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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?

#71

Post by haunter »

prmph wrote: post #68

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.

> Probably the biggest is simply the attachment to the sport among ordinary youngsters in unsupervised play.

But would you say the same about the basketball where the US is dominating both the men and woment tournaments?

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

#73

Post by xboxnolifes »

PearlRiver wrote: post #49
cweld510 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely is at the youth level. I don’t think any football or basketball pros could be soccer stars, but absolutely there are kids who are star point guards on their youth basketball team but top out at 5’8”, or football players who never make it past high school but could have been great at soccer.

The thing is you cannot just switch sports. When we are talking about the really TOP elite of football those kids get into it at age 5. From that age on every day consists of hours of football. There are scouts looking at prepubescent kids all over the world ready to sign them.

That's the point. Since so many sports are competing for "player attention", people may commit to the "wrong" sport early on, be decent, and then top out at an age where it's too late (in terms of going pro) to switch to a sport they may have been great at.

In a hypothetical world where every kid plays only soccer, every potentially great soccer player has been practicing the sport from an early age. In a world with 10 competing sports, some potentially great soccer players might have be playing baseball or basketball from a young age up into their late teens.

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

#74

Post by SamBam »

hawaiianbrah wrote: post #29
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…

I believe most of what you said, but no college varsity player is playing only a few times a week. Even the lowest division of NCAA teams would have practice or matches 5-6 times a week in season.

So leaving aside whether 5-6 times is "a few," the bigger issue is the length of the season.

Varsity soccer season in the US is usually just four months, August-November.

Spring season (with no games) is February-April. During that season, NCAA places strict limitations on how often teams can practice: Division I and II teams are allowed only up to 8 hours per week, with just 4 of those being coach-supervised! [1]

Finally there is no organized playing for all of January, May, June and July.

So even for a player in a D1 team, they are training much, much less of the year than a 15-year-old on a farm team in Europe.

1. https://ballatyourfeet.com/when-is-college-soccer-season-fal...

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

#75

Post by drivebyhooting »

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…

This is pretty much true for all high level competition in the US.

It’s extremely hard to get good at chess. It’s extremely hard to get good at math. It’s extremely hard to get good at gymnastics. It’s extremely hard to get good at Piano.

Meanwhile, in China or Russia, there are dedicated schools for mass producing concert, pianist, etc.

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

#76

Post by Mallory_Ringess »

lukan wrote: post #27
JackFr wrote: post #16

The SEC (Southeastern Conference) arguably the leader in football, basketball, baseball and softball and apart from those sponsors 18 other sports. They do not sponsor soccer. As long as that’s case I’ll have trouble believing we’re gonna be great. Soccer is like the metric system of sports. Everyone else uses it. It makes sense and we should like it, but we’re culturally suspicious of it.

"Soccer is like the metric system of sports." No. Not at all. It doesn't make any more sense to chase a ball to kick it just with feet, than to chase it protected hands allowed or to chase it using only hands to touch it. Different sports. (I am from europe and did play, but think soccer is highly overrated. Unlike the metric system that actually has a clear logic behind it and makes handling scientific numbers more…

I think you're looking at the comparison from the wrong angle. The parent poster meant the USA does not take up the metric system because the imperial units are seen as part of their culture while metric is a 'foreign' thing. Typically American sports like baseball, American 'football' and basketball are seen as part of American culture as well while football (which for some unexplainable reason is called 'soccer' in the USA) is seen as the foreign thing, just like metric. It is not like any of these sports is better or worse in any way, in the end they're all forms of ritualised warfare without (too much) bloodshed and they all work in this regard: the winner gets the spoils, the loser gets to leave the field with their tails drooping.

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

#77

Post by alex0015 »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #67
shevy-java wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Basketball is hugely popular in China, though it's more famous for ping-pong. In the evenings you can see pickup basketball games at every park and every public court, of which there are many.

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

#78

Post by jppope »

The comments here are wild. Uh the answer is football/basketball/baseball. We send our best athletes into football, basketball, and baseball. They don't play soccer. I would argue its more shocking that we are as good we are considering the talent pool.

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

#79

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

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…

Yeah, this difference occurred to me while traveling in rural Mexico. To play soccer all you need is a ball. So you can go into the poorest villages that have little in the way in infrastructure and all the kids are playing soccer in the dirt road or a random field, etc. And often enough adults join in because they were once the kids too.

So it's this very pervasive, almost universal shared experience there. Totally different than my experience as a kid in the 80s that did indoor soccer briefly.

One observation my friend made while we were talking about this one time down there, is that basketball plays a similar role in the US. Yeah you need a hoop not just a ball, but that ends up approachable. In fact my neighbor down the block keeps a portable hoop set up in the parking strip so long as it's dry out, and right now a couple kids are playing some casual 1 on 1 lol.

Anyhow it's really clear that having a huge community available with few barriers to play and learn makes a huge difference.

Now that I think about it another similar experience was seeing my ex that grew up in Taiwan play some ping pong in a bar here in the US. She didn't particularly care about ping pong or play it much, but because she was immersed in it at school as a kid she could still smoke anyone in that bar easily lol.

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

#80

Post by jppope »

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.

Correct. We actually don't play "football" properly as a street sport either though... its typically a flag style football (two hand touch, etc) but the main sports are (generally separated by season during school) football, hockey/basketball, baseball.
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