I like this recommendation. Even when we played at recess growing up, it was always tons of kids, 7+ on 7+ rather than 2-on-2. I think smaller teams for youngsters would be fun. I’d work for any age really, though it may require a lot more running if the fields are allowed to be huge.
You got me, the US is nothing but a nation of fatties. All those Olympic medals were really won by people from other countries.
As far as inverting the argument goes, a lot of the world’s best soccer players very likely would be extremely good at another sport if they had spent their entire lives playing it. Most of them are too short to be competitive in basketball, but why do you think they couldn’t be very, very good at other sports? How do you know Messi couldn’t have been a world class boxer, baseball player, speed skater, diver, cyclist, or martial artist? How do you know Brazil isn’t full of guys who could play in the NFL if they had the chance and actually wanted to?
BTW, why isn’t the US women’s team limited by all the systemic issues you say limit the men’s team?
Soccer is kind of like tennis in that there is more to it than just being a freakishly good athlete. Being athletic helps, but ball skills, turns, knowing where to be at the right time, intuition trump pure athleticism. The american sports NFL, NBA, and baseball to a lesser extent are sports where pure athletes thrive. I mean the NFL weights pretty heavily your bench press, 40 yard dash, vertical etc. American sports tend to reward the best athletes.
To give you an example, Gael Monfils is the best athlete tennis has ever seen. The guy is a freak athletically, but there is more to tennis than that hence why he loses to Nadal, Djokovic etc.
The US womens’ team is every bit as limited by the same systemic issues.
The reason Messi likely couldn’t have been a world class boxer, diver, or baseball player is because those sports don’t take advantage of his main attribute - his extreme ball skill. His foot speed would transfer over, but that’s about it.
What’s wrong with you? I’m just pointing out the stupid statement you made saying ‘On the whole English people are not very athletic’. What a bizarre idiotic statement.
You’re speaking in circles again without addressing any of the points. You’re not going to do anything till you figure out how to fix the systematic issues, one of the major ones being the emphasis on size and power from a young age. Maybe you should go back and have a read again.
There are a number of reasons for that but since you’re just repeating yourself again and again without bothering to read i’m not sure there’s any point going there and it is pretty much limited by a lot of similar things given how Germany and Japan have caught up with you.
Well, the main reason that the US sucks at football (relative to other sports) is just that US people, in general, don’t care about the sport, nor does the US system reward people who are good at football. I’m sure there are many hidden Bekhams out of the 350 million people here. However, since there is no Premier League here that will pay them millions of dollars, those guys are not going to dedicate their whole lives to football. Instead, they will play some other sport, or just go to college and be a normal person. I’m sure the English people could get good at baseball if they wanted to. However, no one in England cares about baseball, so they do not become good at baseball.
It is true that US athletes emphasize power and speed in many sports. However, I doubt that this emphasis makes US athletes bad at football. In fact, the US women’s soccer team does well partly because they are more athletic than players from other countries. Also, training is not the same in different sports. The US is good at many skills sports - like gymnastics. US gymnasts do not have the same training as US baseball players. Just because the US emphasizes strength and athleticism in many sports, does not mean that they will not have a different kind of training for football. The problem, as discussed above, is that the US does not attract top talent to football in the first place.
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Not really, That sounds like a pundit who’se trying to act intellectual about something he knows nothing about. That’s a minute part of the problem.
To address the second part of your post first, womens football is in the stone age, about 50 years or more behind mens football. In such infancy, power and strength will win out and the USA won the first two world cups. Other countries started implementing their progressive philosphies into the womans game and guess who won the next two? Germany. And guess who won the most recent one? Japan. Other countries have less than half the funding that the US womens federation has yet they’ve already caught up with them. Imagine once they really start paying attention and start transferring their coaching know how.
Even if America attracts all it’s top athletes at a youth level to take up football there are still so many flaws in their system that they will still struggle. They have no distinct style, There is no homogeneity across age groups, Their coaches are not progressive, The MLS model is flawed, Clubs have no vested interest to develop their own players…The list is endless.
Could they fix all this? Sure, any country can if they wish to do so. Japan is doing it as we speak. But the argument “If our best athletes play football we’d be good at it” is generally spoken by people who don’t have a clue.
“US doesn’t attract top talent to soccer” is a totally different argument from “Michael Vick/Randy Moss/Calvin Johnson would dominate soccer”. First point is correct, the second point is ridiculous.
^^ Who did Japan beat in the last women’s WC? Who beat Japan the following year in the Olympics? What country has never finished worst than 3rd in the women’s WC? Who won 4 of the 5 Olympic tournaments and finished 2nd in the other?
What do you mean “Once the Europeans start paying attention”? Are you suggesting that Europeans don’t care about women’s soccer and that’s why they’re not as good as the US women?
The USWNT is hardly dominant in soccer, and technically they are behind other countries, despite having “the best athletes”. (Who didn’t win the last three world cups?) Brazil puts forward a very very competitive womens’ team despite not caring about womens’ soccer. The same goes for the Euro sides.
To be fair, no country really cares about women’s soccer…
But you know why the US women’s soccer team keeps winning? It’s because the US wins at most sports, especially women’s sports. The US does not put special emphasis on women’s soccer. However, the women’s soccer team is pretty good because US sports teams (running, swimming, gymnastics, cycling, hockey, etc.) are generally pretty good.
The US men’s soccer team does not win because other countries are abnormally good - football is their national sport and combines all the incentives of NBA/NHL/NFL together. Of course the US, where soccer is only a fringe sport, will lose the men’s competition under these circumstances.
Also interesting is that the no of youth players they have registered from 4-19 is apparently 3 million, approx the entire population of Uruguay yet one produces a upper tier team, the other does not.
This argument is getting boring. The USA football team can get Lebron, Wade and whoever their best athletes are.
They won’t do shit till they fix all the structural points that anyone who actually knows a bit about the sport has listed
Moving on, 2 more days for the biggest spectacle on Earth gents, Nike does it brilliantly, Risk everything.
I think we can all agree that the US sucking at futbol is a combination of these things, all of which have been mentioned:
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The US has bad coaches and youth development programs. This is a distinct byproduct of people in the US not giving a crap about soccer.
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The US does not attract talented players. This is a distinct byproduct of people in the US not giving a crap about soccer.
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The MLS is a joke. This is a distinct byproduct of people in the US not giving a crap about soccer.
So, really it just comes down to people in the US not caring about soccer. I’ll throw in one other thing: as mentioned most (non-immigrant) US youths who play soccer are in relatively affluent families. Their parents never encourage them to focus solely on soccer because being good at soccer is worth next to nothing (beyond a college scholarship) and they have much higher probability of being successful by simply following well worn traditional routes.
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For a country that doesn’t care a lot about soccer your federation sure seems to drop a lot of money on the game and spend a whole lot more on a world cup bidding process.
^ The US doesn’t suck at “futbol”, the NT is quite competitive with everybody outside of the major powers, and they’ve beaten, or come close to beating the powers in the past.
I think you realize that “a lot of money” is relative. Also, the Olympics and the World Cup are the two largest international sporting events, so what country wouldn’t want to host them.
Sports is huge business in the states. To put things in perspective, CBS recently signed a $250mm deal to air Thursday night football for one year, for half the games. That’s for 8 games…the first eight weeks of the season.
^ Come on Palantir. Haven’t you been here long enough to know that being “competitive” is not acceptable?
Sure, the ‘we don’t care about the game’ is just sour grapes though and the numbers show otherwise.
Also, I’m sure you know this but there is no money to be made in the FIFA world cup. The country foots the bill, builds the stadiums, upgrades the infrastructure etc yet it is FIFA that pockets the revenue from TV deals and ticket sales.
The upside from increased tourism flow is marginal at best and all cities/countries run in the red for events like these. It is why the Brazilans are on the streets and the South Africans were unhappy with their government.
I’m not sure what you’re whining about now. You came, chest puffed out saying if the top American athletes entered the game you would compete with the best of them.
It’s been pointed out that you neither have the coaching infrastructure among numerous other things for that to happen. In addition to that while it would make you competetive it would not push you into the upper echleopns of the game because football doesn’t work like that. Pretty much everyone who follows the game has mentioned that so maybe you should take heed.
You are pulling from a talent pool the size of Uruguay and the money you’re pouring into the game probably shits all over poor Uruguay but their team is streets ahead.
You then went on some bizarre trajectory about the womens football team which quite frankly i’m not sure any country in the world really gives a damn about and there is really no point going there.
I am still dissapointed there is no Turkey. I want to hear those chants again "Spray, Spray, Spray your teargas, Remove your helmet, Drop your baton and then we’ll see who’se hardcore".