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Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

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Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#61

Post by cogogo »

harrall wrote: post #48
cogogo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that is a contributor to the problem but the real problem is we do not yet know how to develop talent consistently in the US. FC Barcelona is easily the world reference recruiting kids around 7-8 years old and building them mentally, physically and tactically into incredible players. Something like half or more of their current roster came through la masía at some point. And something like half the Spain worl…

I mean you could say that baseball academies in Brazil aren’t good yet either, but I wouldn’t say that it’s because they “don’t know how to.” It’s just that Brazil currently doesn’t care about baseball that much and baseball first has to become popular, except they already have soccer plus even basketball is growing quicker. In America, soccer just isn’t that popular and there are so many other sports that people cur…

Frankly that is a bad comparison. Soccer is incredibly popular at a youth level. The talent pool is there and the money is there. How big is the Brazilian baseball economy? As the article states there is about $1.5bn in player value in the MLS. Not to mention that our top tier talent is usually exported to Europe where there is an order of magnitude more money available for the sport. My argument is we have a big talent pool of kids who want to be successful in soccer and we have not learned how to manage it at scale. The talent market of potential players is incredibly fragmented.

Edit: typos

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#62

Post by brewdad »

RugnirViking wrote: post #2

a country can only be so good at so many sports of this type. Every american playing basketball, or baseball, or american football, or ice hockey, is one not playing football. You have to understand that for many countries, the dream path, the default one, for a very athletic young person who is interested in team sports is soccer, from the age of 6 or younger. The entire structure above that branches outward based o…

Also, in the US until very recently, there was no path for women athletes to make sports their career after college. Soccer could be a path to a scholarship but you were going to have to get a "real" job after that even if you wanted to continue to pursue Olympic or World Cup level goals in the sport. The NWSL is changing that but salaries are still nowhere near the men's game, nor any other male dominated professional league.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#63

Post by 28304283409234 »

tekla wrote: post #7
28304283409234 wrote: post #5

What are you talking about? They've been world champ repeatedly. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/21/sport/uswnt-success-histo...

The qualifier is literally the sub-headline and is mentioned several times in the article.

Yet it is not in the submission. How am I to know you all assume male sporting events?

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#64

Post by fsckboy »

waltfy wrote: post #4

Not American. Don’t live in US. The outside impression I get is that the game simply isn’t one of the kids’ default street sports.

the US has a large relatively recent influx of Latino populations, and they play a lot of soccer, and in a number of cultures also baseball

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#65

Post by [deleted] »

borosuxks wrote: post #57
josuepeq wrote: post #18

My problem is I can’t stay interested for long. Yes, it’s possible that it’s a “me” problem. 90 minutes of kicking the ball back and forth across the pitch that feels too large for the task at hand, occasionally scoring, only to end up with what amounts to a pretty low scoring game. It’s just hard to watch, it seems to move so much slower than I can handle. If it works for others, that’s awesome; any sport that has t…

Football (or soccer for you) can be insanely high tempo and insanely slow and boring. Depends on the game. But the low scoring is actually one of the most important things in soccer. A goal in soccer is so much more precious than in any other sport. It can win you the game, as almost a third of games have one or less goals in the game. So the euphoria when the team scores outweigh any "boringness" that preceded it. I…

[deleted]

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#66

Post by prmph »

josuepeq wrote: post #18

My problem is I can’t stay interested for long. Yes, it’s possible that it’s a “me” problem. 90 minutes of kicking the ball back and forth across the pitch that feels too large for the task at hand, occasionally scoring, only to end up with what amounts to a pretty low scoring game. It’s just hard to watch, it seems to move so much slower than I can handle. If it works for others, that’s awesome; any sport that has t…

In addition to the sibling comment, I'd say that to enjoy the game, you really need to appreciate what's hard, the incredible acrobatic feats the players do, the intricate positional maneuvers, and how much training goes into all that.

But I guess it is hard to do that later in life, if you did not grow up in a football (soccer) culture, maybe playing recreationally as a boy, and avidly following the game.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#67

Post by bethekidyouwant »

shevy-java wrote: post #17
haunter wrote: post #11

I know it's an American article but I think it's far more interesting that 4 out of the 5 most populous countries (China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia), representing 3.3 billion people and 40% of the Earth’s population, has a combined total of 2 appearances at the World Cup (1938 Indonesia as Dutch East Indies and 2002 China). It’s a huge untapped market and not that people don’t love or care about football in those co…

If you think about it, India and China already have other very popular sports. Soccer is kind of somewhat of a niche there. Croatia is really in Europe and Europe was always solid on soccer. Same with Portugal. Uruguay is more interesting, but Brasil was always happy with soccer, as was Argentina. It is much easier to establish soccer in South America than in North America. Canadians much prefer ice hockey.

What sport is popular in China?

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#68

Post by prmph »

How come Ghana, a third world country with a much smaller population and GDP, and probably less organizational capacity, has eliminated the US twice at the world cup? Granted, the US finally got its revenge, but still...

So I don't think it is just about organization, investment, etc. Probably the biggest is simply the attachment to the sport among ordinary youngsters in unsupervised play.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#69

Post by surgical_fire »

drewmate wrote: post #42
SamBam wrote: post #19

I don't think the article really tried to answer the question, though maybe that wasn't its intent and the author was genuinely asking. I think an answer would need to look at the difference in how kids and teens play soccer in the US vs other countries. In the US soccer is mostly a younger kids' sport, and is generally highly structured, with kids playing on teams once or twice a week. Compare to Europe, where many…

The same is basically true for most other sports in the US too, and yet there are still high-level Americans. Certainly baseball (which other countries do still play in a limited fashion), hockey and football. With football we are undisputed world champs for the last 60 years! Joking aside, there is no doubt that high-level NFL players are seriously talented and their whole sport revolves around structured practices…

The thing is that the US team sports you can think of such Baseball or American Football, have nearly no popularity outside of the US. Maybe Baseball in places like Japan or Venezuela.

Maybe the only parallel to soccer I can think of is sports like Rugby in UK and some English-speaking countries, Cricket in India, and some sports endemic to countries (such as GAA in Ireland).

The best way to compare the US to other countries in a sport that is similar in terms of interest among other countries is something like Volleyball. Which the US tends to be very good at, with many major competitors. I can't think of anywhere that volleyball is a #1 sport that sees a lot of unstructured play.

All this was obviously about team sports.

Re: Why isn't the U.S. better at soccer?

#70

Post by radiator »

haunter wrote: post #53
radiator wrote: post #36

I find it good that US is not better at soccer. Soccer or football has gained too much importance in Europe and South America. We have seen it encourage unprecedented levels of gambling, insane amount of efforts from the youth chasing the dream of professional football, fan violence inside and outside the stadiums, corruption where magnate owners of sports clubs use their popularity to influence politics, and more.

What you describe is pretty much true for every single american sport too >unprecedented levels of gambling Welcome to FanDuel and DraftKings >insane amount of efforts from the youth chasing the dream of professional football Look at college sports, it's actually even more insane than anything else in Europe >corruption where magnate owners of sports clubs use their popularity to influence politics Look at how public…

OK I 've never been to the US, so I believe you. Then the problems are more widespread: not only soccer, but professional sports in general are harmful in my opinion.
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