Is the USA's ability to produce great goalkeepers threatened by early specialization?

By Mike Woitalla (from the February issue of Soccer America)

With war on the horizon, Neven Subotic's Serbian family fled Bosnia in 1990 when he was 18 months old and settled in Schoemberg, a small town in Germany's Black Forest. As refugees with few options, the family moved into the clubhouse attic of a local soccer team that his father joined.

By Mike Woitalla (from the November 2008 issue of Soccer America Magazine)

David Beckham's first visit to the USA came two decades before he joined the Los Angeles Galaxy. He talked about his trip to the Dallas Cup as a 13-year-old in a recent Observer Sport Monthly article:

"The Dallas Cup was one of my first trips abroad, maybe my first trip away with a team, which is probably why I remember it so well. As a team, we were close, a bunch of good mates, really. We each boarded with a family. The rest of the lads seemed to be staying with wealthier people: staying in big, big houses and getting ferried around in flash cars. They were all happy enough.

"But I stayed with a Mexican family. Their house definitely wasn't a mansion! They had a couple of boys, one older than me and one younger, who were in the tournament as well. The whole family collected me from the airport in a pick-up truck and, right from the off, they were so friendly. Every morning we'd be off down McDonald's for coffee and pancakes and syrup. I had the best time.

"Back then, there wasn't a professional league, obviously, but the standard at kids' level was very high, just like it is now. It was one of the toughest junior tournaments I played in. The chance for a kid my age to just go to America was amazing. To actually play in a tournament there was a great experience. When I was young, I used to get quite homesick, even just being away for a weekend in Manchester. Maybe all kids feel like that. But that week in Dallas was different. I loved it: the football, of course, but the people and the country as well. I just loved being in America."

Read the entire article HERE.

Ronaldinho, whom Pele has called "a true artist with the ball," grew up playing soccer daily on the dirt roads of his Porto Alegre neighborhood and in fields near his house. When his friends got tired of playing, he would play soccer with his dog, Bombom.

Bombom was a mutt, a dark mixed-breed dog whose name means "chocolate candy" in Portuguese.

"Bombom loved to play with me," Ronaldinho says. "When all my friends got bored, I would play with him. We would stay battling for the ball all day. I had to work hard on my moves to keep him from getting the ball. We were inseparable. He was my great companion."

Nothing kept the young Ronaldinho from playing soccer.