European Attitudes to American Soccer

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Which is a reason why the US will not be dominating. In Brazil they get kids when they are insanely young! Even younger than they do in Europe. That's why Brazil's players are so skilled. They were able to learn what it takes when they were at an age where the teaching would sink in the best.

In order to dominate, you have to go the extra mile. It's ok that we won't, but that means we won't dominate in soccer. That simple.

What he said...

[DanS]

Don't agree with him! He was arguing why he thought academies are the only possible way to do it -- a concept you expressly disavowed only a couple of posts ago!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by DanS
Don't agree with him! He was arguing why he thought academies are the only way to do it, which you expressly disavowed only a couple of posts ago!

Locutus said you could do it without acadamies if you could find somewhere else to get players that young into dedicated training programs.... I think the only way is the acadamy system and I'm sure Locutus thinks that's the best way, especially with no other feasible alternatives advanced.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by lightblue
The top players at international tournaments will ahve European Champion's League experience, which is of a higher quality typically than international football. If you throw people from the MLS (or English 2nd divsion like say Northern Ireland) into that, you'll get beaten.

I've wondered how much of a problem for the rest of the world it may be that only Euro teams have access to the best competitions.

Champions League, European Cup, etc...

[Locutus]

Originally posted by DanS
Don't agree with him! He was arguing why he thought academies are the only possible way to do it -- a concept you expressly disavowed only a couple of posts ago!

I said academies are not by definition the only workable system, but so far a better system has not been invented yet AFAIK...

But more importantly than the academies are the recruiting tools available to these academies (or whoever would do the educating): an elaborate tiered amateur system as I described above is such an important tool to filter out the talents. The same applies here: such a system is not by definition the only workable model, but a better one has yet to materialise (though of course the system needs to work differently in different countries: a nation-wide football league for six-year-olds wouldn't really work for a country as big as the US, you can hardly have toddlers travel from LA to NY to Miami on a weekly basis )

[Imran Siddiqui]

Of course... regional leagues would have to be created. And perhaps have a sort of playoff between the regional leagues, like is set up for little league baseball (the kids would be younger, of course).

[Dauphin]

All this speculation, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And I wouldn't eat the US pudding.

[child of Thor]

Well things have improved since the last world cup for the american players. More of them are playing in europe etc, which is great for their skills and growing knowledge of the sport. I think if the US can keep getting its players into this position, then they will in turn(i hope) be able to help at home with the next crop of young players and so on.
If the money available and interest grows at home then why not an American World Cup winning squad in years to come?
Its possible.

And end game 'multi-ball' to resolve 0-0 scorelines seems a good idea, progresive

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Kidicious
A lot of Americans play soccer as kids, but most high school teams are full of latin players, and the white and black kids just play the other sports.

This isn't universally true around the country. My soccer team in high school was one of the best in Michigan, and we only had one hispanic kid and one black kid. A lot of the best teams back then were all white private school teams.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


In our lifetimes? I can't.

You need a sense of scale young one. When I was born the Berlin Wall had not yet been erected, and no American had yet orbited the earth. The Wall went up, stayed up for a long time and then the Wall, Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union all came tumbling down. Most days there is an American orbiting the earth in the space station, and not only don't we stop classes in school to show launches, we don't even televise them at all. I'm only 44. A lot can happen in a lifetime.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Dauphin
All this speculation, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And I wouldn't eat the US pudding.

You'll eat it and like it!

[duke o' york]

Can I have mine plain please, or do we all get compulsory full-fat cream?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by duke o' york
Can I have mine plain please, or do we all get compulsory full-fat cream?

We save the full-fat for the lard-assed baseball fans.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Sikander


This isn't universally true around the country. My soccer team in high school was one of the best in Michigan, and we only had one hispanic kid and one black kid. A lot of the best teams back then were all white private school teams.

To be fair, those were probably the only schools with soccer teams, because they spent the money for the additional fields. In the late 80s, in my home county near Columbus and where about 100,000 live, there were only two high school teams: the city team (very large school) and the parochial catholic school (very small school). That left 10 or so public school systems without a soccer team.

Nowadays, the vast majority of school systems in my home county do have a team. Most towns of let's say 10,000 people or more also have a youth league. There are only a couple dozen hispanics in the whole county and even fewer blacks.

For a sense of context, in the 50s in my home county, most schools did not field 11 man football teams, but rather did 7 man football teams, if they had a team. This is in corn-fed Buckeye country, remember! By the 70s, everybody had an 11 man team and fairly deep rosters. So overall I agree with you that these things progress, and sometimes rapidly, as in my home county. I also agree that Imran lacks a sense of scale. Participation in soccer has skyrocketed in the last two decades where I'm from (at least 5x or 10x), and the full huge impact of that change is not yet being felt at the pro and national level.

How could you not be rather sanguine for the upper levels in this country under these circumstances? It might be crap soccer now, but that can be sorted, as long as people are playing.

[Mercator]

I'm getting the impression that (competitive) sports in the US are (almost) exclusively practiced at school. This is completely different from how it works in Europe. There are no school sports teams. Instead you have amateur sports clubs.

Because of this difference, I don't think sports academies can work in the US. Having sports academies would basically kill off the college sports (as you know them).

Regarding the original topic. I hardly know anything about American soccer. The only things I can say are that women's soccer seems to be more popular and is doing much better than men's soccer. And secondly, you've got all these weird team names and practices, like in American football.