USA vs Brazil Friendly

[erickb]

Wynalda said the team was thrown together to give those guys a place to play and train. Qualifying for the USOC was an afterthought and the team is amazed to have made it so far. Portland put their starting 11 on the field and allowed an amateur side hold a clean sheet for 120 minutes. I want to trade Spencer and Gavin for Wynalda.

I read an article that said they where put together for the open cup, no worries though they are making an awsome run just like the Pumas did last year until they played Seattle (they still played well and their keeper is now in our net!)

Spencer that dude is a trip, glad you guys got him :

 

[Future]

No, you can't. You can run 30 miles and be a mediocre athlete but you wont be crappy.

Soccer players are fast, agile, powerful and well-conditioned.

In this country the best male athletes still play other sports first but the US national team guys are extraordinary athletes. You can't make the team without elite levels of speed. All those guys run below 4.6 and most are legit 4.4 guys. And they do it for 90 minutes.

US Soccer is very strong. People don't understand how it works from the end of league season to International play starting. Dempsey, Howard, Bradley and many others are making big names for themselves playing European Soccer. This US team is closing in on a real roster but without Dempsey and Altidore as starters it isn't there yet. It also has to either get Gooch back in top form or find a replacement.

I have a buddy whose a marathoner. He literally can't do anything that involves balls (lol, no pun intended). Running is just running, sports that require athleticism build and build upon running.

I'm not trying to say soccer players aren't athletes, I enjoy the game. But I think it's blatantly obvious that they aren't the best that this country has to offer.

 

[TRUTH87]

its all about SKILL and vision in soccer. you dont have to run super fast to be super good. place the pass or place the shot where u want it to be and you can do wonders. what soccer player needs to bench 200 LBS? your not gonna tackle anybody down.

 

[joseephuss]

Truth, and no one has mention how athltic you have to be to play keeper! But there are those that just think soccer players can run at that is it.

No one is saying soccer players at the highest levels are not athletic. I just think the top athletes of the NFL are more athletic than their soccer counterparts. It is not putting down soccer players in any manner. NFL players and in some peoples opinions, NBA player just have more overall athleticism.

 

[Cythim]

I read an article that said they where put together for the open cup, no worries though they are making an awsome run just like the Pumas did last year until they played Seattle (they still played well and their keeper is now in our net!)

Spencer that dude is a trip, glad you guys got him :

That article was all speculation. Wynalda was on a local radio show and gave a breakdown of how and why the team was formed. He has had Cal FC since 2008 I believe but it turned defunct due to the economy. He brought it back as an amateur side when he was scouting for a Mexico club and saw all of these talented kids who needed somewhere to play. His goal is to get his players seen and signed to pro clubs, he was given a grand stage to do that with the USOC and beating Portland.

The one good thing about the loss is not having to host Seattle in another embarrassing loss.

 

[UKCowboysFan]

No one is saying soccer players at the highest levels are not athletic. I just think the top athletes of the NFL are more athletic than their soccer counterparts. It is not putting down soccer players in any manner. NFL players and in some peoples opinions, NBA player just have more overall athleticism.

I guess it's a cultural thing.

There are many people who watch the NFL for the first time, see a player make a big play & then head to the sidelines for Oxygen & a rest who would say "How can that guy be fit, he has played for two minutes & needs to have a break".

They then see a 350+ pound lineman who needs that bulk to do his job & can't reconcile that with any level of fitness.

This is largely because we are brought up thinking that fit people play football (soccer) & everyone else plays other sports.

The one thing about American Football is that there are a far greater range of athletes that can play. The big guys can play on the line, the quick guys at WR or CB and so on.

I remember reading an article many years ago that said that America had lost a generation of great decathletes, because most of them were playing Linebacker.


The bottom line is that Athletes come in all shapes & sizes, and the better ones will often lean (or be pushed) towards playing the nations top sport(s). In the US that is American Football & Basketball, in most of Europe that will be Football (Soccer).

 

[nyc-cowboy]

I would consider DeMarcus Ware or LeBron James far greater athletes over any soccer player. That includes your categories of fit-heart rate, weight control endurance plus the categories I mentioned about strength, explosiveness, power, quickness, agility and speed. And I could come up with a long, long list of others that I think are greater athletes than soccer players.

I don't believe your Wild World of Sports story. I have never seen or heard of anything of that manner where soccer players dominated or asked not to compete. If you did a competition of different events, I bet the top guys would be from the NFL or the NBA.

And what does Ochocinco have to do with this? Just because soccer training requires more endurance than football training, does not mean you have to be a better athlete to play soccer. You just need better endurance and that is only one single element into what makes a great athlete. The top soccer athletes would struggle pushing a blocking sled in practice everyday and see that as being more challenging than what they do everyday in their own sport.

I have watched all manner of competitions and am myself a big soccer fan. While I can appreciate them as athletes, none of them are as athletic as guys from the NFL or NBA. And I am not saying the difference is some grand chasm, but there is a different level in the athleticism. Sure some fat lineman may not be a better athlete. Soccer does not have or need equivalent fat guys in their sport, but the NFL also has linebackers, running backs, wide receivers and defensive backs who are far different than lineman.

It def depends on what you consider a "athlete"

I think your underestimating what it take to be a soccer player and the skills one needs.

I grew up in Brooklyn and lived across the street from a public school and to my right was Prospect Park that had football fields and BB diamonds so I've basically played every street game and major sport including Football,Soccer/Futbol,baseball and basketball and was on teams of all at diff levels since I could walk.

Now IMO basketball skills and soccer skills are similar - obviously the biggest diff in one uses their hands and the other their feet.

In both sports you need to RUN - a BB player dribbles the ball with his hand and needs to look up to distribute the pass - same as soccer - again except you dribbling with your feet.

You need to out jump ppl for the crosses/rebounds, you need to box out ect a lot of the same skills but in soccer its a much larger area.

Like I said played them all especially Football and Futbol and the skills it took were different and some the same - like if your a defender and you have to stay with a forward making a long diagonal run, sort of like a CB staying with a WR - but to me one was not "easier" than the other.


As for the Wide World of Sports someone else mentioned - I think he might have been referring to "The Superstars" competion that included athletes from all over the sports world that competed in all kinds of things and the guess who won the first 3 of 5 years.....

You guessed it...a soccer player by the name of Kyle Rote Jr. son of a former NY giant, and the other 2 winners in those 5 years, were Bob Seagram (pole vault) and OJ Simpson.

 

[RastaRocket]

its all about SKILL and vision in soccer. you dont have to run super fast to be super good. place the pass or place the shot where u want it to be and you can do wonders. what soccer player needs to bench 200 LBS? your not gonna tackle anybody down.

Exactly. It's not like athletes like Ware, Lebron, etc were born benching 200 lbs. They established that through weight training. There are many many soccer players who could do that if they did the same weight training.

 

[joseephuss]

It def depends on what you consider a "athlete"

I think your underestimating what it take to be a soccer player and the skills one needs.

I'm not underestimating anyone or any sport. I have played soccer since I was 4 years old. I know what it takes to play the sport. I just think the NFL has some of the best athletes in the world. We aren't talking about average players, we are discussing the best of the best.

I would take a team of the top 100 NFL athletes over a team of the top 100 pro soccer athletes in an array of competitions to test overall athleticism. There would be a few soccer athletes that would do very well, but I think the majority of the guys that would do the best would be NFL players.

And as far as what I consider an athlete. I have provided description of what I consider an athlete a few times in this thread. It is about all around athleticism covering strength, power, agility, dexterity, endurance, speed, quickness, balance and anything else you can add. It begins with the Olympic motto of "swifter, higher, stronger" and includes much more.

And someone mentioned that if soccer players weight trained, they could and would develop great strength. You could also say if NFL players needed to develop great endurance, they could run everyday and do it. That isn't the point for me. I am talking about if you throw a bunch of athletes together suddenly and have them compete against each other for some prize. Everything a top NFL athlete brings to the table is better than everything a top soccer athlete brings to the table as far as pure athleticism.

I had a feeling he was discussing Superstars. That is hardly a good example since the competition was never that all inclusive of all athletes in the world. It was a made for TV event that was mostly for fun and while these guys are competitors they didn't take it that seriously. That holds for win Rote won or win football players won. Plus the big point is that soccer players were never banned from participating. That is just made up.