World Cup Final: USA vs Japan

[CATCH17]

You don't need athlete's, but it helps. If you just improved the athleticism of the U.S. men's team you would have a better team; however, that is only one part of the equation. You also have to improve the technical aspects of the players and the team.

The thing is Americans should have both.

We should have bad *** athletes who are smart and skillful. Thats what American sports is.

 

[daschoo]

I was specifically talking about their physical appearance. Soccer players look more like middle distance runners than the prototypical American athlete. I'm not asking are they or aren't they, I am asking if they have the physical appearance that is coveted in American sports.

Yes, lets take a literal meaning of my statement instead of actually reading what I've written. They are all athletes, and so are the guys who throw stones done the ice in the winter Olympics. If Messi and Xavi are at the NFL combine they won't be impressing anyone in most of the drills.

Curling is not athletic, no more than darts is. Both technically very difficult (and a decent watch in my opinion) but you don't need to be in great shape. Personally I would have said that the two guys you have mentioned are more athletic than a heck of a lot of guys at the NFL combine. Take a defensive tackle and have him compete against Xavi in a variety of athletic competitions (swimming, running, lifting, endurance, tennis etc) Xavi would likely win the majority. That doesn't mean that the defensive tackle is not athletic it just means that the body type required for his role is more specialised. That's what I was meaning when I disagreed with you as to me Xavi and Messi have a body type that is more suited to a wider variety of athletic activities than a lot of American athletes.

 

[Cythim]

You are missing the point.

Are you somehow under the impression that the only people that can develop technical skills and understanding are those that are somewhat deficient athletically?

What I'm saying is that you are going to have better soccer players if you have players who are BOTH great atheltes who also develop the technical ability and the understanding of the game.

In other words, the combination of great athleticism and great technique & understanding is going to produce a better soccer player than one who only has moderate athleticism to go with great technique and understanding.

That really doesn't seem debateable. Obviously soccer, like other sports, requires technique and understanding, and the better developed those things are the better the player. But soccer is also, like other sports, a physical contest, and the more capable the player is physically the better he will be as well.

The problem with your argument is that the physical requirements of soccer are not the same as those for football, baseball, or basketball. Ocho Cinco is a superior athlete in the NFL, and I have no doubt he could've been a superior athlete in the MLS. I do highly doubt he could've been a world class player. Could Donovan or Dempsey have made it into the NFL/NBA/MLB? Doubtful.

We have over 200 D1 schools that play soccer, which equates to more than 5000 soccer players at the collegiate level. Add in the D2 and D3 schools and we are looking at 10,000 collegiate players. The problem isn't that we aren't playing it enough, the problem is we do not know how to scout or develop talent. We look for NFL and NBA athletes instead of the athletic kids with technical ability.

 

[Cythim]

Curling is not athletic, no more than darts is. Both technically very difficult (and a decent watch in my opinion) but you don't need to be in great shape. Personally I would have said that the two guys you have mentioned are more athletic than a heck of a lot of guys at the NFL combine. Take a defensive tackle and have him compete against Xavi in a variety of athletic competitions (swimming, running, lifting, endurance, tennis etc) Xavi would likely win the majority. That doesn't mean that the defensive tackle is not athletic it just means that the body type required for his role is more specialised. That's what I was meaning when I disagreed with you as to me Xavi and Messi have a body type that is more suited to a wider variety of athletic activities than a lot of American athletes.

I like watching curling as well, not sure why it just seems interesting.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Xavi beat a guy like LeBron James in those same activities. My point is that the American idea of an athlete is not what we need on the soccer field. You don't have to be the biggest, strongest, or fastest to play soccer. That is one of the great things about this game.

 

[joseephuss]

I like watching curling as well, not sure why it just seems interesting.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Xavi beat a guy like LeBron James in those same activities. My point is that the American idea of an athlete is not what we need on the soccer field. You don't have to be the biggest, strongest, or fastest to play soccer. That is one of the great things about this game.

Being bigger, stronger or faster will help a person in any sport. Those things are always a benefit and are rarely a negative. You look for those things, but it isn't the top priority to some extent. First you need to find someone with a natural talent for the particular sport. And then you have to get them to work to develop the skills required to play that sport. But if someone has those assets, then being bigger, stronger and faster will only help them.

No on can tell me that Messi would not be even better if he were a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger. Obviously, it is his natural abilities and the skills he has worked hard at to hone that primarily make him great. You need those first, but if he somehow became 4 inches taller and a little bit more muscular, then that would only make him better. And Messi already has the fast aspect to his athleticism.

You don't start with an athlete and then build a soccer player. You start with a soccer player and then try to improve their athleticism. That is actually true of any sport. And if you are lucky you start with a player(pick any sport) who is also a great athlete.

 

[Cythim]

You don't start with an athlete and then build a soccer player. You start with a soccer player and then try to improve their athleticism. That is actually true of any sport. And if you are lucky you start with a player(pick any sport) who is also a great athlete.

This only plays into my argument. We have plenty of athletes playing soccer. We have big, strong, and fast players in the US soccer system. We have guys that can match the athleticism of Rooney, Ronaldo, and Messi. The problem is we covet big, strong, and fast while ignoring the technical ability. We have a Messi out there somewhere but he is riding the bench because in youth soccer size is better for winning. We don't need more athletes playing soccer, we need to develop the ones we do have into actually being able to play.

 

[Stautner]

The problem with your argument is that the physical requirements of soccer are not the same as those for football, baseball, or basketball. Ocho Cinco is a superior athlete in the NFL, and I have no doubt he could've been a superior athlete in the MLS. I do highly doubt he could've been a world class player. Could Donovan or Dempsey have made it into the NFL/NBA/MLB? Doubtful.

We have over 200 D1 schools that play soccer, which equates to more than 5000 soccer players at the collegiate level. Add in the D2 and D3 schools and we are looking at 10,000 collegiate players. The problem isn't that we aren't playing it enough, the problem is we do not know how to scout or develop talent. We look for NFL and NBA athletes instead of the athletic kids with technical ability.

You didn't say before that you didn't need great athletes with certain traits, you said soccer didn't need great athletes period.

Moving on from there, your argument about soccer players not needing the same physical skills as athletes in other sports doesn't fly either. Of course football linemen, or baseball power hitters, or basketball centers don't have the right physicque/physical traits for soccer, but many WR's, DB's, middle infielders and outfielders, point guards etc would have ideal physical traits for soccer.

As for technical ability, you still seem to be under the impression that if a great athlete is playing another sport that he is incapable of learning the technical skills of soccer. That's simply illogical. The point isn't that John Stockton or Jason Kidd or Wes Welker or Terrence Newman or Julio Borbon or Cutis Granderson or any number of people like them are incapable of learning the technical skills to play soccer, its that they are never drawn to soccer to begin with. Had they or an almost infinite number of others been drawn to soccer at an early age, and started learning the technical skills of soccer from an early age, there is no telling how good they may have been at soccer.

You have world class sprinters that go into football, but not soccer - are you really suggesting that kind of speed wouldn't be a big plus for a soccer player? You have some of the quickest, most agile people in the world playing basketball - are you really suggesting that kind of quickness and agility wouldn't be a big plus for a soccer player? Sppedy athletic middle infielders and outfielders in baseball who can run down balls and twist and turn and stop on a dime an chage directions to make plays - are you saying those traits don't fit with soccer?

Come on - like someone else said, the better the athlete, the better the player. The only way that isn't true is if you make the illogical assumption that better athletes are incapable of learning the technical aspects of the game.

What has to change for men's soccer in the US to be the best it possibly can is that it has to be able to compete for the best athletes from an early stage in their lives so they can grow up learning the technical skills of soccer just like they might otherwise do with football, baseball or basketball.

 

[Cythim]

Come on - like someone else said, the better the athlete, the better the player. The only way that isn't true is if you make the illogical assumption that better athletes are incapable of learning the technical aspects of the game.

It isn't an illogical assumption, because the technical aspects of the game are not being taught! We teach, preach, and promote physicality over skill in all levels of soccer because it is the easier way to win. Compare the U.S. strikers to teams like Spain and Brazil and you will notice a huge difference in size. We are more comparable to the Dutch and Germans, but their big, strong strikers are much more technically sound than ours. Altidore compares favorably in terms of athleticism to Huntlaar, van Persie, Klose, and Robben but falls horribly behind in technical ability.

We can take US soccer players and match any team in the world in athleticism. We fall behind in technical ability. Instead of increasing the player pool we need to work on teaching the player pool how to play soccer.

So I stand by my statement, we don't need athletes because we already have them.

 

[Stautner]

It isn't an illogical assumption, because the technical aspects of the game are not being taught! We teach, preach, and promote physicality over skill in all levels of soccer because it is the easier way to win. Compare the U.S. strikers to teams like Spain and Brazil and you will notice a huge difference in size. We are more comparable to the Dutch and Germans, but their big, strong strikers are much more technically sound than ours. Altidore compares favorably in terms of athleticism to Huntlaar, van Persie, Klose, and Robben but falls horribly behind in technical ability.

We can take US soccer players and match any team in the world in athleticism. We fall behind in technical ability. Instead of increasing the player pool we need to work on teaching the player pool how to play soccer.

So I stand by my statement, we don't need athletes because we already have them.

Now you are getting even more illogical. If the technical aspects of the game aren't getting taught, how does that say anything at all about whether better athletes are as capable of learning techniques as lesser athletes? Maybe you just misread what you quoted, because your response has nothing to do with what I said was illogical.

Are you somehow saying that lack of teaching is not a problem for lesser athletes and a bigger problem for better athletes? if so, that makes no sense. If there is a teaching problem in US soccer it doesn't discriminate between those with better or worse athletic ability.

By the way, it looks like your position is evolving. First you said that it isn't necessary for soccer players to be outstanding athletes, then you changed that and said great athletes who aren't soccor players don't have the traits to be soccer players, and now you are saying soccer does have great athletes.

My response to that is, yes there are some outstanding athletes in soccer - nobody ever said otherwise. What we said was that in the US soccer isn't competing on an even field for the best of the best athletes, because sports culture throughout most of the US still puts football, baseball an basketball higher on the priority list. Nothing you have said changes that.

The reality is that every sport would have a better choice of the elite atheletes if other sports didn't exist - that's not a point that is unique to soccer. The reason it affects soccer more is simply because soccer has not reached a point in American culture where it is able to attract the eilite athletes as well as the other sports. Whether soccer players are being taught as well as they can be is a separate issue.

 

[joseephuss]

It isn't an illogical assumption, because the technical aspects of the game are not being taught! We teach, preach, and promote physicality over skill in all levels of soccer because it is the easier way to win. Compare the U.S. strikers to teams like Spain and Brazil and you will notice a huge difference in size. We are more comparable to the Dutch and Germans, but their big, strong strikers are much more technically sound than ours. Altidore compares favorably in terms of athleticism to Huntlaar, van Persie, Klose, and Robben but falls horribly behind in technical ability.

We can take US soccer players and match any team in the world in athleticism. We fall behind in technical ability. Instead of increasing the player pool we need to work on teaching the player pool how to play soccer.

So I stand by my statement, we don't need athletes because we already have them.

I disagree. While it is obvious the U.S. is lacking in technical ability I think they are also lacking in athleticism. You see other countries blow by the back line of the U.S. time and time again.

 

[Stautner]

I disagree. While it is obvious the U.S. is lacking in technical ability I think they are also lacking in athleticism. You see other countries blow by the back line of the U.S. time and time again.

I agree. The difference is that even though many of those coutries are smaller, and often much smaller, than the United States, their kids grow up eating drinking and breathing soccer, and our kids do not. Our kids grow up eating, drinking and breathing football, baseball and basketball, and while soccor ocassionally will draw a top athlete, for the most part in the US soccer settles for those that are left over. There may still be some solid athletes in the bunch, but by and large not the best by any means.

I think what Cythim needs to realize is that it's possible for coaching to be a little lacking AND for athleticism to be a little lacking.

The reality is both shortcomings stem from the same source - that soccer is essentially a second tier sport in the USA. If it were a top tier sport it would be able to have both better athletes and better coaches.

 

[Cythim]

I disagree. While it is obvious the U.S. is lacking in technical ability I think they are also lacking in athleticism. You see other countries blow by the back line of the U.S. time and time again.

We get beat on the back line because we don't know how to play soccer. You can put a world class sprinter back there and he will get beat if he is constantly out of position. You can rely on athleticism to make up for the inability to play soccer at a youth and college level but athleticism losses out at the senior level. Try to increase the number of athletes and we will only have more dumb athletes who don't know how to play soccer. :bang2:

 

[MC KAos]

i still think a big part of it is finding kids that are talented and developing them from an early age. Most countries scout for talent as young as 12 or 13. at that age, a lot of kids in the US are still playing soccer and have not yet been overrun by the desire to play football or whatever other sport is more popular here. I still contend that the biggest problem is at the top, we need scouts, we need better youth leagues. we might even need to do what other big clubs do and just pay kids as young as 14 or so to play on a club! its so weird here because of the NCAA and everything else, but in other countries its how it works. Barcelona has been together since they were all in their early teens, messi included. They go out and find talent to bring in to the clubs youth system early. at the very least we should invite scouts from European clubs to try to find talent here in addition to south america.
With the Hispanic population in this country alone we should be able to field a decent soccer team.

 

[Cythim]

i still think a big part of it is finding kids that are talented and developing them from an early age. Most countries scout for talent as young as 12 or 13. at that age, a lot of kids in the US are still playing soccer and have not yet been overrun by the desire to play football or whatever other sport is more popular here. I still contend that the biggest problem is at the top, we need scouts, we need better youth leagues. we might even need to do what other big clubs do and just pay kids as young as 14 or so to play on a club! its so weird here because of the NCAA and everything else, but in other countries its how it works. Barcelona has been together since they were all in their early teens, messi included. They go out and find talent to bring in to the clubs youth system early. at the very least we should invite scouts from European clubs to try to find talent here in addition to south america.
With the Hispanic population in this country alone we should be able to field a decent soccer team.

Great point about the Barca system. Another note about their youth program is they do not train kids to win games! They do win games because Barca is a great system, but they train kids to play the Barca style of soccer. From the lowest level of their youth system (10 or 12 I think) the kids are being taught the exact same game that the seniors run.

As for the hispanic population, here is a quote from a hispanic parent that I have heard many times over regarding youth soccer in America:

I am a hispanic Father of a great player. I do see that , because my son is a small player, he has to go the difficult route. He is smart, has the dribbling, the posession the passing etc. but, when it comes to opportunities on the field, coaches want to match size to size (like in American Football) not skill to skill.

Yes, this is a parent talking about their own child, and we all know how parents are concerning the ability and playing time of their children. The problem is there is truth in the statement and it happens all of the time. MLS had a chance to sign a great kid from Argentina, but they dropped the ball because of his age and size and now he is playing for River Plate.

 

[joseephuss]

We get beat on the back line because we don't know how to play soccer. You can put a world class sprinter back there and he will get beat if he is constantly out of position. You can rely on athleticism to make up for the inability to play soccer at a youth and college level but athleticism losses out at the senior level. Try to increase the number of athletes and we will only have more dumb athletes who don't know how to play soccer. :bang2:

You are talking about two topics at once. Yes, the U.S. need to do a better job of developing players, skills and the technical aspect of the game. They can do that and still it would be beneficial to find better athletes to go along with it. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

No one said just to find athletes. We have been talking about finding athletes who have a love for soccer and have been playing since they were kids and have worked to hone their game. That is a vital step needed for the U.S. to be good at soccer. I don't know if and when that will happen, but it needs to happen. If you increase the overall player pool, you increase the chances that you will find players who excel at the both the technical aspect of the game and who are also very good athletes. You don't want to diminish the potential pool of players.

 

[Cythim]

I guess the part that you fail to understand is that we have very good athletes playing the game already. In terms of athletes we can match up with any team in the world. Give us a bigger player pool and gains will be marginal because we already have the athletes. Give us NFL/NBA players and there will be no gains because we will stick to physical soccer that doesn't win on the international level.

If we simply train the athletes properly who already play soccer our team will be much better. Once our team gets better more kids will stick with it and add to the player pool. Instead of talking about what we cannot do (force more kids to stick with soccer) we should be discussing what we can do (properly training our kids who do play).

 

[Stautner]

I guess the part that you fail to understand is that we have very good athletes playing the game already. In terms of athletes we can match up with any team in the world. Give us a bigger player pool and gains will be marginal because we already have the athletes. Give us NFL/NBA players and there will be no gains because we will stick to physical soccer that doesn't win on the international level.

If we simply train the athletes properly who already play soccer our team will be much better. Once our team gets better more kids will stick with it and add to the player pool. Instead of talking about what we cannot do (force more kids to stick with soccer) we should be discussing what we can do (properly training our kids who do play).

The thing I don't buy about this is the notion that if you put better athletes out there you have no choice but to sacrifice training and technique in order to focus on the physcality of the players. I understand your point about lack of quality coaching, but coaching doesn't improve with lower quality players - if a coach sucks he is going to suck regardless of the physical skills of the players.

A point I'm not sure anyone has mentioned yet is that quality coaches come from players that grow up playing and loving the sport. That's the way it is with every sport. Accordingly, the more mainstream soccer gets, not only will the result be that soccer is more able to compete for the better athletes, soccer will also develop a better coaching pool as well.

 

[Cythim]

I am not saying there is no choice but to sacrifice technique, I am telling you that we do sacrifice technique for athleticism. If we just add more athletes or better athletes we haven't changed anything in terms of technique. We can get much better simply by teaching our current pool of soccer playing athletes how to play soccer.

 

[Stautner]

I am not saying there is no choice but to sacrifice technique, I am telling you that we do sacrifice technique for athleticism. If we just add more athletes or better athletes we haven't changed anything in terms of technique. We can get much better simply by teaching our current pool of soccer playing athletes how to play soccer.

I have never said that adding better athletes solves everything, but you have seem to keep suggesting that the solution to coaches sacrificing technique for athletes is to quit trying to get the better athletes.

The idea should be to improve both the quality of the athletes and the quality of the coaches, and as I mentioned in my last post, much of the solution for both lies in the same thing, which is soccer reaching a point that it is more mainstream and can compete for athletes at an early age on a more equal basis with other sports. The larger the pool of physically gifted and athletically minded people a sport can draw from, the better the athletes will be competing in the sport, and the better selection of ex-players there will be to become coaches. Sure there will still be bad coaches - don't kid yourself, that is the case with every sport - but the more mainstream a sport is, the better the options will become for athletes and coaches.

Think about it - it's common sense. Lacrosse and Rugby have less of a selection than soccer does because they are much less mainstream than soccer in the US. Cricket less than Lacrosse and Rugby. It's just natural - the earlier you can get kids interested, and the more socially acceptible it is for the better athletes to participate in a sport, the better the players and the coaches will be.

 

[Cythim]

I have never said that adding better athletes solves everything, but you have seem to keep suggesting that the solution to coaches sacrificing technique for athletes is to quit trying to get the better athletes.

The idea should be to improve both the quality of the athletes and the quality of the coaches, and as I mentioned in my last post, much of the solution for both lies in the same thing, which is soccer reaching a point that it is more mainstream and can compete for athletes at an early age on a more equal basis with other sports. The larger the pool of physically gifted and athletically minded people a sport can draw from, the better the athletes will be competing in the sport, and the better selection of ex-players there will be to become coaches. Sure there will still be bad coaches - don't kid yourself, that is the case with every sport - but the more mainstream a sport is, the better the options will become for athletes and coaches.

Think about it - it's common sense. Lacrosse and Rugby have less of a selection than soccer does because they are much less mainstream than soccer in the US. Cricket less than Lacrosse and Rugby. It's just natural - the earlier you can get kids interested, and the more socially acceptible it is for the better athletes to participate in a sport, the better the players and the coaches will be.

You seem to be stuck on the idea that we don't have athletes playing soccer. We can compete with any team in the world athletically, we lose out on technical ability. How many times do I need to tell you this before it sinks in? Do you think Agudelo and Altidore are less athletic than any other striker combo in international soccer? Do you watch MLS at all? It is full of American athletes. They have size, speed, strength, everything but the technical ability to play at an elite international level.