunities to train and play with the first team, so they don't have to feel like they need to go somewhere else to get that. That's changed a lot, and that's going to be the way forward."
