OT: If soccer was the #1 sport in USA

[Hellcrooner]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but aren't the US Women's team like historically dominant in the world cup and 3x champions? A lot of this is attributed to the fact that soccer is like the #1 sport for women/girls in the US while Basketball/baseball/football is more popular for men. If American men focused on soccer, why couldn't they dominate?

Yep, it's pretty obvious why we produce the best athletes for sports that we care about. America has the tools to dominate in any sport period, we just need it to be a focus of the country. If we started caring about Cricket then I guarantee eventually we would be the best at it.

you care about tennis.
sometimes you have domminant players like mcnroe , agassi, sampras.

sometimoes you dont like right now.

[UcanUwill]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but aren't the US Women's team like historically dominant in the world cup and 3x champions? A lot of this is attributed to the fact that soccer is like the #1 sport for women/girls in the US while Basketball/baseball/football is more popular for men. If American men focused on soccer, why couldn't they dominate?

They definitely could.

No they couldn't, it's a different environment.

In women's soccer, there's much less competition. There are only about 5 or 6 relevant countries.

So if you've got a country that cares about that sport while many others don't, your chances to dominate and win it all are relatively good. The USA also has the only professional league.

Men's soccer is different, because almost every country cares and invests there.

Country with 320 million population, rich economically, and has build in infrastructure from young age, USA could easily be elite. I am not saying they would win gold medals all the time, but I dont see the reason why they couldn't be great.

[CatgutStitches]

The answer to this question depends on some factors. Like if all of a sudden, today, soccer became our favorite sport? We would still be pretty "meh" for at least a decade or 2, eventually we would be elite. Are we assuming that it has already been our favorite sport for a couple decades? Then absolutely we would be elite.

As others have already said, the big thing is the culture. The youth development, familiarity with the sport and tactics, domestic leagues, etc. We have to build that, but if we ever did... As others have said, there is a lot more parity in soccer, so we wouldn't win every world cup or whatever, but we absolutely would be in every conversation as a favorite.

I think foreigners just don't grasp how little we care about soccer here. As a child growing up in the 90's I was very small but quick and had great endurance. In hindsight I think I could have been an excellent soccer player. The thought never entered my mind for a split second to play though....never once. It was not on my radar. I only became a fan a few years ago when Orlando got an MLS team and I actually had a team to give a crap about. Since then, I love watching soccer and its very close to the same tier as football and basketball for me. Kids here grow up shooting hoops in their driveway or playing football with their friends...theres a reason why most of our best young players are of immigrant decent...they are almost the only ones that play it. It is absolutely growing in popularity, but our current infrastructure is garbage.

Also, as some others have said, playing hi level soccer here is absolutely cost prohibitive. Not to mention how people frown on children being pushed too hard to do anything here...We couldn't have 12 and 13 year olds signing contracts in this country. A built in disadvantage for skills.

I disagree with the people saying we would change the type of athlete that plays soccer...it would still be the same type of players, but with our dedication to sports, national pride and our vast population and available funds there is no way we would not become a superpower. I do agree MLS would have to make sweeping changes for that to happen, but I think that's a given. I do look forward to US soccer growing over the next couple decades and hope to at least be competitive soon...heck, maybe we will even make the next world cup! Haha.

I don't think its arrogant of me to make these declarations either...in fact quite a few people from other countries have made the same claims, its just "science". Look at hockey, for example. Only a small portion of our country gives a crap about hockey (it may even be less popular overall than soccer here) but even so we are one of the best teams in the world.

I don't think it will ever reach that level in America, people are just too big on football and basketball, but I think in the next 20 years or so we will gradually become more and more competitive and will at least be in the top 10. We shall see.

[Illmatic12]

It's not about athletes. The narrative is that every elite athlete in other countries plays soccer while in the US they play different sports. This is awfully wrong.

Soccer is more about skill than power or speed anyway. Otherwise Theo Walcott would be the best of all time.

The USMNT would obviously be much improved if ton more people play it but it's not as easy as saying we have the best athletes overall so we would be the best.

It's not ONLY about athletes, but whatever it is - the US has the potential.
The country has a population of 300 million, in terms of human capital you can't tell me that the potential player pool is not there to produce elite footballers.

Development and infrastructure is lacking, simple as that. People don't understand that there are so many talented American players who don't get a chance because of the system. Imagine if C Ronaldo (grew up in poverty in Portugal) had to pay $3000 a year to join a travel team just to get noticed by pro clubs? Most likely he would have been forced to stop playing or go into another cheaper sport. That's the roadblock a lot of American kids are facing, high-level soccer is one of the more expensive youth sports to play in this country when really it should be one of the cheapest.

Yeah but it's not as easy as "we've got a big population and a lot of money, so as soon as we'll flip the switch, we'll win".

Getting all the variables right is a pretty tricky thing, otherwise England for example should have done much better over the years than they have and countries like Portugal. the Netherlands or Iceland should've done much worse.

But the UK as region generally turns out top end Premier League talent (Bale, Kane, Sterling, Alli etc) . Just that the England NT team itself is disorganized and tends to choke which is a different matter.

Not only is America's NT poorly coached and disorganized, but the nation itself is not even producing Premier League talent. There are only a handful of Americans who would even start on a non-relegated EPL side, or a top La Liga/Bundeslinga/Serie A side . So that tells me that the player development at the grassroots level is broken


The US has a large soccer playing population (almost everyone starts off playing soccer as their first team sport when they're kids) but the training & development is poor. Usually you are getting coached by someone's dad who doesn't even know the offsides rules. If you're good enough, maybe you can pay thousands a year to join the only travel team in your state that actually has a UEFA licensed coach. Occasionally you have a Pulisic who is an exceptional phenom , and he was smart to leave the states asap and complete his development in Germany


Iceland is a great example of the opposite - they're a country of only 300,000 but per capita have the most UEFA-licensed coaches and trainers in the world. Even low-income nations in South America have satellite academies, and many legitimate coaches and player development experts who work with promising talents from a young age.

[maradro]

If basketball was the #1 sport in Argentina, they would dominate the sport, after all they already crushed US teams and basketball is not even a top 3 sport there

[BackseatBoss]

It's not about athletes. The narrative is that every elite athlete in other countries plays soccer while in the US they play different sports. This is awfully wrong.

Soccer is more about skill than power or speed anyway. Otherwise Theo Walcott would be the best of all time.

The USMNT would obviously be much improved if ton more people play it but it's not as easy as saying we have the best athletes overall so we would be the best.

It's not ONLY about athletes, but whatever it is - the US has the potential.
The country has a population of 300 million, in terms of human capital you can't tell me that the potential player pool is not there to produce elite footballers.

Development and infrastructure is lacking, simple as that. People don't understand that there are so many talented American players who don't get a chance because of the system. Imagine if C Ronaldo (grew up in poverty in Portugal) had to pay $3000 a year to join a travel team just to get noticed by pro clubs? Most likely he would have been forced to stop playing or go into another cheaper sport. That's the roadblock a lot of American kids are facing, high-level soccer is one of the more expensive youth sports to play in this country when really it should be one of the cheapest.

To me that’s the craziest part, hearing how much it costs in the US. Like literally, football is such a cheap sport compared to others. You realistically just need a few guards for your legs and some football shoes, that’s it. The inventory, at least on the basic level is incredibly cheap. There must be some kind of special programs they have for poor kids who are exceptionally talented so that they wouldn’t have to pay for anything, right? I mean why would you deny potential future football stars? And even then, 3000 dollars a year to just be on the team... that’s crazy no matter what. Like maybe you were joining some kind of an elite football school it would make sense, but not some random football school in the US.

[monopoman]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but aren't the US Women's team like historically dominant in the world cup and 3x champions? A lot of this is attributed to the fact that soccer is like the #1 sport for women/girls in the US while Basketball/baseball/football is more popular for men. If American men focused on soccer, why couldn't they dominate?

Yep, it's pretty obvious why we produce the best athletes for sports that we care about. America has the tools to dominate in any sport period, we just need it to be a focus of the country. If we started caring about Cricket then I guarantee eventually we would be the best at it.

you care about tennis.
sometimes you have domminant players like mcnroe , agassi, sampras.

sometimoes you dont like right now.

Tennis doesn't really compare its mostly a 1v1 or a 2v2 game. In a team game that is where you have an overall strength of team that matters and especially in soccer where a lot of guys are on the field then it comes down to tactics, players working together etc....

Plenty of sub-par Soccer teams when looking at individual skill level have performed big due to either a combination of coaching and/or the players working well together. In Tennis if you have a tremendously good player that is all it takes to dominate you are not relying on coaching or anything like that just skill with a tennis racket and some athleticism tossed on. It's like looking at individual NBA players while we have a lot of great american players if the NBA was a 1v1 league you would see more European players do well at times.

**** almost every hall of fame coach in the NBA was born in America, and to win championships you need a top level coach.

[Heat3]

The USA has already been ranked #4 just a few years ago. How could it not even break top 10 now?

Sorry, but if there ever was a soccer ranking with USA at #4, the ranking algorithm must be broken.

Loool... I'm gonna assume he saw the USMNT ranked #4 in CONCACAF and thought that meant #4 in the world

North America is like the weakest region for soccer worldwide and the US couldn't even beat out teams like Panama to qualify. They lost to freakin Trinidad & Tobago

You’re opinion is irrelevant. The fact is they already made a top 4 ranking which was easily verifiable.

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2014/03/17/12/20/u-s-men-move-to-best-ever-fourth-place-in-fifa-world-rankings

[amyklai]

Sorry, but if there ever was a soccer ranking with USA at #4, the ranking algorithm must be broken.

Loool... I'm gonna assume he saw the USMNT ranked #4 in CONCACAF and thought that meant #4 in the world

North America is like the weakest region for soccer worldwide and the US couldn't even beat out teams like Panama to qualify. They lost to freakin Trinidad & Tobago

You’re opinion is irrelevant. The fact is they already made a top 4 ranking which was easily verifiable.

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2014/03/17/12/20/u-s-men-move-to-best-ever-fourth-place-in-fifa-world-rankings

Yeah, and the quality of the ranking is also easily verifiable, as it was done 2 months before the 2006 world cup.
#2 ranked Czech republic and #4 ranked US finished 3rd and 4th in their group, dropping out after the group phase. Of the top 6 teams in that ranking, only Brazil made it to the quarter finales. And the tournament was won by Italy, which wasn't in the top 10 of the ranking.

So, basically, that ranking was useless.

[In SVG We Trust]

Pretty crazy people are talking about resources and physical tools while Brazil, Argentina, Italy or Spain are so much better than Russia, England or so many other countries with a so much bigger economy impact

im gonna guess you have never been to italy or spain and have no idea what you are talking about.

Spain and Italy are broke af countries when comparing with others

[Heat3]

Loool... I'm gonna assume he saw the USMNT ranked #4 in CONCACAF and thought that meant #4 in the world

North America is like the weakest region for soccer worldwide and the US couldn't even beat out teams like Panama to qualify. They lost to freakin Trinidad & Tobago

You’re opinion is irrelevant. The fact is they already made a top 4 ranking which was easily verifiable.

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2014/03/17/12/20/u-s-men-move-to-best-ever-fourth-place-in-fifa-world-rankings

Yeah, and the quality of the ranking is also easily verifiable, as it was done 2 months before the 2006 world cup.
#2 ranked Czech republic and #4 ranked US finished 3rd and 4th in their group, dropping out after the group phase. Of the top 6 teams in that ranking, only Brazil made it to the quarter finales. And the tournament was won by Italy, which wasn't in the top 10 of the ranking.

So, basically, that ranking was useless.

So what? Rankings are meant to change. Teams win and lose. They move up and down. It happens in all sports. Are today’s rankings useless as well? The same system is used.

[Illmatic12]

It's not about athletes. The narrative is that every elite athlete in other countries plays soccer while in the US they play different sports. This is awfully wrong.

Soccer is more about skill than power or speed anyway. Otherwise Theo Walcott would be the best of all time.

The USMNT would obviously be much improved if ton more people play it but it's not as easy as saying we have the best athletes overall so we would be the best.

It's not ONLY about athletes, but whatever it is - the US has the potential.
The country has a population of 300 million, in terms of human capital you can't tell me that the potential player pool is not there to produce elite footballers.

Development and infrastructure is lacking, simple as that. People don't understand that there are so many talented American players who don't get a chance because of the system. Imagine if C Ronaldo (grew up in poverty in Portugal) had to pay $3000 a year to join a travel team just to get noticed by pro clubs? Most likely he would have been forced to stop playing or go into another cheaper sport. That's the roadblock a lot of American kids are facing, high-level soccer is one of the more expensive youth sports to play in this country when really it should be one of the cheapest.

To me that’s the craziest part, hearing how much it costs in the US. Like literally, football is such a cheap sport compared to others. You realistically just need a few guards for your legs and some football shoes, that’s it. The inventory, at least on the basic level is incredibly cheap. There must be some kind of special programs they have for poor kids who are exceptionally talented so that they wouldn’t have to pay for anything, right? I mean why would you deny potential future football stars? And even then, 3000 dollars a year to just be on the team... that’s crazy no matter what. Like maybe you were joining some kind of an elite football school it would make sense, but not some random football school in the US.

Exactly football/soccer is ideally the most low maintenance team sport. But in the States the reality is if you want to play on the nice turf fields and participate in the big national tournaments and get noticed, you have to be on an elite club team which is expensive (unlike other countries where it’d be free or partially sponsored). And the people who run those teams , usually it’s managed by some rich kids dad who plays politics and will feature his and other wealthy friends kids on the team even if they aren’t that talented.

That ends up being the pool of players who get college scholarships and eventually funnel into the USMNT pipeline. Essentially it’s turned into a pay-for-play system instead of being based strictly on merit.

Those programs you’re talking about are few and far between. I know they started doing something like that in Texas and Florida (high population of Latin American immigrants) , and iirc an MLS franchise recently opened a youth academy in Dallas which is supposed to emulate the European system. Hopefully we continue to see more of that to develop American soccer further, but imo we are still decades away from being able to compete with the world powers.

[jptremblay]

There are also lifestyle. Tell me if soccer is the #1 sport in US, why would top African/Asian players want to play in cities like Liverpool or Manchester, instead of LA, New York, Chicago, Boston?

Plus, all the Latino talent will want to come to US because of more embracing culture. Now most of them play in Spain, but if they have a choice between Texas/California/Florida and Spain, they will prefer US in a heart beat.

Have you ever been in Spain? There's a reason why we are the 3rd most visited country in the world while being no big at all. Also the culture similarities with latin players are way bigger here than would be in the US.

7 years in UK and 3 years in Netherland, die hard soccer fan. Been to most of the Europe though except Spain. Obviously countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy are all very Latino friendly culture wise, but what I meant was, if you look at the Latino immigrants in southern California/Texas/Florida, those players will be playing games with their family in the same city/state.

Well, not all inmigrants from Latin countries choose the US, the major talent pool about soccer is in Argentina and Brasil...those barely go to the US. Southern US latinos are more than 50% from Cuba, Mexico and other central-american countries, and those countries doesn't produce many players that come to Europe...only México, but they are far away from the Argentina and Brasil level.
I get your point, but those latinos that would prefer the US by proximity aren't something that would concern top euro clubs. Just name a single top player from central america who plays in Europe...and Chicharito isn't.

[ciueli]

If you have a reasonable argument as to why soccer is such a great sport, post it. All I see here are insults and the notion that popularity implies quality.

It's the ultimate sport when it comes to everything. Speed, skill, tactics, iq. But best is subjective. However, that article is garbage and it shouldn't be taken more seriously than how it was.. like a petty child throwing a tantrum wrote it. If you agree it, I'm not going to take you seriously because of how dumb that article is. So no, normal discourse is thrown to the wayside when you believe in objectively dumb things.

Actually, the motivations of the author of that article are much more simple than that. It's written for a far-right media outlet, and is a thinly veiled attack on Things That the Far-Right Doesn't Like in general: liberals, Europe, and people, places, and things other than far-right Americans. This comes up every World Cup. I remember the exact same sort of stuff being posted in 2014. It's tabloid journalism for extremists, and really has very little (or nothing at all) to do with the actual sport.

Just when I thought the article couldn't be any worse.

He hates soccer, so not worth talking about it with him.

No, I grew up playing soccer, it’s a great sport to play yourself, better than all the other major sports in that respect. It’s a poor spectator sport at high levels due to the lack of scoring, and that’s a big part of why it hasn’t caught on in North America. Many people like me played soccer as a youth and then promptly became basketball, hockey, footbal, or baseball fans as adults.

[DrKnick]

If it did/was, we wouldn't be insulted with so much ads.

[DrKnick]

No, I grew up playing soccer, it’s a great sport to play yourself, better than all the other major sports in that respect. It’s a poor spectator sport at high levels due to the lack of scoring, and that’s a big part of why it hasn’t caught on in North America. Many people like me played soccer as a youth and then promptly became basketball, hockey, footbal, or baseball fans as adults.

Poor spectator sport? Isn't the score in a football game, 24-7, be the same as 3.5 to 1? Watching a football game is so daunting with all the ads and time-consuming that comes with it. At times, I wonder why so many people like the NFL so much when it's so boring as hell.

The reason why American football got popular over the decades is because the networks and being perfect for advertisements. Which is the reason why soccer wasn't popular in the past, it's not perfect for commercials. Networks do not like to broadcast soccer because it brings very little ad revenue compared to football. But time has changed.

Basketball got popular in the past decade or so thanks to successful international players in the NBA and as well the rap music associated with it that influence the youths over time. But now, it's just insulting with the commercials.

[ciueli]

Watching a football game is so daunting with all the ads and time-consuming that comes with it. At times, I wonder why so many people like the NFL so much when it's so boring as hell.

The reason why American football got popular over the decades is because the networks and being perfect for advertisements. Which is the reason why soccer wasn't popular in the past, it's not perfect for commercials. Networks do not like to broadcast soccer because it brings very little ad revenue compared to football. But time has changed.

Basketball got popular in the past decade or so thanks to successful international players in the NBA and as well the rap music associated with it that influence the youths over time. But now, it's just insulting with the commercials.

This is the only argument I hear from soccer fans about why it's such a great spectator sport - no game play interrupting ad breaks. And you know what? I'd rather deal with ad breaks (where I can at least go to the bathroom, get a snack, or check my phone without missing anything) than watch a guy spend 2 minutes setting up a free kick, throw in, or corner kick over and over again.

But you have to watch all of that boring stuff when you watch soccer because the exciting part (scoring) happens in an instant, and might only happen once or twice a game. You're chained to staring at a screen where nothing interesting is happening just because something *might* happen. I remember watching the World Cup final one year, I watched the entire game except for 2 minutes when I had to go do something else and I missed the one goal that happened in that 2 minutes.

[DrKnick]

This is the only argument I hear from soccer fans about why it's such a great spectator sport - no game play interrupting ad breaks. And you know what? I'd rather deal with ad breaks (where I can at least go to the bathroom, get a snack, or check my phone without missing anything) than watch a guy spend 2 minutes setting up a free kick, throw in, or corner kick over and over again.

But you have to watch all of that boring stuff when you watch soccer because the exciting part (scoring) happens in an instant, and might only happen once or twice a game. You're chained to staring at a screen where nothing interesting is happening just because something *might* happen. I remember watching the World Cup final one year, I watched the entire game except for 2 minutes when I had to go do something else and I missed the one goal that happened in that 2 minutes.

Same goes with football fans on why football is better spectator sport. Same ol' reason: because of... because of the... because of the physicality of it. While their reason is that soccer is boring is the same monotonous reasoning.

From what you said. buying snacks, go to the bathroom, looking at our phones, you can do the same thing while watching a soccer game which ends less in 2 hours. Your argument there is futile and just sound like what a RedZone fans would say about watching football games: cuts out all the boring stuff.

Nothing against football just that is too slow, too long and too ad-insulting that just prolonged the game itself.

[samir7maher]

Sorry, but if there ever was a soccer ranking with USA at #4, the ranking algorithm must be broken.

Loool... I'm gonna assume he saw the USMNT ranked #4 in CONCACAF and thought that meant #4 in the world

North America is like the weakest region for soccer worldwide and the US couldn't even beat out teams like Panama to qualify. They lost to freakin Trinidad & Tobago

You’re opinion is irrelevant. The fact is they already made a top 4 ranking which was easily verifiable.

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2014/03/17/12/20/u-s-men-move-to-best-ever-fourth-place-in-fifa-world-rankings

you know that the fifa ranking is a very bad way to measure how strong a nations is. Because if you play alot of terrible teams you will get points for it.

[Cactus Jack]

At times, I wonder why so many people like the NFL so much when it's so boring as hell.

Betting & Fantasy Football are a huge reason. Also, games are played on Sundays (convenient time). Tailgating is also very popular.