Fill in the blanks….

[Perd Hapley]

The weaknesses of US Men’s Soccer are ___% demographic talent base and ___% domestic training and development of the talent.

Demographic Talent Base:

- The US as a country, by itself, hosts what is essentially the equivalent of the UEFA Champions League in 3 other major sports (arguably 4, if you include NHL)
- There are thus at least 3 or 4 far more lucrative and higher profile paths to professional sports stardom in those sports than in soccer.
- At least 2 of those sports (football and basketball) require very high raw athletic skill and very minimal refinement to break through at a very high level….making them a hugely viable path for lower or middle class athletes.
- One of the sports, football, fields 32 professional teams of 53 players each, a practice squad of 16 more players that make at least $400k each, and also now we have 70ish colleges and universities with 80-100 players each that are now all making not much less than those NFL practice squad players on average.
- Add all that together, just in football you have around 8,500 total athletes making at least $150,000-$200,000 every single year in the U.S. That is astonishing. And there’s virtually zero barrier for entry if you have the talent.
- Basketball, less total athletes, but much higher average pay. Around 1,000 or so athletes every year making at least $500k or so every single year.
- Both of the above = LOTS of competition for soccer to get the best homegrown athletes. Really difficult to not just go down a completely different path at a very early age if you have raw ability. And even if you don’t go a different path, it’s also difficult to not get priced out by the training and development required.
- OTOH…in the World Cup knockout round, a country the size of the Jackson metro just took the #1 team in the world to the brink, and nearly pulled off the unthinkable. Granted that might be a little bit of a flukey, one-off deal, but if it’s even possible, shouldn’t it be also possible for the US to field a similar squad when given 300 million people to choose from, even if they aren’t our best athletes?
- Also OTOH, many of those athletes excelling in football and basketball could never play soccer. A power forward, center, offensive tackle, or tight end would all be pretty useless on a soccer field.

Local Training and Development

- I know much less about this one; will let the more knowledgable folks fill in here.
- General perception that it has improved, but is still way behind the rest of the world, namely Europe.

 

[johnson86-1]

It’s 99% training and development and/or culture. Certainly we don’t get the best athletes playing soccer, but we have 300 million people. We have enough athletes to go around.

But we put kids out there on fields that are too big so they reward athleticism and speed early on rather than forcing everybody to play small sided games and develop skills and understanding of the game. Then we also just don’t have a culture of pickup soccer. I bet there are thousands of pickup basketball and football games out there for every pickup soccer game in the us.

 

[sigma_dawg]

The weaknesses of US Men’s Soccer are ___% demographic talent base and ___% domestic training and development of the talent.

Demographic Talent Base:

- The US as a country, by itself, hosts what is essentially the equivalent of the UEFA Champions League in 3 other major sports (arguably 4, if you include NHL)
- There are thus at least 3 or 4 far more lucrative and higher profile paths to professional sports stardom in those sports than in soccer.
- At least 2 of those sports (football and basketball) require very high raw athletic skill and very minimal refinement to break through at a very high level….making them a hugely viable path for lower or middle class athletes.
- One of the sports, football, fields 32 professional teams of 53 players each, a practice squad of 16 more players that make at least $400k each, and also now we have 70ish colleges and universities with 80-100 players each that are now all making not much less than those NFL practice squad players on average.
- Add all that together, just in football you have around 8,500 total athletes making at least $150,000-$200,000 every single year in the U.S. That is astonishing. And there’s virtually zero barrier for entry if you have the talent.
- Basketball, less total athletes, but much higher average pay. Around 1,000 or so athletes every year making at least $500k or so every single year.
- Both of the above = LOTS of competition for soccer to get the best homegrown athletes. Really difficult to not just go down a completely different path at a very early age if you have raw ability. And even if you don’t go a different path, it’s also difficult to not get priced out by the training and development required.
- OTOH…in the World Cup knockout round, a country the size of the Jackson metro just took the #1 team in the world to the brink, and nearly pulled off the unthinkable. Granted that might be a little bit of a flukey, one-off deal, but if it’s even possible, shouldn’t it be also possible for the US to field a similar squad when given 300 million people to choose from, even if they aren’t our best athletes?
- Also OTOH, many of those athletes excelling in football and basketball could never play soccer. A power forward, center, offensive tackle, or tight end would all be pretty useless on a soccer field.

Local Training and Development

- I know much less about this one; will let the more knowledgable folks fill in here.
- General perception that it has improved, but is still way behind the rest of the world, namely Europe.

I’m telling you it is poor diet and laziness. Soccer is grueling. Let me tell you a small story… I played HS soccer in MS. I did decent. I scored 9 goals. I was very familiar with the talent around the state. I spent a lot of time in Mexico and Argentina and I can tell first hand how much more talented players are there. It is night and day. They are like running into a brick wall as far as this sport is concerned. You could take a very good high school soccer team in America and go down to Mexico and take on some random factory workers and I guarantee you that high school team would get destroyed.

These other countries eat healthier, kids don’t ride around in cars much… they walk everywhere they go. Several miles a day. People are trim and in great shape. They live and breathe soccer. You know how some midwestern states are with basketball? Take an entire country and put it towards soccer like that.

Maybe not the best of examples but I think you get what I’m conveying. People in this country are fat, lazy and have zero endurance. There’s no mystery whatsoever we aren’t even somewhat competitive… at least in my mind it isn’t.

 

[57stratdawg]

We just don’t put the same amount of resources into the men’s game as other countries.

It’s the same reason we dominate Summer Olympics, but not Winter. Other places just care more.

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

Our best athletes play other sports. Simple.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Soccer will not be much more than it is now in the USA until you have kids playing pick up soccer in the street or on a playground. It’s not thought of the same way as the other sports here.

 

[sigma_dawg]

Our best athletes play other sports. Simple.

Not to be argumentative but I think it has less to do with this than you might think. Thinking back of playing soccer from age 8 to 18 here in America… I got to see many athletes try out the sport. When a basketball or football player tried to play soccer… they stunk. Were horrible at it, generally speaking.

 

[sigma_dawg]

You know how Katie Ledecky swam the same amount of distance to go around the world a few times or something crazy like that? Discipline matters so much in soccer. In terms of time spent using using your legs… I wonder how much the difference would be among American kids and how many hours are spent walking, running, playing soccer vs kids in say Argentina or Mexico. The lifestyles couldn’t be more different. It’s extremely rare for a teen to own a car in these countries… most walk everywhere.

I could see it something like kids in those other countries probably walk/run 5 times as much over their childhoods as kids here in America do. Kids in America are probably great walking to the fridge in air conditioned rooms. I am not even gonna delve into diet.

So many factors but I feel strongly what I mention plays a huge role.

 

[Perd Hapley]

Soccer will not be much more than it is now in the USA until you have kids playing pick up soccer in the street or on a playground. It’s not thought of the same way as the other sports here.

I totally agree, I think the question is why that is, though?

It seems like a catch-22. You don’t have the exposure to young kids watching it on TV, because the highest levels of the game are played abroad at odd hours of the day.

Therefore you don’t have enough high level athletes ever starting off and sticking with soccer from an early age.

Therefore, you lose 90% of the available talent before they are even in 7th grade.

Therefore, you only produce a few players per year that are capable of elite competition over in Europe.

Therefore, those players train over there, where the best developers of talent are.

Therefore, a market for elite domestic soccer instruction and training never takes hold in the US.

…..and the cycle repeats. Can’t make anyone care any more if there’s no viable path to raising the profile.

It seems like only something very drastic could break the mediocrity cycle….something like EPL or La Liga adding a US expansion team, or something equally insane. And even then, it’d take 20 years or more before that really started to show long term dividends.

 

[Puppers]

How often driving around the US do you see a group of kids playing soccer or a kid outside kicking a ball around? But we all see football, baseball, and basketball constantly.

 

[Herbert Nenninger]

I assume in most other countries. If you have talent, they’ll try to help develop you one way or the other.
In the US, you have to go thru a travel soccer system that is financially and logistically prohibitive for a lot of young athletes.

And if you have a kid who is athletic enough to pick their sport in pursuit of a college or pro dream, they have these famous rich role models in the other sports. But not much to emulate in soccer. And there’s no NIL money in soccer, so that’s one less incentive to put your effort there.

 

[Perd Hapley]

But we all see football, baseball, and basketball constantly.

Because that’s what’s put in front of them They turn on the TV or pull out their tablet, they are seeing NFL / NBA out the wazoo, some MLB, maybe even some golf before soccer ever registers, except once every 4 years.

Ask yourself, however many kids you see playing pick-up soccer, what do you think that number of kids is for groups of friends who weren’t 80% or so registered for soccer multiple years by their parents in rec league sports at a young age? I mean, it’d be damn near zero, because there’s no other way to get exposed to it at a young age in the US. That’s it. Compare that to basketball, where everybody has a goal in a driveway no more than 2-3 houses away in their neighborhood, or football where all you need is the ball at a patch of grass.

There’s no front end or back end incentive structure for soccer, as far as America’s youth is concerned. And neither will change without the other also being required to change. So, it remains a hopeless catch-22.

 

[sigma_dawg]

Because that’s what’s put in front of them They turn on the TV or pull out their tablet, they are seeing NFL / NBA out the wazoo, some MLB, maybe even some golf before soccer ever registers, except once every 4 years.

Ask yourself, however many kids you see playing pick-up soccer, what do you think that number of kids is for groups of friends who weren’t 80% or so registered for soccer multiple years by their parents in rec league sports at a young age? I mean, it’d be damn near zero, because there’s no other way to get exposed to it at a young age in the US. That’s it. Compare that to basketball, where everybody has a goal in a driveway no more than 2-3 houses away in their neighborhood, or football where all you need is the ball at a patch of grass.

There’s no front end or back end incentive structure for soccer, as far as America’s youth is concerned. And neither will change without the other also being required to change. So, it remains a hopeless catch-22.

I know we each have our own experiences. I still think it’s a culture thing. You could probably set up football fields all over China and put every talented kid there in a football factory, and force every kid to watch football 24/7 and we’d probably still beat them at that sport very easily. Same thing with soccer. I know growing up podunk, MS (I love MS I don’t mean that as an insult)… everyone I knew growing up had full access/awareness to soccer. I’d imagine that has gotten better over the years.

We just aren’t cut out for it. I’ve coached plenty at youth level… take 20 random American kids and try to get them to run sprints around a baseball field. Nearly every one of them will be ready to pass out after one trip around the facility. The kid that can keep going easily is extremely rare here.

In a sport that demands extreme endurance and discipline… McDonald’s, iPads, Xbox, Roblox etc… it’s horrible combination for this sport. We will continue being subpar minus some huge lifestyle/culture shift.

Our absolute best football and basketball players… I’d say a solid 95% of them would be absolutely horrible at soccer.

 

[Dawghouse]

I’m telling you it is poor diet and laziness. Soccer is grueling. Let me tell you a small story… I played HS soccer in MS. I did decent. I scored 9 goals. I was very familiar with the talent around the state. I spent a lot of time in Mexico and Argentina and I can tell first hand how much more talented players are there. It is night and day. They are like running into a brick wall as far as this sport is concerned. You could take a very good high school soccer team in America and go down to Mexico and take on some random factory workers and I guarantee you that high school team would get destroyed.

These other countries eat healthier, kids don’t ride around in cars much… they walk everywhere they go. Several miles a day. People are trim and in great shape. They live and breathe soccer. You know how some midwestern states are with basketball? Take an entire country and put it towards soccer like that.

Maybe not the best of examples but I think you get what I’m conveying. People in this country are fat, lazy and have zero endurance. There’s no mystery whatsoever we aren’t even somewhat competitive… at least in my mind it isn’t.

Can someone please ban this retard. Full on troll nonsense, or mentally handicapped, maybe from his full plant based protien. Either way he needs a label.

 

[Dawghouse]

From someone living in Central America, let me make it easy on you. From the time a boy can walk he has a ball in front of him. The ONLY sport that matters (and in 90% of the time available) is soccer.

yes there is baseball and volleyball but normally those are programs created by gringos and unique to a specific area and only available to a limited number

I'm not familiar with South America but I think I can assume it's the same. Africa? Same, Middle East? Same. Europe is the one that confuses me because they do have money but... same.

soccer (futbol) is the cheapest, easiest sport to play. It's take a $10 ball, 4 sticks, and a dirt field to play. Hence, everY poor kid in the world plays soccer from the time they can walk.

It's not rocket science. US kids have too many options due to the wealth. The rest of the world has 1 option, futbol. That's why they are better.

could the US dominate futbol? Of course, if we put our talent and resources to anything we will dominate. We just don't care enough (see Winter Olympics).

PS - I still can't explain Europe. Except maybe most European teams are full of 3rd world players? Honestly, I have no idea why Europeso good and the epicenter of futbol.

 

[Bowdawg]

The weaknesses of US Men’s Soccer are ___% demographic talent base and ___% domestic training and development of the talent.

Demographic Talent Base:

- The US as a country, by itself, hosts what is essentially the equivalent of the UEFA Champions League in 3 other major sports (arguably 4, if you include NHL)
- There are thus at least 3 or 4 far more lucrative and higher profile paths to professional sports stardom in those sports than in soccer.
- At least 2 of those sports (football and basketball) require very high raw athletic skill and very minimal refinement to break through at a very high level….making them a hugely viable path for lower or middle class athletes.
- One of the sports, football, fields 32 professional teams of 53 players each, a practice squad of 16 more players that make at least $400k each, and also now we have 70ish colleges and universities with 80-100 players each that are now all making not much less than those NFL practice squad players on average.
- Add all that together, just in football you have around 8,500 total athletes making at least $150,000-$200,000 every single year in the U.S. That is astonishing. And there’s virtually zero barrier for entry if you have the talent.
- Basketball, less total athletes, but much higher average pay. Around 1,000 or so athletes every year making at least $500k or so every single year.
- Both of the above = LOTS of competition for soccer to get the best homegrown athletes. Really difficult to not just go down a completely different path at a very early age if you have raw ability. And even if you don’t go a different path, it’s also difficult to not get priced out by the training and development required.
- OTOH…in the World Cup knockout round, a country the size of the Jackson metro just took the #1 team in the world to the brink, and nearly pulled off the unthinkable. Granted that might be a little bit of a flukey, one-off deal, but if it’s even possible, shouldn’t it be also possible for the US to field a similar squad when given 300 million people to choose from, even if they aren’t our best athletes?
- Also OTOH, many of those athletes excelling in football and basketball could never play soccer. A power forward, center, offensive tackle, or tight end would all be pretty useless on a soccer field.

Local Training and Development

- I know much less about this one; will let the more knowledgable folks fill in here.
- General perception that it has improved, but is still way behind the rest of the world, namely Europe.

I can tell you this, I lived in Brazil while on sabbatical with my company. I’m not talking about Sau Paulo or Rio. I’m talking middle of the country Minas. There are 100s soccer fields and pitch’s for rent everywhere and they were booked 24/7. I was 30yr old and in really good shape. I had an intern who was 21 who invited me to play. I had never played soccer but I knew the game and was a pretty decent athlete who had several college scholarships in football. I played with some young guys and guys in their 50s. They ran me dead and made me look ridiculous. My wife thought I was going to die. I still continued to play the whole time I was there. Most of the time we would play at 12am or 1am because that was the earliest after work we could get a spot rented. It was insane. We will never be able to compete consistently at the high level of these countries because everyone plays the sport and they have their pick of the best athletes from every corner of that country. The TVs at work and at every store and restaurant were on soccer all day everyday. That’s all they talked about at lunch. After lunch half of them played soccer for an hr. They are legit crazy about it. I went to a match against Corinthians and Flamengos when I first got there and it blew my wife and I away. Unless something changes here with early development I just can’t see us being relevant but every now and then.

Sidenote: my intern was a legit badass. 6’4” and cannon for a leg. He eventually came to US and lived with us while he got into grad school. Sent him to State for his PhD!!! I took him to campus when he first got here and let him kick field goals on Scott Field. Dude could put the ball wherever he wanted. He was drop kicking the football and making 70yarders. This is a guy who didn’t get signed to play in Brazil but prob could compete in the Us.

 

[DawgsNCowboys87]

Our best athletes play other sports. Simple.

Yep that’s certainly correct as I am friends with a German group of College and they are big time NFL fans as well, I’m talking super fans. American football is growing so fast in Germany that most Cities/Towns have American Football teams. Even if they are barely on the level of Juco teams. Some better than some worse but they are actually quite crazy about it. Their best players come from America they make that very clear. A close friend sends me some pretty damn impressive videos though.

 

[Dawghouse]

I can tell you this, I lived in Brazil while on sabbatical with my company. I’m not talking about Sau Paulo or Rio. I’m talking middle of the country Minas. There are 100s soccer fields and pitch’s for rent everywhere and they were booked 24/7. I was 30yr old and in really good shape. I had an intern who was 21 who invited me to play. I had never played soccer but I knew the game and was a pretty decent athlete who had several college scholarships in football. I played with some young guys and guys in their 50s. They ran me dead and made me look ridiculous. My wife thought I was going to die. I still continued to play the whole time I was there. Most of the time we would play at 12am or 1am because that was the earliest after work we could get a spot rented. It was insane. We will never be able to compete consistently at the high level of these countries because everyone plays the sport and they have their pick of the best athletes from every corner of that country. The TVs at work and at every store and restaurant were on soccer all day everyday. That’s all they talked about at lunch. After lunch half of them played soccer for an hr. They are legit crazy about it. I went to a match against Corinthians and Flamengos when I first got there and it blew my wife and I away. Unless something changes here with early development I just can’t see us being relevant but every now and then.

Sidenote: my intern was a legit badass. 6’4” and cannon for a leg. He eventually came to US and lived with us while he got into grad school. Sent him to State for his PhD!!! I took him to campus when he first got here and let him kick field goals on Scott Field. Dude could put the ball wherever he wanted. He was drop kicking the football and making 70yarders. This is a guy who didn’t get signed to play in Brazil but prob could compete in the Us.

There's one option we haven't discussed. Selective immigration. Think H1B but for superior soccer talent. they would come, give them citizenship, and dominate.

My son, US citizen (9 year resident in Central American country)was asked to join said CA country's international Martial Arts team. The treatment was atrocious. He would live full time in a **** hole dorm (I don't mean **** hole like Suttle where I lived, I mean **** hole like you see in locked up abroad prison cells), and maybe 1000 calories of food provided while training 2x a day every day.

Obviously we didn't partake even though he wanted to go there to train. He's currently at MSU and living his best life on the President's list.

This same country has a full blown futbol program that starts at age 5 and by the time they are 16 they live (away from parents) in semi-**** hole dorms with much better but inadequate nutrition programs.

Point being, CA countries have no money for any BS interational sports but they produce amazing talent ripe for the picking in futbol.

Instead of the BS immigration policy we've had for 4 decades, we could just go full on NIL in Central and South America and dominate. I'd much rather use our resources to purchase the next Renaldo than 15 Rajeets in software engineering jobs. (That might sound borderline racist but we've not decided to try and take over the Cricket World Cup).

The only thing standing between us and World Cup dominance is some State Department visas. 17 them ICE agents.

 

[Dawghouse]

This seems to be the pinnacle

 

[Puppers]

Because that’s what’s put in front of them They turn on the TV or pull out their tablet, they are seeing NFL / NBA out the wazoo, some MLB, maybe even some golf before soccer ever registers, except once every 4 years.

Ask yourself, however many kids you see playing pick-up soccer, what do you think that number of kids is for groups of friends who weren’t 80% or so registered for soccer multiple years by their parents in rec league sports at a young age? I mean, it’d be damn near zero, because there’s no other way to get exposed to it at a young age in the US. That’s it. Compare that to basketball, where everybody has a goal in a driveway no more than 2-3 houses away in their neighborhood, or football where all you need is the ball at a patch of grass.

There’s no front end or back end incentive structure for soccer, as far as America’s youth is concerned. And neither will change without the other also being required to change. So, it remains a hopeless catch-22.

I think its too far gone at this point. Youth soccer is an organized sport that is mostly only played by kids whose parents sign them up. Basketball football, and baseball (or wiffleball) are played by kids spontaneously.

 

[POTUS]

Football and Basketball get all our best athletes that have skills that translate to soccer. It’s just that simple. We’ll never have Haaland because all our Haalands play defensive end or power forward.

 

[sigma_dawg]

Football and Basketball get all our best athletes that have skills that translate to soccer. It’s just that simple. We’ll never have Haaland because all our Haalands play defensive end or power forward.

Wrong, we will never have Haaland’s because most of our kids in America are lards with so much visceral fat who will pass out and require medical attention after running a 100 yard sprint.

In soccer the average midfielder runs over 10 miles per 90 minute match. Kids in Brazil and Argentina… no problem. Find me 5 youth kids in MS who can do this easily. You’d have a better chance of finding a unicorn in the MS delta.

 

[Perd Hapley]

PS - I still can't explain Europe. Except maybe most European teams are full of 3rd world players? Honestly, I have no idea why Europeso good and the epicenter of futbol.

It goes back to the old statement that describes European culture vs. Western Civilization quite well:

Europeans think that 100 miles is a really long distance; Americans think that 100 years is a really long time.

Translated: The majority of Europe (excluding the former Eastern Bloc nations) got about a 3,000 year head start on advanced civilization compared to the West, and soccer has been played in some form in that region for over 2,000 years now. That region now consists of over 500 million people, in mostly densely populated regions, so the infrastructure to support futbol has been set in place for literally millenia. It was those countries that originally brought the game to the central and South American countries, via colonization.

 

[Howiefeltersnstch]

Can someone please ban this retard. Full on troll nonsense, or mentally handicapped, maybe from his full plant based protien. Either way he needs a label.

He is probly a soybean farmer. Ya gotta push your market. Also as far as soccer, diversity is our greatest strength. More Muslims

 

[Podgy]

I’m telling you it is poor diet and laziness. Soccer is grueling. Let me tell you a small story… I played HS soccer in MS. I did decent. I scored 9 goals. I was very familiar with the talent around the state. I spent a lot of time in Mexico and Argentina and I can tell first hand how much more talented players are there. It is night and day. They are like running into a brick wall as far as this sport is concerned. You could take a very good high school soccer team in America and go down to Mexico and take on some random factory workers and I guarantee you that high school team would get destroyed.

These other countries eat healthier, kids don’t ride around in cars much… they walk everywhere they go. Several miles a day. People are trim and in great shape. They live and breathe soccer. You know how some midwestern states are with basketball? Take an entire country and put it towards soccer like that.

Maybe not the best of examples but I think you get what I’m conveying. People in this country are fat, lazy and have zero endurance. There’s no mystery whatsoever we aren’t even somewhat competitive… at least in my mind it isn’t.

Mexicans don't eat healthier than we do and Mexico isn't any better than we are. Why consider them a soccer power? We have a better record than them over three decades and they're nothing special at World Cups. Plus, have you seen obesity rates there? We've gotten better at soccer, put more players in top leagues, as obesity rates have increased in this country. It's a middle and upper-class sport in America, moms want their kids to have fun and enjoy life before heading to college, and a lower-middle class sport in Europe and Latin America. Lots of poor, undereducated kids play it all day. In Europe kids constantly drill in academies. America kids play for fun. That's the main cultural difference. Not suggesting we don't have too many lazy, fat poor people in this country. Middle-class American moms aren't sending their 9-year-olds off to professional soccer academies for years, something that regularly happens in Europe. Listen to America players in England in comparison to English players. Americans speak and sound so much more intelligently because they're better educated than English players, kids who neglected educations to grind in those academies. That's the main cultural difference: class. Even Americans unlikely to wave an American flag for political and ideological reasons and those who have some issues with patriotism have no problems doing just that for the US in a world cup. It's a middle and upper-middle class sport here

 

[patdog]

0% and 100%, respectively. Forcing kids parents to pay thousands of dollars to play soccer guarantees that a lot of kids who would be very good soccer players never even start. And I know we have football & baseball here (I don’t mention basketball because they have that in Europe). But we’re also 10 times bigger than any of their soccer powers. As for development, we couldn’t possibly do a worse job if we tried.

 

[sigma_dawg]

Athletically, for soccer the US is like a giant marshmallow. Belgium athletes looked and played like they were from another planet and exposed us. That was a beatdown of epic proportions, the final score isn’t indicative of how bad they dominated us. Believe it or not, Belgium is a middle of the road team on the world stage too. Better than most? YES, but absolutely not among the elite.

We won’t be competing seriously in soccer in our lifetimes. Some things we just suck at… this is one of them.

 

[GloryDawg]

Only if Christian McCaffrey had dedicated his athletic ability to soccer. Our women kick *** in soccer, but they don't have the as many options for their good athletes to make money.

 

[sigma_dawg]

Belgium has a population equivalent to Georgia too, the state. The best of 11.8 million of their culture took the best 342+ million of our culture and beat us into the ground. It’s not a mystery or some grand riddle. If anyone here actually lived in one of these countries that are good at soccer, with an average family in those cultures… you would so quickly understand why.

 

[TheBannerM]

Wrong, we will never have Haaland’s because most of our kids in America are lards with so much visceral fat who will pass out and require medical attention after running a 100 yard sprint.

Such a dumb argument. We still produce the some of the fastest sprinters in the world.

 

[TheBannerM]

The US also doesn't have a bunch of former colonies in the third world to pull athletes from.

 

[ronpolk]

A lot of guys here talking about the need to have kids train at an early age for soccer, like they do in Europe, are some of the same ones who get worked up about travel baseball. If soccer got the athletes and year round training that baseball, football and basketball get, we’d be much better at soccer.

Our freak athletes choose sports that you can stay in America and make a lot of money. No one wants to train their whole life just to be told you gotta move to the other side of the world to make money.

 

[MagnoliaHunter]

I think that the biggest issue is that most kids here don't grow up watching soccer stars and seeing how much they make like they do the big 3 here. If they did, they would idolize the soccer stars more and want to play soccer to be the star and make lots of money.

 

[Podgy]

Obesity rates, and fat lazy poor people didn't prevent our women's team from winning four World Cups. It's also a middle-and upper class sport and we had a head start on the world. Some countries have caught up after they made structural changes. (On a side note, that shows America as fairly progressive: we invest a lot more in women's sports.)

 

[sigma_dawg]

Obesity rates, and fat lazy poor people didn't prevent our women's team from winning four World Cups. It's also a middle-and upper class sport and we had a head start on the world. Some countries have caught up after they made structural changes. (On a side note, that shows America as fairly progressive: we invest a lot more in women's sports.)

We absolutely support our women more than other countries… I COMPLETELY agree with this. We are steadily making progress and have a ways to go… but we are clearly on the right track. In Argentina, if you are a young lady playing soccer you will be a complete social outcast and will pay the price.

I’m just curious what part of Mexico did you reside in? I’m pretty familiar with many areas.

 

[Podgy]

If anyone here actually lived in one of these countries ..... you would so quickly understand why.

Hello. Perhaps you'll figure it out one day. See my posts

 

[Podgy]

Had the US made the quarters, this would have been a great world cup for us. We're not as good as the top teams but we can compete with them sometimes.

 

[L4Dawg]

The best soccer players in Europe and South America are picked up by professional clubs for their youth teams before they are teens. Many clubs scout Africa for the same purpose now. They are trained by professional coaches from almost the time they can tie their own shoes. The best of those progress to club academies by their teens. They go to school at their club, not the other way around. The best of those are training on the fringes of the main club set up by 15-16. The top club teams are better than the teams you see in the World Cup, and the best of the best are training with them or around them from their mid to late teens. Combine that with the fact that for the most part our best athletes don't play soccer, and it's easy to see why we can't break through to the elite level internationally. The real solution is to get kids in the 10-12 year old range into the club set ups in Europe. It would take a bunch of them because the attrition rate will be very high. I'm not sure that is realistic.

 

[Pak Drescott]

Having more athletic players helps when the team you are playing is not a high skill level. See the Bosnia, Australia, and Paraguay games. Athleticism does not matter much when we are not able to string passes together without turning the ball over like in the game yesterday. It takes skill to win at the highest level, which goes back to our lack of training and development compared to elite soccer countries.

 

[The Peeper]

We just don’t put the same amount of resources into the men’s game as other countries.

And why is that? To put in bluntly, the vast majority of people in America just don't give a sh-it about the sport, period.

My kids played it because the other kids were and that was the case for the other parents as well. However, we would be at some tournament in Atlanta, or Memphis, or Dallas or wherever and all the dads were sitting on the far end of the sideline in folding chairs checking scores of or listening to a football, baseball or basketball games, and would head back to the hotel after we were done for the day to watch those same sports on tv that night. We were NEVER sitting there discussing the World Cup or a college soccer team or MISL or soccer, period. Meanwhile the women were discussing the mothers of the other teams players and how hideous they were dressed or that terrible hair color/cut, or whatever.........