Why Soccer will (not) succeed in America

[Caesar Germanico]

Don't be so smug. It wasn't the better team that won tonight. You have guys like Hazard, Lukaku, Courtois, Kompany, Van Buyten and Vertonghen in the national team - USA have basically Dempsey and Howard and nine more hard-working relatively unknown footballers who recreated the defence of the Alamo and at one point had you besieged in your own box.

US also have a couple of great prospects that will probably do a great career and Bradley played at high levels in Europe as well.

[Thorn777]

Problem is that people, not like NFL Playoff levels of people, but people and their kids were watching and for most of the time in all of our matches, we definitely didn't look like we could win.

Would rather lose a game 5-2 or 4-3 than play for ties. At least we'd have some Sportscenter highlights.

Eh, whatever, we're never going to get over the hump until we tap into our athletic base as a whole. Stop telling the 14 year old that can't catch but can run a 4.6 40 that he's going to be a wide receiver. The kid can't catch. Send him to the soccer coach and see if he can kick a ball.

Football/soccer like all ball sports is mostly in the head.

A good soccer player is usualy also good at other ball games. Has a feel for the ball as they say here. Could even be tennis or pool, whatever and would catch that egg as a wide receiver as well.

And soccer especially is a head game. Thats also why doping is unlikely or super athletics important. You need a constant mindset over the ball and your surroundings you have grown over childhood.

It can only be learned on the level of greatest stage when you have a propper culture and life around the game.

This American team btw is very athletic for football players. Its hardly planned out attacks. Its allot of blood sweat and tears play.

[Caesar Germanico]

Problem is that people, not like NFL Playoff levels of people, but people and their kids were watching and for most of the time in all of our matches, we definitely didn't look like we could win.

Would rather lose a game 5-2 or 4-3 than play for ties. At least we'd have some Sportscenter highlights.

Eh, whatever, we're never going to get over the hump until we tap into our athletic base as a whole. Stop telling the 14 year old that can't catch but can run a 4.6 40 that he's going to be a wide receiver. The kid can't catch. Send him to the soccer coach and see if he can kick a ball.

The way US played almost made victory possible, playing like you wished would have gotten the team devasted.Belgium's strikers created a lot as it was, what you think would have happened if they had a little more space?Furthermore, while the US suffered during the whole game, they also often tried to create something in counterattack;not really playing completely for a draw.

[torongill]

Problem is that people, not like NFL Playoff levels of people, but people and their kids were watching and for most of the time in all of our matches, we definitely didn't look like we could win.

Would rather lose a game 5-2 or 4-3 than play for ties. At least we'd have some Sportscenter highlights.

Eh, whatever, we're never going to get over the hump until we tap into our athletic base as a whole. Stop telling the 14 year old that can't catch but can run a 4.6 40 that he's going to be a wide receiver. The kid can't catch. Send him to the soccer coach and see if he can kick a ball.

That's too late for the development of a footballer. The USA already has some of the hardest working teams in the tournament, but they lack a good first touch. That good first touch doesn't come from playing 11-a-side on a full-stretch pitch. It comes from playing in parking lots, in small clay courts where kids play not football, but ball. When I was a kid we used to gather the whole neighbourhood in a parking lot half of the size of a mini-pitch, and we played from 4 pm to 9 pm when you couldn't make out the ball - and we played seven to eleven per side. You don't slide tackle on asphalt, so you need to develop the skills to both keep the ball, win the ball and pass the ball in short fast passes while staying on your feet.

FIFA states that the real football educations starts at 12-13, but they forget to point out that good players start with the ball as soon as they are old enough to kick it. The fact is that the USA has one of the best resources to create footballers, but also one of the worst environments for that. You can blame Suburbia for that.

[I WUB PUGS]

*snip*

I'm just saying we need to expand the player base. There are plenty of super athletic kids in this country that end up sticking with sports they won't make it in for one reason of another. They need to be channeled to other sports.

It really doesn't even make sense for American Football players to not play soccer in the Spring since in high school, at least EVERY high school I've seen, the field is used for football in Fall and the soccer team gets it in Spring. Could literally have every single skill position player from a football team also playing soccer in the spring, but this isn't encouraged.

Just as an example of one stumbling block............. kids get it in their head that they're going to play a position and that's that, can't be swayed. My Alma Mater had a couple players last season in their National Championship run that were both freakish athletes. Neither wanted to move positions. One wanted to play defense, the other wanted to be a running back like his father was professionally. Well the one that wanted to play defense ended up getting time as a running back after 2 WHOLE YEARS of the coach asking him to. Turns out he's a stud and could easily be the best running back in the nation this coming year, but he refused to change positions even, let alone look at another sport. The guy that was a running back that was told he should play defense for years never switched. Guess what, he graduated, wasn't drafted into the pros. He signed a pretty crap free agent contract. Could've been a monster linebacker, but he was too arrogant to move.

There isn't the encouragement at the High School level. That's where it needs to be.

The way US played almost made victory possible, playing like you wished would have gotten the team devasted.Belgium's strikers created a lot as it was, what you think would have happened if they had a little more space?Furthermore, while the US suffered during the whole game, they also often tried to create something in counterattack;not really playing completely for a draw.

You're missing the point. I don't care about this match. I care about the future and Americans will not stand for this sort of play. It is boring and demoralizing and runs counter to our philosophy in all sports. We do not turtle.








@ Torongil, then move what I'm saying about sharing fields with football and soccer to the Junior High level. Like I've said. Millions of American kids play soccer until puberty. Then the infrastructure for other sports is available. Junior High is the gap when kids get into Little League, City Basketball and Junior High School football. By age 14 they're on a track for that sport through high school. Same thing happened to me. I played soccer, basketball and baseball as a kid. At age 11 I picked up hockey, didn't stop until after college.

the US could have won that match but their finishing failed them, most of Belgium's players have been finely honed by much better leagues and it showed. pretty spirited fight though and nice goal. the lineup should have included Donovan, i don't know what happened there.

Cancer in the room maybe. But most people thought he should've been a 70th minute energy guy. With Altidore out.....................yeah, poor call.

[Caesar Germanico]

So, 50 % teams of the top 8 are European and will probably (CRvsNE FRvsGER) be 50 % in the semis as well.Not too bad considering how the groups went and the fact this WC is played in South America.

You're missing the point. I don't care about this match. I care about the future and Americans will not stand for this sort of play. It is boring and demoralizing and runs counter to our philosophy in all sports. We do not turtle.

How this sort of play hurts the future?A good coach needs to use the potential of his team to (attempting to) win and that is what Klinsmann did.

[Facupay]

That type of play will never captivate Americans as a whole. It doesn't play into our psyche at all. We won't sit through 90+ minutes of our team getting beaten into the ground while playing for a tie or to force a shootout.

I get Klinnsmann is trying to get the team further down the road for Russia 2016, but if you want to cultivate a game in a country, you need to build a team that plays like the country expects it to play.

He had them playing totally conservative the entire tournament. Boo.

Get better on the defense or clog up the middle. This type of play will always be considered boring in the US. We love defense, just not this type of defense.

You need to be realistic, the US doesn't have the players to use a more offensive system. As much as americans would love to score 4 goals a game it's simply not possible and it would just get wrecked in defence with very little goals in favour. As your team is playing right now makes the most use of the US athletic advantage while diminishing the lack of technique disadvantage.

To be soundly beaten is much more demoralizing than playing defensively. Belgium is a far better team and you almost managed to win, that's quite good.

[Halie Satanus]

So do Americans think if 'America' concentrated more resources on football at grass roots level they could win the world cup?

[Farnan]

It still has a hard time competing with Baseball, Basketball and Hockey amazingly. Need to find a dead zone for it. May June is totally out of the question with NBA and NHL playoffs and MLB ramping up. The spring time is the dead time that they can take advantage of regular season Basketball and Hockey and NO FOOTBALL or baseball. Would have to sacrifice half the season though to play in the fall and just have a break in winter. Football from November-January is king.

I'd agree with you. It would have a hard time against them, but its not even a competition with Football. Either way we both agree the MLS needs to reform its season to draw more attention from US sports stations.

Halie: We'd be closer. We have a large population and we invest a lot of money into sports.

[I WUB PUGS]

You need to be realistic, the US doesn't have the players to use a more offensive system. As much as americans would love to score 4 goals a game it's simply not possible and it would just get wrecked in defence with very little goals in favour. As your team is playing right now makes the most use of the US athletic advantage while diminishing the lack of technique disadvantage.

To be soundly beaten is much more demoralizing than playing defensively. Belgium is a far better team and you almost managed to win, that's quite good.

Quite, frankly, I don't care what an Uruguayan thinks of what the US team should've done. I'm not talking specifically about this game. I'm talking about the entire tournament where we played downright un-American. We do not turtle. Fine for getting through to the knock-out stage if that's Klinnsmanns game, this is normal in our sports, but when you have to win, you go for the win. At least go for the win at start and try for parity then go defensive once you've scored. Setting back for 90 minutes. Ugh, vomit. We hate that here.

And no, I'm not talking about the best soccer tactics or any of that. I'm talking about how Americans go at sports. Tell a kid to sit back and play for a tie and just defend all game and he's gonna quit. If you can't win, go home.

Yes, Halie, its simple numbers game. 300+ million in this country with a tremendous love of sport. But soccer basically dies in the mainstream at ages 12-13.

[chilon]

I'm just saying we need to expand the player base. There are plenty of super athletic kids in this country that end up sticking with sports they won't make it in for one reason of another. They need to be channeled to other sports.

It really doesn't even make sense for American Football players to not play soccer in the Spring since in high school, at least EVERY high school I've seen, the field is used for football in Fall and the soccer team gets it in Spring. Could literally have every single skill position player from a football team also playing soccer in the spring, but this isn't encouraged.

Not sure how it is now but when I was in high school in the early 1990s we didn't even have a soccer team because the American football coaches were so biased and lobbied against it for years. For some odd reason there was always a resentment from American Football and baseball coaches to soccer even being included. Probably better now. Perception has definitely changed but for a long time the bias of 'American sports' coaches was a big reason that soccer infrastructure was delayed except in certain pockets in some cities and areas.

[Caesar Germanico]

So do Americans think if 'America' concentrated more resources on football at grass roots level they could win the world cup?

The Americans need a great league, MLS might be getting better but it's not enough, to produce great players playing in the US and later go in other great leagues as well.The fact they don't really have a competion like Libertadores or CL makes the growth of MLS quite difficult.

Anyway, as far I know soccer is finally getting hold at the college level, that will be useful.

[Halie Satanus]

Halie: We'd be closer. We have a large population and we invest a lot of money into sports.

Out of the 19 world cups only 8 countries have won it. Money is irrelevant, Brazil have won it five times and until recently didn't have a pot to piss in.

Population is even less important. Spain is a relatively small country population wise and they have dominated football until this tournament..

The US performance in this world cup has been outstanding and will go a long way to building up a culture of football, but it's going to take a long time.

[Facupay]

Quite, frankly, I don't care what an Uruguayan thinks of what the US team should've done. I'm not talking specifically about this game. I'm talking about the entire tournament where we played downright un-American. We do not turtle. Fine for getting through to the knock-out stage if that's Klinnsmanns game, this is normal in our sports, but when you have to win, you go for the win. At least go for the win at start and try for parity then go defensive once you've scored. Setting back for 90 minutes. Ugh, vomit. We hate that here.

And no, I'm not talking about the best soccer tactics or any of that. I'm talking about how Americans go at sports. Tell a kid to sit back and play for a tie and just defend all game and he's gonna quit. If you can't win, go home.

He's gonna be going home a lot of times then.

The US, unlike in everything else, is at the moment small or medium-sized nation in football and if it wants to achieve anything it has to play accordingly. The US was THIS close to a miracle but, in the end, the team that had better players in almost every position won. If the US had gone all out from the beginning there was a 20% chance of beating the Belgians and an 80% chance of being annhilated.

[chilon]

Out of the 19 world cups only 8 countries have won it. Money is irrelevant, Brazil have won it five times and until recently didn't have a pot to piss in.

Population is even less important. Spain is a relatively small country population wise and they have dominated football until this tournament..

The US performance in this world cup has been outstanding and will go a long way to building up a culture of football, but it's going to take a long time.

Culture and infrastructure is important.

I always wondered why China for instance never put infrastructure and cultural focus on football. Seemed to make sense with their Communist philosophy to focus on a team sport but instead they seem to have put their infrastructure and culture into building for the individualistic sports of the Olympics. With their population and emerging economic resources, China would be an interesting experiment if they did put a focus on a team sport for once and see if they could eventually emerge. They have a culture more open to embracing a new sport as they dont even have a team sport they focus on and they have the infrastructure to build for the future. It might take 20 years but I personally see China winning a World Cup sooner than America IF they put that cultural focus on like they do for the Olympics simply because the USA is so entrenched culturally and China isn't.

If we take Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours of practice rule of thumb as a guideline the key is to develop generations of players that reach 10,000 hours of practice at the earliest age possible. That's what it takes to produce a Messi or James or Neymar.

[So Much Fire]

This looks like Maple Leafs hockey. Also known as, how to lose a game.

Have some rep!

So do Americans think if 'America' concentrated more resources on football at grass roots level they could win the world cup?

I actually have 2 teams that could benefit from a solid grass roots footballing culture. Building up talent from the primary school level is incredibly important. That's where my national teams fall short. They gobble up talent that appears on the national stage (or in the case of the PZPN, turns them away to go play in Germany a la Podolski/Klose) instead of actively building up the youth programs.

[Caesar Germanico]

Out of the 19 world cups only 8 countries have won it. Money is irrelevant, Brazil have won it five times and until recently didn't have a pot to piss in.

Population is even less important. Spain is a relatively small country population wise and they have dominated football until this tournament..

The US performance in this world cup has been outstanding and will go a long way to building up a culture of football, but it's going to take a long time.

Population is relevant and so is tradition/culture, only without the later population doesn't matter.Brazil wins because it has 200 mln (100 mln men) playing all their lives and from different cultures playing different types of football.

The US even with its big population doesn't have huge numbers playing football all their lives and if it does, the compention from other sports is too great and the football culture not significant enough to matter.

[chilon]

Quite, frankly, I don't care what an Uruguayan thinks of what the US team should've done. I'm not talking specifically about this game. I'm talking about the entire tournament where we played downright un-American. We do not turtle. Fine for getting through to the knock-out stage if that's Klinnsmanns game, this is normal in our sports, but when you have to win, you go for the win. At least go for the win at start and try for parity then go defensive once you've scored. Setting back for 90 minutes. Ugh, vomit. We hate that here.

And no, I'm not talking about the best soccer tactics or any of that. I'm talking about how Americans go at sports. Tell a kid to sit back and play for a tie and just defend all game and he's gonna quit. If you can't win, go home.

Yes, Halie, its simple numbers game. 300+ million in this country with a tremendous love of sport. But soccer basically dies in the mainstream at ages 12-13.

The problem is you can't just build an American soccer team on "how they go at sports" and expect results. You have to maximize what you have. When the squad doesn't have the technical level or first touch that the elite teams have, you can't just mindlessly attack them or the game might not be 4-3 but more like 5-0.

Clearly Klinsmann never intended to do that or he wouldn't have taken so many defensive mids while leaving out Donovan. I get what you are saying but the USA simply doesn't currently have the players needed to play that style.

Liverpool's style would fit the "typical USA sports fan". Balls out frenetic crazy throw everything at attack the first 45 minutes and hope they go up. If not hope they still have energy at the end of games to see them out. But to do that the USA need to develop some more technical players. This Julian Green might be a good start. Teenager training at Bayern. Thats the type of thing the USA needs. More players that get a lot of experience early and move to European clubs to train while still in their teens.

[chilon]

Population is relevant and so is tradition/culture, only without the later population doesn't matter.Brazil wins because it has 200 mln (100 mln men) playing all their lives and from different cultures playing different types of football.

The US even with its big population doesn't have huge numbers playing football all their lives and if it does, the compention from other sports is too great and the football culture not significant enough to matter.

You can't forget infrastructure. Its a trifecta of population, culture and infrastructure.

Some of the African nations, like Nigeria, being an example of a nation with sufficient population and culture but insufficient infrastructure as demonstrated by their subtle behind the scenes meltdown this year.

----


Also the USA could benefit from doing what both the Swiss and Algerians benefited from this year...

Look for American eligible kids living in Europe or SA and convince them to join the USA.

[Facupay]

The problem is you can't just build an American soccer team on "how they go at sports" and expect results. You have to maximize what you have. When the squad doesn't have the technical level or first touch that the elite teams have, you can't just mindlessly attack them or the game might not be 4-3 but more like 5-0.

Clearly Klinsmann never intended to do that or he wouldn't have taken so many defensive mids while leaving out Donovan. I get what you are saying but the USA simply doesn't currently have the players needed to play that style.

Liverpool's style would fit the "typical USA sports fan". Balls out frenetic crazy throw everything at attack the first 45 minutes and hope they go up. If not hope they still have energy at the end of games to see them out. But to do that the USA need to develop some more technical players. This Julian Green might be a good start. Teenager training at Bayern. Thats the type of thing the USA needs. More players that get a lot of experience early and move to European clubs to train while still in their teens.

I couldn't agree more.

The US has improved amazingly and this was a great WC: It beat Ghana, almost defeated Portugal, had a close match with GERMANY and showed it was a very solid team against Belgium. The US has a great future, however that does not mean it can lose track of reality and start with delusions of '74's Netherlands because any team with proficient strikers will shred it to pieces.