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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?

#271

Post by jjouett »

Mallory_Ringess wrote: post #76
lukan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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' i…

The name Soccer comes from an abbreviation that was popular in English schools and Universities. America started to use it to differentiate from gridiron football that became popular here, and now it's apparently weird and wrong to use the nickname the inventors of the sport created :)

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

#272

Post by j_m_b »

I'm late to the game but this question has been bouncing around in my head and I wanted to give my opinion as a sports fan. I also coach my son's soccer team so to be clear, I have nothing against soccer.

The real question is: Why isn't soccer more popular in the US?

Soccer is a very wide game. It's easy to understand and easy to start playing. Don't touch the ball with your hands and kick the ball into the goal. It's easy enough that six year olds with coed teams can start playing and have fun. It explains the huge youth participation in the US.

Soccer, however, lacks depth. Games likes baseball and football have deep strategy and specialization that soccer/basketball/hockey just can't match. It's checkers vs chess. You can develop widely different skill sets in these games.

Basketball is soccer/hockey on speed. The games are a progression of incremental advantage. Each goal scored is another adrenaline shot for the fans. It's a long chain of dopamine hits. It allows for momentum shifts.

It's no wonder then that the majority of athletic talent in the US is funneled into one of three sports in the US: football , baseball and basketball.

The big conundrum is: Why is hockey so much more popular than soccer in America? I think it's because it's a condensed arena, faster game play and has lots of aggressive plays. Whatever the answer may be, I think it will prove key in answering why soccer just hasn't caught on professionally in the US.

I don't hate soccer. I'm definitely going to be watching some world cup games. If I had a magic wand, I would implement the promotion/relegation system for every major league sport in the US. Let the owners take a haircut if they have bad teams! I think it's an excellent system which really make the owners have some skin in the game.

I just don't think soccer is compelling enough of a game to draw eyeballs away from the big three.

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

#273

Post by huevosabio »

paulsen wrote: post #233
huevosabio wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mexico performs as you'll expect a third world country that loves football to perform, and the US performs as well as you would expect a first world country that is ambivalent to football to perform. I think the real mystery is, how come Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay play so much better than what you would expect from relatively poor countries? My guess is that their leagues are fairly developed industries, like you…

> My guess is that their leagues are fairly developed industries, like you would expect in the first world. Pretty much, like in Europe, if you have any interest/talent in football, you enroll in your local club as a kid and go on from there, in Argentina you have a multitude of leagues until you reach Primera Division, so you have from 5 to 6 levels of competition in between organized directly by the Argentine Footb…

Holy hell. Yea that sounds about right!

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

#274

Post by ramblerman »

airstrike wrote: post #93
Symbiote wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cricket is even more accessible: you need a bat (which could be a piece of wood), but you don't need space. You can compress the game to play in a 1.5m wide alleyway between two buildings. I think this is why it became so popular in India etc.

Soccer is still more accessible. You don't even need a ball. As a kid, you'll find yourself kicking around a crushed coke can with friends and trying to score.

This is a silly form of no true Scotsman, you don't create a Messi if he had been kicking a coke can around.

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

#276

Post by rauljordan2020 »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #220
rauljordan2020 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from Honduras, which is also quite a poor country, and the sport (soccer) is all we do and all everyone talks about. It's a core part of our society and a core part just what one does as a human, so since we are kids we think of always kicking a ball around no matter where you are, even fashioning balls from socks tied together or rubber bands, and we all learn how to control them really well even barefoot, in di…

In the US we had the same but for pickup American football. We played on the street in the neighborhood every night, and had standing games at a kind centralized empty field on Sat/Sunday where everyone know to just show up and there'd be a game, or after it rained (mud football). Only equipment was a football or a nerf football. Kids are kids :)

I would argue it isn't the same. Not every single American male grow up playing American football. It is fragmented across the country. However, for us, almost every single human has the experience of soccer being an integral part of our lives at every stage of it, from toddler to adulthood. It's so pervasive it is part of our core vocabulary and idioms, the govt shuts down when real madrid vs barcelona play, and everyone comes together over a single cause, no matter young or old. Soccer covers every aspect of our lives over there.

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

#277

Post by radiator »

pertymcpert wrote: post #86
radiator wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I really have to disagree with you there. Football's damage to society, which I no doubt does exist, much less than the damage due to class divide and capitalism as a whole. Football in England is sometimes demonized by the media, but specifically footballers. Footballers have historically been the punching bag of the low brow media. "Rio Ferdinand on 150k a week does something bad". "Wayne Rooney caught in latest sc…

I do think the professional players earn too much, including from gambling. Gambling and football go hand-in-hand. More than half the ads during the game advertise betting. This is obviously a huge part of their business. Politicians could not make it illegal, this is the whole point, because football has control over them.

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

#278

Post by red-iron-pine »

pjc50 wrote: post #251
otherme123 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Finally, a good European player doesn't necessarily head to college. They may be playing for a serious club team at 18 or 19. My guess is that less than 5% of european soccer players ever set a foot in College, at least in the biggest Leagues (UK, France, Italy, Spain and Germany). I only know two: Lampard and Iniesta. There might be a few more, but they are oddities. If anything, a good player and good student usu…

The US sports system is especially structured around colleges; while you get named city teams in American football and basketball, there doesn't seem to be anything like the European system where there are often multiple city teams, teams with "works" origins, and generally the legacy of the big early 1900s working class soccer boom. Which was organic/grassroots around self-organized clubs. In fact, class plays a big…

also worth noting that most of the big US sports started as college sports

football, basketball, vollyball, etc. were creations invented at and for universities. they're still big there, and they're the core of the sports in many cases.

e.g. the "ivy league" is literally a sports league.

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

#279

Post by pertymcpert »

radiator wrote: post #277
pertymcpert wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really have to disagree with you there. Football's damage to society, which I no doubt does exist, much less than the damage due to class divide and capitalism as a whole. Football in England is sometimes demonized by the media, but specifically footballers. Footballers have historically been the punching bag of the low brow media. "Rio Ferdinand on 150k a week does something bad". "Wayne Rooney caught in latest sc…

I do think the professional players earn too much, including from gambling. Gambling and football go hand-in-hand. More than half the ads during the game advertise betting. This is obviously a huge part of their business. Politicians could not make it illegal, this is the whole point, because football has control over them.

Football really doesn't have control over politicians. There are only 20 premier league teams and most of them aren't very influential, only a few big clubs. In terms of scale they are dwarfed by the financial services industry in the UK. Arm for example could buy all of the premier league teams (with their own equity, not cash on hand).

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

#280

Post by dogmatism »

SamBam wrote: post #263
dogmatism wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> college (maybe on a scholarship but maybe not--again, pay to play), plays for the varsity team a few times a week during the season wtaf? Do you really think this is the reality? Also, now with NIL etc, college soccer is essentially another international semi-pro league

> wtaf? Do you really think this is the reality? Of course. American varsity soccer players play ~5 times a week for four months a year, August through November. February through April is the Spring season and varsity teams are forbidden from playing too much. D1 and D2 teams can only train 8 hours per week, of which at most 4 hours per week may be coached! And then 4 months of the year are off-season and there is no…

Ok I don't know about soccer

But I know about DI Track and Wrestling. And they're essentially off like 2 weeks a year. This forbidden stuff is a fiction.

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