I distinctly remember the soccer fanatics telling us the World Baseball Classic wasn't a legitimate world championship because of all of the Italian-Americans representing Italy.
Interesting World Cup graphic
- Thread starter QuaoarsKing
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I distinctly remember the soccer fanatics telling us the World Baseball Classic wasn't a legitimate world championship because of all of the Italian-Americans representing Italy.
What the hell are you on about?
I distinctly remember the soccer fanatics telling us the World Baseball Classic wasn't a legitimate world championship because of all of the Italian-Americans representing Italy.
Some of the Americans born in other countries were to American fathers playing overseas because American pro soccer sucks.
I distinctly remember the soccer fanatics telling us the World Baseball Classic wasn't a legitimate world championship because of all of the Italian-Americans representing Italy.
Only 4 of 26 players are from outside the USA. this isn’t the 1990s national team.
A lot of those teams are probably basically B and C teams of France and other European or South American countries.
The smaller the country the more aggressive they have to be looking for ex-pats or descendants of ex-pats. Not surprising to see the names at the top of that list.
Nearly every good player we have are developed by European countries. If we put a team together from players who grew up here and played here in America their entire professional career, we would be absolutely terrible. This is all commonplace nowadays.
I know this isn’t directly addressing the post but 18 of our 26 players on the USA team play on foreign clubs, primarily in Europe. USA soccer in and of itself is a complete afterthought and not taken seriously on the world stage.
If you want to compare this USA team 2026 70% playing aboard to USA team 1998 only 20% played abroad. Thats how much more dependent we are on European soccer today than we were 30 years ago. Not to mention our USA coach is Argentina born and bred.
I know this isn’t directly addressing the post but 18 of our 26 players on the USA team play on foreign clubs, primarily in Europe. USA soccer in and of itself is a complete afterthought and not taken seriously on the world stage.
If you want to compare this USA team 2026 70% playing aboard to USA team 1998 only 20% played abroad. Thats how much more dependent we are on European soccer today than we were 30 years ago. Not to mention our USA coach is Argentina born and bred.
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Europeans basketball development in the NBA versus Americans Soccer development in the European Leagues.
You’re going to have to pull receipts because I don’t think it was the soccer people chiming in on it.
I distinctly remember the soccer fanatics telling us the World Baseball Classic wasn't a legitimate world championship because of all of the Italian-Americans representing Italy.
Maybe there’s more threads I haven’t found but I’m not seeing this gotcha moment you’re trying to live.
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WBC - Forums
What are y’all thoughts on American baseball players playing against team USA. Ex: Michael Lorenzen born and raised in California. Always been a USA citizen. He didn’t make team USA roster so he signs up to play for Italy bc his family’s heritage is Italian. He has previously been on the JR USA...
WBC: USA down early - Forums
"Italy" (really all Americans not good enough for the real USA team) up 3-0 in the 2nd. I still expect to come back and win, but if we lose, there's a chance we don't make the knockouts at all.
I argue that’s because we have more players capable of playing abroad now versus 30 years ago due to increased interest in the sport here in the US.
I disagree with this. Everyone was talking about how soccer “blew up” here in America 30 years ago. It’s no further along today than it was then. There are pockets of interest here in America primarily due to the Latin American influence that is passionate about soccer. But, it is still very much a niche sport. Most people don’t care except for the fact that it is World Cup then in a few weeks they will go back to not caring again.
I think soccer is a great sport. I probably “care” more than 90% of America. I played in high school in Mississippi. It was a lot of fun. I think Ted Lasso is great. With all that said, I wouldn’t be watching if World Cup isn’t here.
It is a culture thing. If you want to live in a society that is nice and lives and breathes soccer 24/7 I would propose moving to Argentina or even Uruguay which has an amazing quality of life. It won’t be mainstream in America, not in our lifetimes. People like Pele and Messi come play in America where competition is terrible at the tail end of careers.
So producing more players capable of playing in Europe means we’re more dependent now? That doesn’t make sense. Did Messi playing in Spain indicate some sort of dependence of Argentinian soccer on Europe? The best players will gravitate to the more prestigious leagues.
Soccer in the US is a lot further along vs the 90s by every metric that I’ve looked at (eg, youth participation, media exposure/availability, popularity among the general population). We’re not going to catch the other countries/leagues in just 3 decades…if ever. That’s akin to the CUSA or the Sun Belt trying to gain ground on the SEC or Big 10 in football. But, that doesn’t mean we’re not getting better.
Soccer in 1994 vs 2026 is night and day. We have a top 10 soccer league in 2026, in 1994 we didn't even have a league.
Hell, the OJ chase came on over the broadcast of the world cup soccer match and I didn't hear anyone complain.
I always heard one of the stipulations for having the WC in 94 was that the United States needed to start a professional league. Don’t know if it’s true or not.
It’s true. That was part of the deal.
Most of us didn’t even know Italy was in the tournament if we hadn’t seen it here.
Actually more like 40 years, I remember in the 80s when rec soccer was filtering down to small rural towns, folks were saying soccer was going to be huge in the US when those kids reached adulthood, unfortunately, it never happened.
The most prestigious and best soccer professional leagues are in England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy. How many of Brazil’s team plays professionally in Brazil? Not many. You want your players to play in the best leagues and those leagues are in Europe. It’s good that hardly any of our national team players play in MLS, because it’s not one of the top leagues. Top European basketball players come to the NBA to play basketball because it’s the best league in the world. So American soccer players need to go to Europe to play soccer because those are the best leagues in the world. One day MLS might be one of the top leagues. It’s only 30 years old. But for now, our players need to play in Europe, just like Brazil and Argentina’s players mostly play in Europe.
Most professional soccer players in America come from two-parent, middle and upper-middle families who can afford our system. Those are the types of parents who value college degrees. College is a better career considering how many of those kids in England and elsewhere spend years trying to be a professional athlete only to crash out with no significant skills or education. Many lower-class Americans are undisciplined and unlikely to commit themselves to soccer as a career. It's hard to get really good at soccer. Also, organized soccer in America is expensive unlike basketball. We have vastly more Mexican Americans playing soccer than black Americans but more black Americans on the team. I keep waiting on Latinos to have a bigger impact on the US National team. Maybe their desire to be middle class, and the costs, keeps them from committing themselves to soccer the way their co-ethnics South of the border do.
Fat lazy kids, which are commonplace in America, have no place in this sport. It’s probably why our record vs Mexico is 25-37 and they hand out oa**es to us regularly despite having access to far more resources. Heck, many kids in America are completely gassed after running to first base.
Go visit Argentina sometime. The people there are all beautiful and trim and walk several miles a day. Far cry from all the fat lazies living on McDonalds here in America. It’s honestly no wonder why we can’t compete.
I lived in Buenos Aires for 3 months. Got somewhat acclimated to the culture. You don’t realize it until you go elsewhere for a while how fat and out of shape everyone is in America. Completely diet related.
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We're 19-10 with 8 draws against Mexico since 2000. You got the *** handing in reverse since we started taking soccer seriously. That dominance isn't going to be reversed any time soon.
Go back & enjoy your soccer then. I’ll stick with football, baseball, softball, & double quarter pounders w/cheese.
USA record vs Mexico 25-37
USA record vs Argentina 1-6
USA record vs Brazil 1-19
As a country we make Jeff Lebby vs SEC football look respectable when trying to compete with these countries.
Soccer is a very grueling sport. As I mentioned most kids in America are too lazy and don’t have the endurance to be taken seriously on the world stage. We have clearly seen that our entire lives.
To intelligent people, none of this comes as a surprise. We have overachieved if anything.
USA record vs Argentina 1-6
USA record vs Brazil 1-19
As a country we make Jeff Lebby vs SEC football look respectable when trying to compete with these countries.
Soccer is a very grueling sport. As I mentioned most kids in America are too lazy and don’t have the endurance to be taken seriously on the world stage. We have clearly seen that our entire lives.
To intelligent people, none of this comes as a surprise. We have overachieved if anything.
Absolutely! One day on July 14, 1995 we were 1-0 and undefeated vs Argentina! This clearly shows we are far superior to them in soccer. See how ignorant that sounds? You come across in the same fashion but aren’t smart to even realize it.
Would you Iike to know our record vs many European countries?
You post this and want to claim somebody else sounds ignorant?
We're 23-14-13 against Mexico since 1990. We'd praise Lebby if he had a winning record for the past 35 years against our main rival and went 98-42-32. Yeah we're not as good as two of the most dominant teams in the modern game as if anyone is claiming that. Perhaps you're unaware of what the word intelligent means and where soccer in America ranks in the hierarchy of sports in America.