World Football Thread XVI - The demise of one Ronaldo and the rise of another

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

A fair way to go then?

Go where? Americans don't care if baseball becomes a "global sport".

Id say the ones making the money care, but as long as youre happy to sit back and let soccer take over like Imran.

[Drake Tungsten]

Americans are making money off soccer. The way things are going, the entire EPL will be American-owned in a generation.

[Maquiladora]

If theyre as successful as spreading baseball around the world, im sure we have nothing to worry about.

[Drake Tungsten]

If spreading your sport around the world leads to the looting of your most storied clubs by foreign investors, I'm glad baseball hasn't expanded farther.

[Maquiladora]

I couldnt care less, but i really doubt the powers of English football (the fans) would let it get that far. This is not the US, where you can rebrand clubs at the drop of a hat for an extra buck.

[Drake Tungsten]

You can't stop us. The three richest sports leagues in the world are American; we have all the money and management skill we need to take over the Premier League. All we have to worry about are Russian/Arab oil tycoons. Hopefully we get to Arsenal before they do...

[Ãskallin]

Drake, there is a huge difference between the most played and the most popular/watched one. If the most played one counted, things like curling and lawn bowls would be pretty huge as well. Since all the old farts/people who can't handle team sports play those kind of games.

[MikeH]

No sport is anywhere close to Soccer in terms of worldwide players and spectators. I'll try and find decent figures.

[MikeH]

Fairly convincing stuff. Picture and numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Popularsports.PNG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_sport

[LordShiva]

Fifa world rankings:
1 Italy
2 Brazil
3 Argentina
4 France
5 Germany
6 England
7 Holland
8 Portugal
9 Czech Republic
10 Spain

Italy pwns!

[duke o' york]

Hmmm.... out of that top 10 I can count 9 teams better than England, so why are they at 6?

Whereabouts are India these days?

[Maquiladora]

As we all know FIFA rankings are mostly BS. Brazil are still #1 and we need to trade places with Portugal, also Argentina are too high aswell...

[Cort Haus]

Fackin glory hunting plastic Indian-Italians. I dunno

Allow me to quote Monsieur Wenger. : 'National football is boring, you have to accept that. Club football has moved forward and national football has gone backwards.'

Bolton1 - Arsenal 3 : what a great cup tie.

[LordShiva]

lol italy pwns you all LOL

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Maquiladora
As we all know FIFA rankings are mostly BS. Brazil are still #1 and we need to trade places with Portugal, also Argentina are too high aswell...

Brazil shouldn't be #1 based on their recent performances. They sucked in the world cup and against Portugal the other day. Argentina are a brilliant team who were very unlucky to go out of the WC on penalties against a massively overperforming home nation.