Regarding the first question asked on this thread, I was the one (along with the all-volunteer USTSF Staff at the time: Jim Waterman, Kathy Brainard, Bruce Nardoci, Mury Johnson & Jim Stevens) who led/established the criteria for the first U.S. National Team -- the one that competed in the first ITSF World Cup held in Hamburg, Germany in 2006. That process (still documented/found on the USTSF website) was fairly easy, but was an important one in that the USA was the first of the 20 countries competing at that event to establish and publish their selection or qualification process, which set the standard for all the other countries' federations. (The disadvantage was that we announced our team way ahead of everyone else, which resulted in several other countries selecting their teams based on how they would best be paired against the USA, and which allowed their players to buy the InsideFoos videos and study our players for months in advance.)
In any case, we started with the top 50-ranked men and top 25-ranked women on the Tornado/USTSA rankings list, and the top ten overall on the Bonzini USA rank list. We sent them all invitation letters to participate and gave them a deadline to respond. For those that responded, we submitted their names as candidates to a public vote on the FoosballBoard, a popular national internet forum, with all votes submitted by email to USTSF. Thus, the public decided the final team.
That process seemed to be overwhelmingly approved at the time -- until the team lost in the quarter finals to France, which somehow morphed into to an overwhelmingly negative attack on ITSF, USTSF, the French and international foosball in general (the remnants of which continue to this day despite this year's U.S. victory over France -- in France itself; nice payback -- at the incredible combined ITSF World Championships/World Cup in January).
But I digress. It should be noted that since then, there are three types of U.S. teams: The World Cup team, the U.S. National Team, and Team USA. Starting with:
Team USA: This is composed exclusively of those players who have qualified to compete at the ITSF World Championships. This is done by being either the U.S. National Champion in OD, OS, WD, WS, JD, JS, SD or SS, or by being an automatic qualifier (having won 1st thru 3rd in Open Singles or 1st in Women's Singles at one of the five ITSF World Championship Series tournaments such as the Tornado Worlds or 1st in Open Singles at an ITSF International Series tournament such as the Tornado HOFC). There are also certain ITSF "Wild Card" slots available to national federations which can be given away at any size tournament sanctioned by those federations. Most of this has been described/published annually on the USTSF website in documents titled "How to Qualify for the ITSF World Championships." (This document is currently being updated for 2009-10.)
National Team: For the annual ITSF National Teams Competition at Tornado Worlds, this team is now selected by the USTSF National & World Cup Team Selection Committee. Committee chairs are Jim Stevens, Pat Ryan and Shelley Langley, with Terry Moore and several other voting members. They published their criteria last year in a number of places but I don't have the exact documents handy. There is one USTSF-imposed caveat (although it is not required by ITSF): there must be at least one Junior on the team for the competition at Tornado Worlds (for the last two years it was the U.S National Junior Singles Champion). Having said that, the U.S. National Team that participates in National Teams Competition(s) at the other four ITSF World Series tournaments (on Garlando, Bonzini, Roberto-Sport and Tec-Ball) is often somewhat spontaneous -- pooled from any available USA players that might be in attendance at those tournaments -- as not everyone can afford to go to every one of those tournaments in Europe throughout the year. For the foreseeable future, that's how those teams will continue to be manned unless some major sponsor/benefactor can support the frequent international travel of 6-10 specific players.
World Cup Team: Despite a seemingly transparent, public participatory process for selecting the first U.S. World Cup Team, the backlash from that event led myself and the USTSF Board to just turn the process over to a player committee to make all future determinations. One and the same as the committee noted above, they have established criteria specific to World Cup competition which to various degrees revolves around players' extent of experience/success against international players/styles, amount of multi-table experience, degree of adaptability, and their sportsmanship & professionalism. And of course, they must be eligible/available to travel internationally and accept the invitation/want to be on the team. Thus it is in fact a selection process, not a qualification process. And again, there is one USTSF-imposed caveat (although it is not required by ITSF): there must be at least one Junior on either the men's or women's team.
I've asked Jim Stevens and Pat Ryan to provide additional details on the committee's selection criteria/process, so hopefully we'll have answered your question completely. Sorry for the delay in response!!
Very respectfully,
Larry Davis
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