I love these insanely over the top wild assumptions about how if America chose to give a fuck about soccer or if all your top athletes were playing that the States would be the force to be reckoned with. Ahhh man you guys take this arrogance to a whole new level. Keep it up!
WORLD CUP 2014 - BRAZIL
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Only 5/22 of the players are German born. Out of maybe 50k possible Army brats. That should tell you there is a deep deep well of possible soccer stars in the USA. Plenty to go around among 4 other major sports as well. The biggest difference is those kids in Germany grew up in a system with high quality coaches at all levels. Once the current generation of American Pros retires we can develop a total lifetime development infrastructure.
Vandyn
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I agree with most others, the reason why we never have a top end team is because there isn't no professional infrastructure here to promote it. When kids in this country reach an age where they are seriously deciding what sport they want to excel in, they have a choice of football (american), baseball, basketball, hockey or hell even golf or NASCAR. When your in basically any other country and your deciding what sport you want to excel in, there really is only one choice and that's soccer. Add in the fact that the game just isn't promoted here (largely because it doesn't generate any money on either an amateur or professional level).
Tarrant
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So what you're saying is, if the United States was like every other country in the world and had kids stick with soccer for from age 4 and 5 till they were adults instead of branching off into 3 other major sports available to them to make it big, we wouldn't be better? We have many players who are the best in the world at what they do because they have played and worked at it all their lives, just like other countries have the same thing with soccer. If we had that same thing you don't think we would have been better at it in the past?
Law of avg's supports this, you being a douche does not.
Neki
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I think there is much hope for the US to fully embrace soccer as a sport. Many top footballers are going over to the MLS to help raise the profile. True that a case can be argued that these footballers are past their peak but they can still perform at a high level. If you are good at soccer then you will get scouted and signed up one of the many football clubs around the world when compared to the comparatively small number of MLB, NBA, NFL teams just in the US. Money not being as good in soccer is debatable as if you are an elite soccer player, you will get paid just as much if not more than in American sports.
It isn't very far fetched. We have basketball players now who are pushing 6'10" who can play all the minutes and are freak athletes. Good luck contesting headers against someone who is a foot taller, can jump 4 feet in the air and has 75 pounds on you.
Quineloe
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Is this the NFL salary cap preventing NFL clubs from being on that list? How far down would you have to go to find an NFL club?I think there is much hope for the US to fully embrace soccer as a sport. Many top footballers are going over to the MLS to help raise the profile. True that a case can be argued that these footballers are past their peak but they can still perform at a high level. If you are good at soccer then you will get scouted and signed up one of the many football clubs around the world when compared to the comparatively small number of MLB, NBA, NFL teams just in the US. Money not being as good in soccer is debatable as if you are an elite soccer player, you will get paid just as much if not more than in American sports.
Do you have any statistics to back this claim up that only the US has tall people or that US citizens are somehow taller than Europeans?
Being tall has advantages in football (see Jan Koller) but it's not as if all tall people live in the US, there's plenty of them around the world
How Far Do You Run Playing Different Sports?
Ossoi
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True but if you are freakish tall and athletic you can get plucked internationally to play college basketball in the states. Most come here haven't even seen a basketball and are only recruited because they're physically prototype for the game and have shown aptitude at different athletics.Being tall has advantages in football (see Jan Koller) but it's not as if all tall people live in the US, there's plenty of them around the worldWeight is probably more of a disadvantage given the amount of running you have to do.
How Far Do You Run Playing Different Sports?
And the running amount comes down to different conditioning. If an NBA BBall player doesn't have to run 7 miles a game he won't train to run that much. He'll put on additional mass to deal with the other stuff required. Sports science is advanced enough that given someones body type and bone structure we can basically make them do and weigh whatever we want.
Tarrant
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This has nothing do do with what he said.
Also, I'd put Lebrons flopping skills up against any other soccer player in the world.
Tarrant
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Quineloe
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I don't understand, I see three NBA teams on that list. Are these teams so small that their capped salary is distributed to such a high average?
They have a salary cap and a luxury tax if you exceed it. So some super rich teams can afford to go above it. In the NFL you simply are not allowed to exceed the cap.
Joeboo
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America will be at an elite level of soccer roughly a generation after the point where we start seeing our MLS on TV on a regular basis. As a kid of the 70s and 80s growing up in America, everyone played football, baseball, and basketball because that is what we saw on TV, those were the athletes we saw in commercials, those are the trading cards we wanted, etc. Kids wanted to be Joe Montana, or Michael Jordan, or Ken Griffey Jr. Until very recently, kids in the US had zero exposure to soccer on any professional level on television. It's starting to slowly creep up in popularity, and ESPN(generally relegated to ESPN2 or ESPN3/WatchESPN) occasionally shows a big MLS match here or there. But there's still no way for most kids in the US to sit down and watch their local pro soccer team on TV every week, getting to know the players, following them, etc.
Look at what the NBA did in really pushing to market itself internationally starting back in the early 90s. There weren't a lot of immediate dividends. In the 90s you had a handful of foreign players from traditional basketball hotbeds like Eastern Europe, and the occasional 7-foot African import, but that was about it. Now, a generation later, the NBA has a very large amount of international players, players from China, Spain, France, Germany, Argentina, Australia, etc.
It takes a generation for the interest to take hold, once kids start finding it fun & cool to follow the sport. Kids in the US have really just started following soccer as their favorite sport. 20 years from now, the US will be an absolutely beast.
Look at what the NBA did in really pushing to market itself internationally starting back in the early 90s. There weren't a lot of immediate dividends. In the 90s you had a handful of foreign players from traditional basketball hotbeds like Eastern Europe, and the occasional 7-foot African import, but that was about it. Now, a generation later, the NBA has a very large amount of international players, players from China, Spain, France, Germany, Argentina, Australia, etc.
It takes a generation for the interest to take hold, once kids start finding it fun & cool to follow the sport. Kids in the US have really just started following soccer as their favorite sport. 20 years from now, the US will be an absolutely beast.
To put it in perspective here in Columbus Ohio we have many high school football stadiums that are better than the stadium our MLS team plays in
Pretty far. NFL players don't make that much on average. It's not just the salary cap, which is certainly a thing, but there's also 53 guys on a team and only 16 games a year.
Some good points raised though: Neki on money, outside of the top league in NBA (assuming there are lower divisions?! I couldn't find this info), how professional and how liveable is it? Because at least here, you can be a full professional (ie support yourself) down through at least 3 or 4 leagues before having to be semi professional, based on the average wages paid on those leagues. Whilst earning above the national average in the 4th tier might not be great considering you will only be getting it for a decade at most, it's still something.
Tenks: no doubt your athletic treadmills churn out great bodily specimens year after year. On a side note, I wonder about the relaxed doping & enhancement philosophy you guys have, and if it would even be legal to use those methods outside of the states for the sports we play. But anyway, it's a moot point as it just ignores talent. Do you think the models like La Masia give much of a fuss about creating super athletes? I would have to weep if in some universe, Messi was born on American soil. He'd be no athlete in your system.
England isn't an ideal situation either, but it's improving at least. The FA have made some good changes regarding on the ball coaching and competition. When before, the under 10y/os might have to play in large pitches with big goals week in week out it was pointless for their progression. The childrens teams that won often had just overgrown brutes who can physically dominate everyone else, at least they will be moved up an age bracket to suit them. The matches will be shortened, with smaller goals and pitches, there is no need for large 11vs11 at those ages. And they'll be preferring more on the ball coaching sessions rather than fitness training. Either way it's more in line with the Spanish or Dutch models, but still heavily lacking in the supply of trained coaches - still a large area to improve on.
In comparison to USA; do you have multiple local clubs for every town/village/area ? Do you have multiple leagues and divisions for each age group? Do you have coaching sessions available for each group, from trained soccer coaches? Does your local professional clubs have youth academies for the best of the best from local regions? (and when I say local professional, it doesn't have to mean an MLS team. But I guess your MLS teams are the only ones of its type, considering you only have 1 professional tier?). The way I see it, your sports structure is based around the school->college system where as the rest of the world uses local sports clubs from as young as possible up in a large multi tiered pyramid system.
Please correct me if I am wrong and I will humbly learn in doing so. It's interesting to see where you guys gather this confidence from, and maybe things aren't as different as I imagine.
Tenks: no doubt your athletic treadmills churn out great bodily specimens year after year. On a side note, I wonder about the relaxed doping & enhancement philosophy you guys have, and if it would even be legal to use those methods outside of the states for the sports we play. But anyway, it's a moot point as it just ignores talent. Do you think the models like La Masia give much of a fuss about creating super athletes? I would have to weep if in some universe, Messi was born on American soil. He'd be no athlete in your system.
England isn't an ideal situation either, but it's improving at least. The FA have made some good changes regarding on the ball coaching and competition. When before, the under 10y/os might have to play in large pitches with big goals week in week out it was pointless for their progression. The childrens teams that won often had just overgrown brutes who can physically dominate everyone else, at least they will be moved up an age bracket to suit them. The matches will be shortened, with smaller goals and pitches, there is no need for large 11vs11 at those ages. And they'll be preferring more on the ball coaching sessions rather than fitness training. Either way it's more in line with the Spanish or Dutch models, but still heavily lacking in the supply of trained coaches - still a large area to improve on.
In comparison to USA; do you have multiple local clubs for every town/village/area ? Do you have multiple leagues and divisions for each age group? Do you have coaching sessions available for each group, from trained soccer coaches? Does your local professional clubs have youth academies for the best of the best from local regions? (and when I say local professional, it doesn't have to mean an MLS team. But I guess your MLS teams are the only ones of its type, considering you only have 1 professional tier?). The way I see it, your sports structure is based around the school->college system where as the rest of the world uses local sports clubs from as young as possible up in a large multi tiered pyramid system.
Please correct me if I am wrong and I will humbly learn in doing so. It's interesting to see where you guys gather this confidence from, and maybe things aren't as different as I imagine.
AFAIK if you can't make it into the NBA you have two options. NBA D (developmental) league. You can earn a living wage here by being a professional athlete but probably not enough to retire once your career is up. The other, and generally more walked, option is to play in the European professional leagues. Similar with NFL. Every team also has a practice roster of 5(? forget the exact #) people who earn about 60k USD per year but don't actually play in the games. However if you really want to play in games to you go to the Canadian football league.
Some sports do have robust minor league systems. Hockey has many minor league clubs and baseball as well. Cincinnati (a city on Ohio) has the Cyclones which is our minor league hockey team. We don't have an NHL team. Columbus (the state capital of Ohio) has the Clippers which is our minor league baseball team. We have a professional NHL team but no MLB team. Generally cities which lack a "premier" league team but are large enough to sustain interest in the sport pick up a minor league team to fill the void.
I don't know the drug/doping policies for professional soccer over in Europe and how tough they are but after the whole Tour De France and professional cycling scandal(s) I don't know if Europe as a whole can say all their sports have tough requirements on doping. But if it is anything like in USA every league kind of sets their own rules.
Some sports do have robust minor league systems. Hockey has many minor league clubs and baseball as well. Cincinnati (a city on Ohio) has the Cyclones which is our minor league hockey team. We don't have an NHL team. Columbus (the state capital of Ohio) has the Clippers which is our minor league baseball team. We have a professional NHL team but no MLB team. Generally cities which lack a "premier" league team but are large enough to sustain interest in the sport pick up a minor league team to fill the void.
I don't know the drug/doping policies for professional soccer over in Europe and how tough they are but after the whole Tour De France and professional cycling scandal(s) I don't know if Europe as a whole can say all their sports have tough requirements on doping. But if it is anything like in USA every league kind of sets their own rules.