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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?

#231

Post by akudha »

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…

Isn’t the costing money part true for other sports too, in the U.S? I remember there was a report on how much it costs for kids to play sports (more perfect union video, I think) and it isn’t cheap. It is made worse by (what else?) private equity

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

#232

Post by dataflow »

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…

What about women's soccer?

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

#233

Post by paulsen »

huevosabio wrote: post #100
jandrewrogers wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counterpoint to this is that, broadly speaking, Mexico is demonstrably no better at soccer than the US when it matters. A common talking point in recent years is that the US league is actually better at developing Mexican talent than the Mexican league, though that somewhat reflects different incentives. I think a core issue is that US and Mexican teams rarely have an opportunity to compete against teams signific…

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 Football Association, founded in 1891, also ran the first tournament in that same year, which makes it the oldest associated football league other than the British FA cup (1871).

Below that you have the regional/provincial leagues, the least populated province, Tierra del Fuego, has 2; Buenos Aires province has 70+ by itself.

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

#234

Post by Someone »

Symbiote wrote: post #83
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Depends on location. Cricket requires a ball that bounces. Football, you can play with a wad of left-over paper tied together with tape or strings.

Cricket puts restrictions on the pitch (ground must be fairly hard and even where the ball bounces) that are easily met in typically dry India but harder to meet in wet England, where they need to nurture/torture grass to get the right conditions (growing it to get long, strongly interleaving roots, but then drying out the ground and cutting the grass very short to not make the bouncing ball slip)

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

#235

Post by rurban »

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…

Exactly. The same reasons why US players will never be better at table tennis also. It's the capitalist school and club system, which forbids any advantage in the early years. If you have to pay, you won't train that often.

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

#236

Post by holgerschurig »

otherme123 wrote: post #46
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…

> 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 most important factor however is that many EU countries don't have a US-style college system. E.g. in Germany we have a very different schooling system and a very different job education system. Even the university system is quite a bit different to the US-style.

Some jobs (e.g. bookkeeper) here are apprenticeships where in the US you'd go to some community college.

So there might be european soccer players around that don't have a "college" but still have learned a job from the basics.

That said: a german source says that only 19.6% of the soccer stars (Bundesliga) have learned a common job.

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

#237

Post by holgerschurig »

holgerschurig wrote: post #236
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 most important factor however is that many EU countries don't have a US-style college system. E.g. in Germany we have a very different schooling system and a very different job education system. Even the university system is quite a bit different to the US-style. Some jobs (e.g. bookkeeper) here are apprenticeships where in the US you'd go to some community college. So there might be european soccer players aroun…

Oh, and another thing: that only 19.6% "already" have one isn't that much concerning. It is actually quite common that people do a job education (or 2nd job education) at an older age.

Examples: you learnt to a nurse (which isn't college here), but the stress is too much. So at age 30 you learn something else, e.g. carpentry or backoffice things.

So that someone that learned soccer learns something else, e.g. insurance agent, at age 30 would be totally normal and socially acceptable over here.

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

#238

Post by sometimes_all »

stevekemp wrote: post #230
brigandish wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mate broke someone's arm bowling at him. Cricket always has an element of danger, for both the fielders and the batters.

Getting hit in the face/neck by a cricket ball moving at 150mph can cause serious injuries, even death. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Hughes

Minor nit: Fastest ever recorded ball bowled was 100 mph. I believe you were thinking 150 kmph.

Also, if we're talking about street/amateur cricket, or even higher-level cricket a couple of levels removed from international, you are rarely going to have rockets hurled at you. Most will be 120 kmph tops.

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

#240

Post by puelocesar »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #79
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…

A ball? When I was a kid we rolled a bunch of socks together and played with it in the middle of the street and we defined the goal area with a pair of flip flops.

No need of a ball and infrastructure when you really want to play

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