Former England star Gary Lineker believes the United States men’s national team has “zero chance” of winning the World Cup until it fixes its “awful” youth development system.Despite enjoying home-field advantage at this summer’s tournament, the U.S. is not among the favorites, with American betting markets giving the co-hosts the 14th-best odds of lifting the trophy, which tallies with the team’s FIFA world ranking of 16th.Lineker, the Golden Boot winner at the 1986 World Cup, agreed a $19million (£14million) deal with Netflix in December to stream daily versions of his The Rest is Football podcast starting on June 10, the day before the tournament’s first game.The show, which will be filmed in a studio overlooking New York’s Times Square, will feature regular co-hosts Alan Shearer, the former England and Newcastle United striker and Micah Richards, the CBS Sports Golazo regular, as well as special guests and roving reporters. Lineker, however, is not convinced he and the podcast team will be talking much about Mauricio Pochettino’s side once the business end of the tournament starts.“It’s amazing how many Americans say to me, ‘Have we got a chance?’” Lineker, 65, told The Athletic.“I’m going, ‘No, you’ve got zero chance of winning it — it’s impossible, because you haven’t got the players yet.’“The quarter-finals would be incredible but I think it’s a long shot. The last-16 would be reasonable but maybe not enough for American fans, as they’re used to winning things.“Football is growing there but it is still a minority sport – you’ve got to be honest about that. And their youth system is awful, hopeless. They need to start producing talent. I think it will change in time.“At the minute, it’s a very middle-class sport played up until a certain age in schools and then it peters out. That’s because football doesn’t really work with the American way of doing sport, where you go to university and you get drafted and so on. But, in football, if you’re not cracking it by 16, 17, 18, it’s almost too late.”There are many American fans who would agree with this diagnosis, as a debate about the traditional “pay-to-play” model in U.S. grassroots soccer has raged for decades, as have arguments about the quality of Major League Soccer and its approach to developing players.A lack of homegrown talent is not an issue in the women’s game, though, where the unrivalled strength of the U.S. college sports system has produced waves of talent. The U.S. women’s national team is the successful side in women’s international football, winning four World Cups and five Olympic titles.The best World Cup performance by a men’s U.S. team took place in the very first edition in 1930, when an American side (managed by a Scot and featuring five players born in Scotland and one in England) reached the semi-final stage. Argentina won that game 6-1 but, decades later, FIFA elevated the U.S. to third place, making that team the only non-European or South American side to finish on a World Cup podium.But since then, U.S. men’s teams have found World Cups harder going, with the round-of-16 win over Mexico in 2002 being the nation’s sole victory in a knockout game.The USA’s 2-0 win over Mexico in 2002 remains their last World Cup knockout victory (Pascal Guyot / AFP via Getty Images)They may never have a better chance to win another, or more, than this summer, where a relatively kind draw has put them in Group D with Turkey, Australia and Paraguay, who are ranked 22nd, 27th and 40th, respectively.With eight of the 12 third-place teams progressing to the knockout rounds, the U.S. would have to seriously underperform to fail to advance, but winning the group would increase the team’s chances of going even further, as it would set up a game in Santa Clara against a third-place finisher from another group. Victory there would most likely set up a round-of-16 clash against Belgium in Seattle.Win that game and World Cup fever will grip the U.S. like never before. The prospect of that happening did not look particularly likely earlier this year when Pochettino’s side lost two friendlies to Belgium and Portugal in the space of a week, but a 3-2 win over 14th-ranked Senegal in a warm-up game in Charlotte on Sunday has raised the optimism levels again.“Football could really take off in America during the World Cup if they do well,” said Lineker.“I suspect they won’t but they should make the knockout rounds and then it will depend on the draw. And if they win there, there will be a euphoria — we’ve seen it at previous World Cups.“American fans are very patriotic. Football is the one sport that is a truly global competition. You get it at the Olympics, to a degree, but it’s a multitude of sports, so it’s a bit different. And once football gets you, it really gets you. So, if they were to do well …”He did not need to finish the sentence.