Whenever Jermaine Jones and Eddie Johnson do an interview, there is bound to be a headline. This week was no exception as the pair teamed up on the former’s podcast for an hour-long conversation about the state of the youth and professional game in the United States. 

Johnson, the former U.S. Men’s National Team striker, has never been afraid to speak his truth and he was at his candid best this week when appearing on Jermaine Jones’ video podcast 13&Me. 

Since leaving his play days behind, Johnson has been involved as a skills development coach in Florida. His passion project started small in 2015, but has grown every year and now includes a list of top national team players among his clientele. 

Johnson’s involvement in the youth game has opened his eyes to a variety of topics that he spoke about on Wednesday including the problem with development in U.S. Soccer, MLS’s role in development, and why there are not any players like him in the National Team pool now. 

“What I am doing right now is passing on the good and bad that I learned,” Johnson said. “We know during trials and tribulations we learn the most so my struggles in Europe of having to play catchup and learn European football prepared me for what I am doing now with the younger generation in teaching them the importance of quick decisions in tight spaces, comfortability on the ball in tight spaces.”

Johnson went on to explain how playing in Europe opened his eyes to how different the coaching he had when he was young. 

“Where in America when you are young they tell you don’t dribble, they take away the dribble from you and they tell you pass, work hard, roll your sleeves up, fight, try to get a goal and sit on the lead,” Johnson said. “They take the beauty out of soccer where in Europe they incorporate the beauty with the tactical as well. What I do is try to instill both of that into the kids when they are young now.”

Johnson also reflected on how his time in Europe was not always sunshine, but that he learned from the struggles. 

“My experiences from the trials and tribulations in Europe prepared me for where I am now in how I see the game,” Johnson said. “People say Eddie Johnson failed in Europe. For society’s expectations, yeah it could be a failure, but for what I am doing right now and what God has for me right now has prepared me to be the best version of myself to be able to teach the kids the things I wasn’t taught growing up in America.”

Jones asked Johnson about the recent news of MLS’s expansion into running the youth leagues, which prompted the striker to offer some thoughts on all of the leagues in the club soccer system. Johnson made some headlines in January when he delivered a scathing criticism of a youth showcase event in Florida. The tweet has since been deleted. But he still has plenty of thoughts on Wednesday about the leagues.  

“It all goes down to environment,” Johnson said. “What I tell the kids is: DA, ECNL, it doesn’t matter, those are titles. As long as you have a good influence, a good mentor that you believe in, you buy into their philosophy and methodology, and the environment that they are creating. If you are getting better and you are benefitting from it, you should stay with that coach.”

Johnson and Jones expressed some skepticism about the new MLS youth league. Johnson believed it’s all about MLS taking control of the marketplace. 

“Every player on the pay roll at MLS, they don’t get paid by their teams, they get paid by MLS,” Johnson said. “So MLS has built a great organization in being able to able to control their destiny and keeping control of everything that is going on. I think like you said what they are doing right now is they are trying to prevent other kids from being taken at a young age so they don’t lose out on anything. Borussia Dortmund made $75 million off of Christian Pulisic. That’s $75 million that MLS and U.S. Soccer lost out on.”

“We are proven to have the players. Everything in MLS and U.S. Soccer, they want to control everything. America prides itself off of being in control. They don’t like when other people challenge them. They don’t like when people go a different route than where they go. They want to make everyone feel like they need them or they can’t reach their goals. So it goes down to be territorial. I think that is why they made all of MLS in control of their academies to have more control of where their players are at and where they send their players. It’s all a business at the end of the day. They want to make sure they aren’t missing out on money like they did with Christian Pulisic. MLS wants to make sure they don’t miss out like they did on Weston McKennie. He went to Schalke on a free (transfer).” 

Jermaine Jones did not shy away from the MLS control topic as he echoed a lot of what Johnson was saying about the league feeling the need to keep all U.S. players in their control. 

“Weston denied a Homegrown contract with Dallas,” Jones said. “MLS saw that coming. He was going over already, he signed. So now they have an academy system running under your own clubs, you can sign the players at 15 or 14, you make it look like they have a contract. If a European club comes calling, [MLS] is making the decisions [for the players now]. We’ve had stories already. I don’t want to say the names because I don’t want to step on people’s toes but we had national team players who had the chance to go to Europe, but MLS closed the doors because they did not get the deal that they wanted. They [shut] down the deals because they didn’t get what they wanted or they picked the teams because [MLS] gets more money. They don’t look after you if you will get to play or not. They don’t care about that. I get it, it’s a business and it’s about money.”

Johnson offered his thoughts on MLS’ approach to growing the league and why he thinks they are going about it in the wrong way. 

“The league puts business before development. If we put development before business like the rest of the world - Europe, South America, Africa, they know if you develop the players, you are going to get the money you want when they are sold on. So that’s what happens, we look for the money and not the development. Every DA organization, ECNL, it is all pay-to-play, it is all financial gain. How many people can we register? Boom. We got the kids, they are under our umbrella. We won’t give away their player card, so they are stuck with us for the year. As long as they get their money, they are happy.”

“They keep running with the same system because it’s been successful for them,” Johnson continued later in the podcast. “From a business standpoint, they are all business guys. They have no soccer background, they are business guys - Don Garber and Ivan Gazidis when he was there - they are business guys. Their agents are representing a lot of players in MLS. They used to put poison in our heads saying don’t go to Europe, go to MLS because they were helping their friend out who owns the league. It’s all mafia. It’s all looking out for their best interests. I’m saying it because it’s facts.”

“I am not who I am if it’s not for MLS,” Johnson continued. “They had a choice to draft me and they drafted me. I am grateful and thankful for being able to play in the league. But there is a lot of stuff that goes on in the league, and people need to start shining a light to it because it’s restricting our younger players from reaching the potential that they should and can be reaching.”

“By all having all of the resources and not putting them out there, like you said it makes us it so we can only get to a certain level and then have to go to Europe. Now that they are established, they don’t need young players anymore. They can get the David Beckhams over here, and sell jerseys. They can get Thierry Henry, they can get Chicharito. They can get big-time players. The players see this league as not a lot of pressure where they are used to a lot of pressure. They are saying that they can go to MLS or China and they are still willing to pay me millions of dollars even when there is no pressure. Again, it goes to money. They are giving money to these great players and they aren’t investing it into development.”

Why are there not more Eddie Johnsons or Clint Dempseys coming through the national team program now? Johnson thinks the barrier to entry at the elite level is too big of a hurdle to make the game accessible for the next Johnson or Dempsey or Jones. 

“What I am saying is we don’t develop enough Jermaine Jones, Clint Dempseys,” Johnson said.  “Why? Because all of the kids who are playing on the top teams, the parents are financially stable. They are rich kids. You can’t teach a rich kid how to be a warrior. How to fight during trials and tribulations. How to earn things when things are difficult in life. That’s another thing that is killing our development. We make soccer so expensive. We don’t get those personalities like you or me because they can’t afford it. That’s another thing that is hurting development in this country. We don’t even want to target those kids because we don’t think those kids fit the model of what a U.S. Soccer player is supposed to be because it’s a suburban sport. That’s another thing that is wrong.”

Both Johnson and Jones said they want to continue coaching. Johnson has his growing skill development business, but suggested some interest in trying his coaching a club or youth national team in the future. 

Jones, infamously, had a tumultuous time while coaching for Real So Cal in the Development Academy in the past. Sports Illustrated had a feature on Jones earlier this year with some insight into the experience. Jones said in the podcast that he has reached out to U.S. Soccer about coaching a youth national team as well as reaching out to MLS teams for an assistant coach position. 

Neither organization gave him much of a chance according to his sentiment on the podcast, but both said they are in it for the long haul in terms of helping growing the game in the United States so that it can compete with the best in the world in the future.