Official profile of the Grand Rapids Soccer Club • Based in Grand Rapids, MI📍| EST. 2024 #WeAreGR #BewareTheRapids #GRSC
Grand Rapids, MI
Joined January 2024
- Tweets197
- Following132
- Followers80
- Likes1.4K
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
In 2025, FIFA distributed $300 million of solidarity payments to 7000 clubs.
Imagine what a US youth club could do with that kind of money to improve player and coaching development.
Why doesn’t that happen here?
📺: youtu.be/L8gLVGYicJ8
🎧: ecnl.info/BTL-ECNLPodcast
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Yan Diomande has one of the craziest soccer stories that you’ll ever see.
◽ In 2023, he was still playing high school soccer in Florida at Yulee High School and DME Academy after moving from Ivory Coast.
◽ That same year, playing for AS Frenzi, he won the UPSL national championship and even earned a $1,000 check as the playoff's top scorer.
◽ In November 2024, he signed with Leganés B.
◽ Just four months later, he made his La Liga debut for Leganés against Real Madrid.
◽ After impressing in just 10 La Liga appearances, RB Leipzig signed him in a deal worth around $23 million.
◽ At the 2026 World Cup, he became the youngest player ever to represent Ivory Coast at the tournament and helped the nation reach the knockout stage for the first time.
◽ Now, just three years after playing high school soccer in Florida, he's set to join Real Madrid in a deal worth more than €100 million.
Incredible. 😳👏
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
🚨 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: UEFA have released a statement after news came out that Gianni Infantino's plan to sell World Cup stakes:
“This crosses a line that football’s governing institutions should never cross. UEFA takes it extremely seriously. So should every National Football Association.
So should every stakeholder: leagues, clubs, players, supporters, governments and everyone who cares about the future of the game.
The soul and governance of football are not assets to trade - especially with zero transparency as to who gains financially. None of us are the owners of football.
It is not FIFA’s to sell.”
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Loved the halftime show on the @USLChampionship match today between @RiverhoundsSC and @loucityfc.
Talking about brining promotion and relegation to “Every city in America.”
#ProRelForUSA
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
If @USL_HQ can figure out how to incorporate @USLLeagueTwo into the pyramid...
Yes, I know, short season, not the same, whatever... I get it.
Just somehow... adding those hundreds of communities buying in...
Things change very very quickly. – at Charleston, WV
Loved the halftime show on the @USLChampionship match today between @RiverhoundsSC and @loucityfc.
Talking about brining promotion and relegation to “Every city in America.”
#ProRelForUSA
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
I am routinely shocked when debating with people who are so convinced that it is impossible to do X or Y thing in the USA. We are the nation that went to the moon, we created reusable rockets, we invented the internet. BUT SOMEHOW when it comes to the least difficult industry, sports, it is all of a sudden IMPOSSIBLE to do X or Y or Z thing. NEVERMIND that we created the atomic bomb in a period of time that leading academics dismissed it as being achievable. NEVERMIND that we came up with a cured for a pandemic level virus (Covid) in a record amount of time. But all of a sudden, creating a system that is equitable for everyone and is open, yeah no, that’s just IMPOSSIBLE.
Truly, all of this pessimism from half assed sports fans makes me feel like we are just wanting to accept the status quo. We want to be mediocre.
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Real American soccer exceptionalism would mean building the greatest player-development pipeline on Earth by opening the pyramid to everyone.
And I mean everyone.
Entrepreneurs, investors, educators, technologists, community organizations, and leaders from soccer-adjacent sports should all have the opportunity to enter the market, build clubs, develop players, and compete.
America’s greatest advantage is not centralized control. It is our ability to attract talent, capital, and ideas from everywhere.
That is how Silicon Valley changed the world. It did not ask incumbents for permission. It opened the door to ambitious people with better ideas and let competition determine who succeeded.
Open the pyramid. Stop gatekeeping. Let the market decide.
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Americans cared about soccer long before MLS existed. Soccer has deep, deep, deep roots in America.
America has never suffered from à lack of love for the game, but has always suffered from a broken system.
Hopefully, our system changes for the better someday ❤️
MLS Commissioner Don Garber: The World Cup shows Americans care about football ft.com/content/58aa62ae-85cc… via @ft
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
“Starting from scratch” is the biggest strawman MLS defenders have invented. Nobody wants to erase 30 years of growth. We want to stop confusing soccer’s growth with MLS’s monopoly.
The players were always here. The kids were always playing. The passion was always here.
The infrastructure exists. The clubs exist. The fans exist. The only thing missing is a connected pyramid that gives everyone a pathway.
An open system doesn’t take us back to 1990. It takes us closer to the rest of the soccer world.
The funny thing is, the people arguing “we can’t change anything because look how far we’ve come” are making the exact same argument every stagnant institution makes. Progress happened despite limitations. Imagine what could happen without them.
#ProRelForUSA
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Until @ussoccer addresses this, we can't catch up to the rest of the world.
We need:
⚽️Open Pyramid
🏆Sporting merit
↕️Promotion & relegation
🤝Solidarity
Every other major soccer country has it; we don't.
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Pro/rel advocates are sick of soccer being considered niche in the United States.
Let’s give all soccer teams in our country the opportunity to prove themselves in an open, free market, merit based system. That’s the most American thing we could ever do!
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Fans need to stop thinking of ways to make MLS better. Let’s make American soccer better by including every inch of the country and giving everyone the opportunity to participate.
I want my hometown to have a team that has the chance of making it to the top of the pyramid. I don’t want to be asked to support teams that I have no connection to simply because they’re the closest to me and that’s where MLS decided to put a team.
Soccer is way more than just kicking a ball. It’s about community.
Ask any fan around the world how much their local team means to them. It’s more than just being fans. It’s about the local economy, politics, opportunity, and so much more.
MLS stifles that type of growth in our country.
MLS fans can feel this opportunity slipping away.
The passion that makes them love this league is beginning to boil over, and it feels like fan bases across MLS are coming together as one collective, united in voicing their frustrations.
This is probably the only time I have seen supporters from every MLS fan base united behind a single cause: making the league better so it doesn’t miss out on the momentum that will follow the World Cup.
#MLS
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Here’s how this works:
Americans get all exited watching awesome World Cup action.
Then they tune into MLS and realize it’s a circusy, cartoonish, and shamelessly weak facsimile.
Then they’re told if you don’t watch and buy tickets, it won’t get better.
Repeat every 4 years.
#ProRelForUSA
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
I did a documentary about why the Paris area produces so many footballers. One of the big reasons was that kids from all backgrounds had access to good facilities and good coaching at affordable prices.
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
I’ve heard people say “well we don’t have an open system in basketball and we’re still best in the world.”
Guys, in a little over 30 years foreign players went from almost no nba players and getting ran off court with our best to:
-8 straight foreign MVPs
-since 2021 first team all nba has been 21/30 foreign spots
-college bball recruiting has shifted to be a race for the best 20 year old euro players
If you don’t think their approach to development on all fronts including club structure and professional league structure impacts this you’re crazy.
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
CF Damm is a great example of what could be if we had an open system in America.
But because the MLS has a closed Monopolistic system, feeder-feeder Academies can’t feasibly exist.
This is why we need an open structure in America.
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
U.S. soccer has a ceiling, and MLS set it. Until we have multiple leagues with real promotion and relegation, American soccer will never reach its full potential.
Grand Rapids SC retweeted
Because there are no real stakes in MLS.
There’s no promotion and relegation.
No qualifying.
No consequences.
No community grown clubs.
Just billionaires forming a cartel to protect themselves, and @ussoccer turning a blind eye to the values of association soccer that built the number one sport in the world.
