OT: If soccer was the #1 sport in USA

[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

[SaintS]

I am sure USA, Canada or Russia will never produce players caliebers of today's Ronaldo & Messi. Not even players close to their level.

Maybe not Ronaldo level but Pulisic could go onto become a top 5-10 player in the world easily (probably once he makes his inevitable move to Bayern, as is Bundesliga tradition).

Hey Guys check a history about USSR/Russian football. Ballon d'or owners Lev Yashin, Oleg Blokhin, Igor Belanov
After USSR was broken, Andriy Shevchenko from Ukrain won it in 2004
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d%27Or#Winners
USSR won a Euro in 1960
I understood that it was USSR, but it changes not to much.

[Spens1]

I am sure USA, Canada or Russia will never produce players caliebers of today's Ronaldo & Messi. Not even players close to their level.

Maybe not Ronaldo level but Pulisic could go onto become a top 5-10 player in the world easily (probably once he makes his inevitable move to Bayern, as is Bundesliga tradition).

Hey Guys check a history about USSR/Russian football. Ballon d'or owners Lev Yashin, Oleg Blokhin, Igor Belanov
After USSR was broken, Andriy Shevchenko from Ukrain won it in 2004
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d%27Or#Winners
USSR won a Euro in 1960
I understood that it was USSR, but it changes not to much.

well Lev Yashin is by far the best keeper of all time, the U.S even now would struggle to match that.

[SaintS]

Maybe not Ronaldo level but Pulisic could go onto become a top 5-10 player in the world easily (probably once he makes his inevitable move to Bayern, as is Bundesliga tradition).

Hey Guys check a history about USSR/Russian football. Ballon d'or owners Lev Yashin, Oleg Blokhin, Igor Belanov
After USSR was broken, Andriy Shevchenko from Ukrain won it in 2004
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballon_d%27Or#Winners
USSR won a Euro in 1960
I understood that it was USSR, but it changes not to much.

well Lev Yashin is by far the best keeper of all time, the U.S even now would struggle to match that.

yep
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFFHS_World%27s_Best_Goalkeeper
and another great keeper was Dasaev
but Yashin for sure is a true legend in a world football history

[schnakenpopanz]

It is not a thing of facilities or money, you need a long grown sports specific culture to reach the top in such a popular sport.
it is not about putting money or manpower into it. china is trying it for a long time.

[Heat3]

Would not break top 10. Too much competition in other leagues and countries. Thing is even if soccer would have been a #1 sport in the US why would talents want to stay there? All the talent and glory is out in Europe.

Champions League
Europa League
Fifa ClubWorldcup

Then you have the history with all the legendary Clubs that everyone wants to play for. You seldom see nowadays talent staying on their origin teams. They all want to go where there is most shine and biggest competitions. US might have produced some good to great players but they would all leave for the bigger names.

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

[ciueli]

Let them have it, ours are better!! That article I'm assuming was written by the most petty 10 year old on the planet.

What he says is the truth though. A sport that goes out of its way to prevent scoring championed by fans who think frequent nil-nil draws or games decided by penalty kicks are somehow a virtue.

No it isn't. He has a completely idiotic take and calls the far most popular sport in the planet as not that important since Americans can take care of the better sports.. He sounds like a loser that probably blows a fuse when a random CL games in the middle of the week gets more viewers than the Superbowl.

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.

[maxwellcu]

Let them have it, ours are better!! That article I'm assuming was written by the most petty 10 year old on the planet.

What he says is the truth though. A sport that goes out of its way to prevent scoring championed by fans who think frequent nil-nil draws or games decided by penalty kicks are somehow a virtue.

No it isn't. He has a completely idiotic take and calls the far most popular sport in the planet as not that important since Americans can take care of the better sports.. He sounds like a loser that probably blows a fuse when a random CL games in the middle of the week gets more viewers than the Superbowl.

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.

[amyklai]

Would not break top 10. Too much competition in other leagues and countries. Thing is even if soccer would have been a #1 sport in the US why would talents want to stay there? All the talent and glory is out in Europe.

Champions League
Europa League
Fifa ClubWorldcup

Then you have the history with all the legendary Clubs that everyone wants to play for. You seldom see nowadays talent staying on their origin teams. They all want to go where there is most shine and biggest competitions. US might have produced some good to great players but they would all leave for the bigger names.

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.

[elBJ]

The US would be in the top 10 on a regular basis, but here are some misconceptions what this means.

Football is much closer in terms of competition, there is no clear cut no 1 and there won't be. There are still dominant teams, but that's more of a generational thing, you just need 15-20 guys that are individually on a high level, but more importantly are able to execute a gameplan, an outstanding gameplan to begin with and a whole lot of luck. The US could luck into that just as it is, but yeah right now chances are higher Panama eliminates them in the qualifier.

So, what could the US do to stack the deck, like Football powerhouses do?
They need to replace 50% of their sport facilities and build football fields instead. 10 Basketball courts, you cut the hoops from 9 and replace them with goals and on the 10th court you put a set of nice goals right beneath the baskets.
They would need to assure everybody from the talentpool at least comes into contact with Football before the age of 7 and the best starting to play at that age.
Competition! You can not develop with garbage competition like Concaqaf and MLS. While it's theoretically possible to elevate the competition inside the US, having a lowkey decent league would be possible today, top clubs are only possible if the european top clubs leave their domestic Leagues and create their own including some US clubs. Until the later happen all the best players would have to leave for Europe, preferably as teens.
US national team leaves the Concaqaf and joins Conembol, the moment USA starts to care about Football this happens.

So the USA have a few Teams organized in a worldwide Top League (incl. Barca, Real, Bayern, etc.), a decent domestic league to back it up, they're playing in the Conembol and each and every kid kicks a ball and is encouraged to play from the day they start walking, How good are they?

The US would be in the top 10 on a regular basis - that's it, the rest depends on the generation of players you got, how they work out and coaching and tactic is as important.

[Illmatic12]

Would not break top 10. Too much competition in other leagues and countries. Thing is even if soccer would have been a #1 sport in the US why would talents want to stay there? All the talent and glory is out in Europe.

Champions League
Europa League
Fifa ClubWorldcup

Then you have the history with all the legendary Clubs that everyone wants to play for. You seldom see nowadays talent staying on their origin teams. They all want to go where there is most shine and biggest competitions. US might have produced some good to great players but they would all leave for the bigger names.

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

[Impuniti]

What he says is the truth though. A sport that goes out of its way to prevent scoring championed by fans who think frequent nil-nil draws or games decided by penalty kicks are somehow a virtue.

No it isn't. He has a completely idiotic take and calls the far most popular sport in the planet as not that important since Americans can take care of the better sports.. He sounds like a loser that probably blows a fuse when a random CL games in the middle of the week gets more viewers than the Superbowl.

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.

What he says is the truth though. A sport that goes out of its way to prevent scoring championed by fans who think frequent nil-nil draws or games decided by penalty kicks are somehow a virtue.

No it isn't. He has a completely idiotic take and calls the far most popular sport in the planet as not that important since Americans can take care of the better sports.. He sounds like a loser that probably blows a fuse when a random CL games in the middle of the week gets more viewers than the Superbowl.

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.

[Madhouse]

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.

[Madhouse]

No it isn't. He has a completely idiotic take and calls the far most popular sport in the planet as not that important since Americans can take care of the better sports.. He sounds like a loser that probably blows a fuse when a random CL games in the middle of the week gets more viewers than the Superbowl.

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.

No it isn't. He has a completely idiotic take and calls the far most popular sport in the planet as not that important since Americans can take care of the better sports.. He sounds like a loser that probably blows a fuse when a random CL games in the middle of the week gets more viewers than the Superbowl.

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.

[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.

[Jadoogar]

Genetics are big part of being good in Soccer... Northern Countries will never be good enough in Soccer.

Brazilians, Argentinians, Spaniards, Germans etc. are always be a top Soccer countries, as they have 'genetics' to play it very well.

Chinese, Indians, Scandinavians, Northern Americans, Russians, most of Brits & White French etc. will never play soccer very well with few exceptions.

Horse****.

Lol wtf is this? Why would Americans have the genetics to be good at basketball, football, track and field but not soccer?

[amyklai]

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.

[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.

[amyklai]

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.

[Hellcrooner]

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.