I definitely don't follow soccer, but I think we all give this team the benefit of the doubt because it's the USA and it's unthinkable for the USA to be anything other than awesome. But I think our talent is nothing more than average, so we shouldn't necessarily be shocked when we totally duff it against a perceived inferior team.
Sorry, I'm not following. What better pool are you referring to specifically? I'm advocating removing the "pay to play" barrier that prevents many kids from sniffing the elite levels - even if they are gifted. Also, I agree the fastest/strongest are not the best path to success on the international level, however, I don't know how you properly emphasize technical development without instituting a system bound by common concepts and fundamentals.
The US Just lost to Trinidad & Tobego. T&T is nothing short of a totally shit national team (except when Dwight Yorke was up front). This is a catastrophic failure.
Glad MLS has propped up other countries in our federation while providing one last payday for old European players!!!!!
There is plenty of young talent. Its lack of system & coaching that will be the problem. We played a lot of older guys who werent that great anymore or didnt fit together in an established system to make a team. We didnt rebuild a new system with young players. We cobbled the best team we could from guys without having a plan in place. This makes for a shit sandwhich.
There will never be a movement for soccer in the US like there is/was in basketball-football-baseball. So the dream of having a national team built like Europe or South America models isn't going to happen so long as those others exist here. Soccer will always be behind the Big Four. Espn has some data about this. http://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/9469252/hidden-demographics-youth-sports-espn-magazine
We won 3 games in 10 opportunities against Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras, and Trinidad and Tobago. Just fucking embarrassing.
Don't he is going to be fine. He is the future and that should give us hope. Provided those other future stars continue to develop and stay within the US system. Hyndham, Green, Zelalem are still on track?
Zezalem has fallen off, but there are plenty of younger guys Sargent Carleton Weah McKennie Carter-Vickers Palmer-Brown Hyndmann Horvath Wright Gooch Yedlin Brooks
France is second favorite on most betting sites, ahead of Spain and Brazil and just slightly behind Germany. So yeah, they're close, according to people who actually put their money where their mouth is.
Sounds like a problem with the strength and conditioning coaches, as well as players coddled by a country club atmosphere.
having a Jehovah's Witness on the squad who could not acknowledge the USA anthem is going to be the rallying cry of Fox News
Eins und zwei und drei und vierundfunfzig vierundziebzig neunzig zweitausendvierzehn zweitausendachtzehn ja so stimmen wir alle ein. Mit dem Herz in der Hand und der Leidenschaft im Bein werden wir Weltmeister sein.
Yep, but somehow we've made it a rich-kid sport. We don't have the most skilled athletes in our country playing, and the ones that do play have little creativity or touch because it's coached out of them at an early age because no one just plays. It's over-organization from a young age, so our players don't develop a verve, a craft, a hunger from a young age. Pusilic is awesome to watch because he doesn't muck around and try to clumsily grind like most of our domestic players. Our players consistently are terrible on the first touch. There's no philosophy at the upper levels, but we don't do kids at the lower levels favors by making it a middle-to-high-income sport. Either way, go Poland and Germany next year.
No. England is Michigan football. Seen as one of the power brokers of the sport from the outside due to their brand and influence, gets a lot of attention from everyone and was really good in the past but in general falls short of the true elites when it comes time to put up and shut up. US Soccer is like Iowa. We play a generally hard-to-watch style and grind all the time and are usually mediocre. Sometimes we step up and beat someone good by boring them to death, but a lot of the time we just look like rubes.
Only hope for Americans is to just quit playing poverty ball. Woke up today and was prouder than I have been in a long time. I hope soccer fails every Damn time.
Talent pool isn't as much a problem as is mentality. Even with other sports poaching the athletic prospects this country is still big enough and wealthy enough (compared to many other poorer ones that qualified) to field plenty talented kids. But soccer isn't thought of as fervently. I grew up until I was 12 in former Yugoslavia. Soccer, basketball, water polo, tennis, they weren't just sports. It's a way of life. Hell we used to play through air raid sirens, in pitch black, on concrete or in flood... On the same field you'd find guys barefoot, in cleats too big, too small, mismatched, didn't matter. Anyone and everyone played, and we still wouldn't equal the US talent pool. But the sport defined us. Identified us. You're not going to beat that mentality just because your players are a few inches taller. It blew my mind when I came here how expensive it was to actually play. A soccer field was any open space that we could lay two articles of clothing to act as goalposts. There isn't that same opportunity here due to the overwhelming focus on the other big 4 sports. That immediately puts the US youth at a disadvantage when it comes to being exposed to the sport. Kids from Europe/S America etc also face increasingly difficult competition from a young age. MLS has come a good way but it still lags heavily behind other countries. This takes time.
It's for the children. I hope our next generation is tougher than the current one. Soccer is a big problem.
Klinsmann was pretty trash but hiring arena was also trash What I'm saying is that's it's trash all the way down
My boys will never play soccer. When my youngest brother wanted to play in 4th grade we were allowed to refer to him as fag boy until he decided to quit.