anotherVegan
Member
Good luck next round Belgium. Proud to be a part of team USA. Looking forward to watching the US women dominate next year.
2014 FIFA World Cup |OT6| The beautiful game in all its thrilling glory
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All the people in this thread saying that the US would have a better team if your sportsman were not taken by other sports, answer me this:
What is happening with all the talented, "athletic" guys who are not tall enough or physical enough to make it in the other sports? Because most of your other sports seem to need that physical presence. Obviously Basketball you hardly find anyone under a certain height. Most NFL players I presume need to be of a certain physical mould.
In Football/Soccer there are tiny players like Xavi, Shaqiri, Valbuena, even Messi.
Why aren't you developing the smaller guys into world class soccer players if they have no chance in other sports? The other sports won't be taking them away.
I guess there are complicated cultural reasons for this, but it's something you need to look at.
What is happening with all the talented, "athletic" guys who are not tall enough or physical enough to make it in the other sports? Because most of your other sports seem to need that physical presence. Obviously Basketball you hardly find anyone under a certain height. Most NFL players I presume need to be of a certain physical mould.
In Football/Soccer there are tiny players like Xavi, Shaqiri, Valbuena, even Messi.
Why aren't you developing the smaller guys into world class soccer players if they have no chance in other sports? The other sports won't be taking them away.
I guess there are complicated cultural reasons for this, but it's something you need to look at.
Charles Foster Kane
Rosebud
I agree that if football was more popular in the USA, they'd probably perform better, but football is not about quantity. If it was Brazil (or other countries with big populations in which the sport is famous) would leave no chance to the smaller countries.
List those sports and their origins...and the world teams that play them?
figadapaura
Member
Tell that to Ronaldo(not CR7 btw)
Someone never saw Barcelona (and Inter) Ronaldo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE774yQX6uQ
They still play American Football,basketball, baseball, etc. and are average/mediocre at it.
It isn't #1 in Ireland.
I don't know if that's because we're shit at it, or we're shit at it because it isn't #1. I'd say it's #3 anyway.
Hurling is so awesome
If we made them any smaller their big freedom penises would drag on the ground.
CheDominik
Member
Sure you have the overweight sluggers that can hit the ball a country mile. But your MLB shortstop or center fielder are really good athletes.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
Young Fat Ron was a striker made by God.
Every physical and mental attribute you needed for a #9, he had it.
Well except the not getting fat part.
Every physical and mental attribute you needed for a #9, he had it.
Well except the not getting fat part.
China has a nonexistent football-structure. They like to watch, not more.
Russia was never really bad till this WC and last EC.
lastflowers
Banned
It's going to take a while to build up teams and local clubs. It's going to take a while to get good coaches teaching youth soccer. It's going to take a while to translate youth success into continued play at middle school / high school level instead of Football/ Baseball. This is why the FA extended Klinsmann as the director of USSoccer, to help build programs that better support soccer. It's going to be a while, and I hope the country continues its interest in the sport. It'd be great to see what the MLS could be.
well Brazil does have the most world cups, so that's not necessarily the best example
but I agree. look at countries like the Netherlands or Argentina, which regularly vastly outperform their nation's population and consistently produce players of a very high quality. not always with a good balance between the positions (Argentina's got their fixation with number 10s, and obviously has a bit of an unbalanced team at the moment with shitty defenders) but enough talent that you can regularly be considered a contender at tournaments.
having said that, the infrastructure is there in the United States. MLS is already producing a large amount of consistently average (internationally-wise) players, which is not to be underestimated. now, USA just need to take the next step and find/develop/whatever the first American superstar player. that'll bring USA to the level of being capable of making deep runs in tournaments.
I guess there's the problem. There needs to be some sort of pro-active shift to capture these guys.
And the hispanic population too. Why aren't there many/any in the squad?
It doesn't get you laid in high school and up until fairly recently there was no real future in it. Kids see football, basketball and baseball players pull down big bucks. MLS hasn't had a wide enough audience to show kids that there's a future there. It'll change as MLS gets more exposure with new TV deals and whatnot, but until recently it just hasn't been cool.
The athletics part is the easiest and most common thing there is football. Skill is what determines the level you play at.
Atheltics means nothing because everyone in the pro game has enough with a few notable exceptions.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
Soccer is already the second most popular sport for Americans 25 and under I believe. And with the whole NFL concussion thing, it'll be interesting to see where the sport goes from here.
We've already seen a tremendous growth in the last 10 years. Because of the Internet it's been tremendously easy to follow European football, and that was always the problem with the viewers: what they were watching was not the best the sport had to offer.
Also, this notion that somehow that somehow the other U.S. sports don't require skill is laughable. LeBron James is a freak athlete who also has the skill/technique to play at an extremely high level. The U.S. right now doesn't stand a chance of getting that type of player like a LeBron that combines both the skill and the athleticism to play at an all time great level.
Generally people aren't saying this though. Yea you have the idiots who say put LeBron in the MLS and he would be a soccer god, but for the most part that's not what people are saying. Although soccer is growing in the U.S. it's not even as popular as the NHL right now. The pool of talent for soccer in the U.S. is small. What most people are saying is that if it were more popular the talent pool would be much larger to chose from. You have a small talent pool, and only a fraction of those players will ever be good enough to play professionally. An even smaller fraction of those players will turn out to be studs. Right now U.S. soccer has no chance of ever producing a Messi or Ronaldo type player. The talent just isn't there. The best athletes play in the other sports period. If U.S. soccer were as popular as the NFL right now the talent pool would be huge. Only a small fraction of the athletic freaks would have what it takes to succeed, but they would have a far better chance of getting/developing a great player.
Generally people aren't saying this though. Yea you have the idiots who say put LeBron in the MLS and he would be a soccer god, but for the most part that's not what people are saying. Although soccer is growing in the U.S. it's not even as popular as the NHL right now. The pool of talent for soccer in the U.S. is small. What most people are saying is that if it were more popular the talent pool would be much larger to chose from. You have a small talent pool, and only a fraction of those players will ever be good enough to play professionally. An even smaller fraction of those players will turn out to be studs. Right now U.S. soccer has no chance of ever producing a Messi or Ronaldo type player. The talent just isn't there. The best athletes play in the other sports period. If U.S. soccer were as popular as the NFL right now the talent pool would be huge. Only a small fraction of the athletic freaks would have what it takes to succeed, but they would have a far better chance of getting/developing a great player.
Keep in mind too though that no one gets into the big leagues as a fat homerun hitter that can't play the field. Players will specialize in their professional career but, just as an example, every pitcher on a major league team was probably the best hitter in their high school too.
These are the posts that are entertaining.
What exactly is it about a country that creates world class football players? They have the "football gene"? The US has a population of hundreds of millions of people who really, really, really like their sports. Yes, if soccer were one of the most popular sports in the US I'm sure you would see the US making it a lot farther in the world cup. Obviously it's something that's deeply ingrained into a country and would take decades to change in the US (if it isn't changing already).
Honestly, World Cup victories for the US or not, the one thing I could see changing the public perception of soccer/futbal in the US, as B-Dubs just said, is the MLS getting a lot more exposure and being treated more seriously instead of as a silly sports side-show. When the average Joe can name a few famous MLS players off the top of his head, that's when things will have changed.
figadapaura
Member
And with broke knees and being overweight his skill still made him world class.
If all he had was Atheltics he'd be done after he fucked his first knee.
I agree about concussions. the NFL as we know it could be dead sooner than we think, or at least exist in a vastly different shape. and we've reached the point where we don't need to say that soccer is on the rise, because it's clearly been here. I think there was a lot of concern before the world cup that the casual viewers wouldn't tune in this year because of how little chance the USA had at progressing; I think those worries are officially dead. there will be NO question that people will be tuning in to watch team USA four years from now, regardless of how they perform at the tournament.
chicko1983
Member
What is fuelling this recent renaissance of Belgium football?
It's the focus on technical development and tactics in the formative years (8-18 yrs old) ahead of physical traits like strength, speed and endurance.
The theory is that you can develop strength and endurance when you are older and have the skills and nous. It's much, much harder to make it to being a top player when you don't have the technical ability with the ball. In Belgium, small sided games and games without results are done at underage level. In the USA, junior development starts much later and is results driven.
For that reason, USA will continue to produce good players but not a steady stream of great players who are getting game time at the biggest clubs in Europe.
Australia has also implemented a similar system to Belgium, based primarily on the Dutch system. We are only starting to see the fruits of the sacrifice of some years in transition. We are coming from a place well behind where Belgium is but by all accounts we will start to see some of the benefits leading up to the next World Cup. We have a record number of 16-20yr olds on the books of first division teams in England, Germany, Italy and Spain. Leckie, who was one of our best at this World Cup and is only 22, was at the very start of the implementation of the new system to give you an indication as to if the reforms are working.
CMojicaAce
Member
What's everyone's favorite matches so far?
Mine are, in no particular order:
1. Netherlands vs Spain
2. Mexico vs Brazil
3. Germany vs Ghana
4. USA vs Belgium
5. Germany vs Algeria
Mine are, in no particular order:
1. Netherlands vs Spain
2. Mexico vs Brazil
3. Germany vs Ghana
4. USA vs Belgium
5. Germany vs Algeria
Tell that to Ronaldo
These guys were obviously good enough physically to keep up, as well as being immensely skillful/talented. Point being, they compensated for it one way or another. Ronaldo less so as he bloated towards the end of his career. It relates to a pitcher or a QB in the NFL or MLB. As their physical skills decline (speed in a pitcher, and mobility, throwing power in a QB), they compensate with skill (control, timing, intelligence, etc). All I'm getting at, is there is a point where you have to be able to keep up physically, no matter the skill level.
Soccer is not an exception. I think we would be fooling ourselves to say that most of the guys in UEFA for instance aren't both skilled and physically talented. It's the combination in varying forms of those talents that allowed them to get to the top.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/world-cup/go-usa-bored-americans-still-back-home-team-n145386
US soccer is still a loooonngg way off.
US soccer is still a loooonngg way off.
This is a good post, and it's something the English have been really slow to catch on to too.
Those two are my favourite ones so far, great matches. Algeria vs S.Korea was pretty good as well.
Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
I never said they didn't have skill. Being skillful at basketball means shit in football and vice versa.
1. Netherlands vs Spain
2. Mexico vs Brazil
3. Uruguay vs England
4. USA vs Belgium
5.Germany vs Ghana
AcademicSaucer
Member
YEp. china and India really like to watch champions league and other football tournaments , they dont seem to like playing tho
The kids who might be better suited for soccer end up playing other sports that are more popular here. They'd rather play (american) football where they can walk to practice and play in front of thousands of people with all their friends rather than carpool with 1 or 2 other kids to the local soccer team that nobody watches. Physical limitations catch up to most of them around the time they're entering college which is too late to switch to an entirely different sport and hope to compete at a high level.
Definitely culturally driven. I've never seen my father or any of my friends fathers watching soccer unless it was the WC.
There's an amazing amount of athletic potential in the USA but all the young talent just gets sucked up by the other major sports leagues. Yeah the USA's population is huge but Football is still like the No. 4 or 5 sport there.
Yeah. Shit ain't changing for longtime. It's better that people here start accepting that football won't be getting any relevance until NFL/NBA etc are there.
moai
Member
i think there is no answer to the question about how to raise a super star or a competent team. here in chile football is the number one sport by far and our national team has not won a single cup and until recent times we struggled to even qualify. uruguay with it's three million population two world cups, last copa america and doing well on recent world cups.
talking about this world cup, colombia and argentina with 40 million people, yet colombia for the first time in history on quarterfinals (not qualifyng for the last 3 Wc) and argentina only doing it's job getting to them.
just some thoughts.
talking about this world cup, colombia and argentina with 40 million people, yet colombia for the first time in history on quarterfinals (not qualifyng for the last 3 Wc) and argentina only doing it's job getting to them.
just some thoughts.
Also, the one thing that most of the other sports in the U.S. have over soccer is their development programs. This is especially true for the NFL. You have to play college football for at least three years before you are even eligible for the draft. College football has become big, and the division 1 teams have some of the best training staff around. These guys play in packed stadiums, while also having access to training similar to what NFL teams have. They find the talent early, and continue to develop them right up until they are ready to go to the NFL. Recruiting is huge in the NFL like it would be in most sports. They being trained for the NFL game all without the NFL paying a dime. It's a crazy way to ensure you always get elite level talent. In order for U.S. soccer to produce talent they have to improve the way they find and develop talent. U.S. soccer has to improve their development programs.
I'm not sure if they can overtake the NFL, but can see soccer beating the NHL,MLB, and NBA. Of course we are talking in the timescale of decades, and it might not even happen in my lifetime.
Sorry about that meant to put that above the quote. Didn't mean to say you were saying it.
I'm not sure if they can overtake the NFL, but can see soccer beating the NHL,MLB, and NBA. Of course we are talking in the timescale of decades, and it might not even happen in my lifetime.
Sorry about that meant to put that above the quote. Didn't mean to say you were saying it.
speculawyer
Member
Yeah I guess one thing I didn't think of, it's kind of hard sometimes to see who will grow big and strong when they are kids, and when they realise they don't have the right attributes it's too late to start development as a world class player in another sport...
This is why football/soccer is the superior sport, it doesn't matter what size you are!
Delicious Waffles
Member
For little kids, soccer is way up there, if not #1, in sports played. Thing is, it's rare they stick with it.
There is an answer, what the dutch and spanish have been doing for decades. Focus on skill and technique at a young age for years and THEN worry about athletics around 15/16.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
My point was, he was so immensely gifted with the soccer ball, that it didn't matter he was about as physically impressive as the guy playing pickup basketball at the Y. That's what these "ath-a-lete" conversations fail to address.
We already have a ton of players playing soccer at the youth level and many of them could turn into Pirlo/Riquelme/Xabi Alonso. We need to do a better job of identifying them and making them better.
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