World Cup Final: USA vs Japan

[joseephuss]

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.

And you are wrong. The U.S. players cannot compete athletically with other countries. If you had them all compete in a variety of different athletic competitions I think the U.S. players would do poorly compared to soccer players from other countries.

Yes, I do think the strikers don't compare well to other countries. I don't think Altidore is a good athlete at all. He has size and that is it. He doesn't have great straight line speed, has very little lateral movement, is not that quick and has no endurance.

You are absolutely right that the technical abilities have to be improved. You are fooling yourself if you think the U.S. has top notch athletes playing soccer.

 

[Cythim]

And you are wrong. The U.S. players cannot compete athletically with other countries. If you had them all compete in a variety of different athletic competitions I think the U.S. players would do poorly compared to soccer players from other countries.

Yes, I do think the strikers don't compare well to other countries. I don't think Altidore is a good athlete at all. He has size and that is it. He doesn't have great straight line speed, has very little lateral movement, is not that quick and has no endurance.

You are absolutely right that the technical abilities have to be improved. You are fooling yourself if you think the U.S. has top notch athletes playing soccer.

Then by all means, go recruit your football, basketball and track athletes and see how well they convert to soccer players when no one will teach them how to play the game. :bang2:

 

[joseephuss]

Then by all means, go recruit your football, basketball and track athletes and see how well they convert to soccer players when no one will teach them how to play the game. :bang2:

That is just stupid. No one has said anything about not teaching them soccer. Not a single person. We have all agreed that the technical abilities have to be improved and that is the main issue. Some of us have also said that the quality of the athlete also needs to be improved. It has never been about one thing or the other. It has always been about both except for you. You are the one that thinks they don't need to improve the quality of athlete to go along with improving the quality of the technical aspects of the game.

 

[Cythim]

Of course improving the quality of athlete will always be a bonus, the question is how much can we actually improve? You seem to think we have a long way to go in catching up on the athletic level when that just isn't the truth. If you cannot see the athletic prowess in the U.S. talent pool it is because you are not looking.

 

[Stautner]

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.

No, and in fact I have said there are good athletes in soccer. What I have said is that soccer doesn't compete for the elite athletes on the same level as other sports, so while there are good athletes playing soccer, and maybe even the ocassioinal elite one, the overall athleticism still falls short of where it could be.

As far as being able to compete with any team in the world athletically, I'm not sure if that's true or not, but why be satisified with that if you can reach the point of being superior to any team in the world athletically?

And again, as far as coaches go, you still seem to be missing the point that the pool of coaches is derrived from the pool of ex-players, and the more soccer is able to compete with other sports for players in the US as a mainstream sport with America's youth, the greater the pool of both athletes and coaches will be as they get older.

There simply is no way to believe that if soccer were able to attract young athletes in the same way football or baseketball does that it would be better off for it. The bigger the pool of people to choose from the better the product will always be. It's why a high school with 500 students can't put a team out that can compete with a high school with 5,000 students. Teh bigger the pool, the better the odds of getting better players - and eventually better coaches as well. It's basic commmon sense.

 

[Cythim]

No, and in fact I have said there are good athletes in soccer. What I have said is that soccer doesn't compete for the elite athletes on the same level as other sports, so while there are good athletes playing soccer, and maybe even the ocassioinal elite one, the overall athleticism still falls short of where it could be.

As far as being able to compete with any team in the world athletically, I'm not sure if that's true or not, but why be satisified with that if you can reach the point of being superior to any team in the world athletically?

And again, as far as coaches go, you still seem to be missing the point that the pool of coaches is derrived from the pool of ex-players, and the more soccer is able to compete with other sports for players in the US as a mainstream sport with America's youth, the greater the pool of both athletes and coaches will be as they get older.

There simply is no way to believe that if soccer were able to attract young athletes in the same way football or baseketball does that it would be better off for it. The bigger the pool of people to choose from the better the product will always be. It's why a high school with 500 students can't put a team out that can compete with a high school with 5,000 students. Teh bigger the pool, the better the odds of getting better players - and eventually better coaches as well. It's basic commmon sense.

500 students that know how to play soccer will beat 5000 athletes who don't. It's basic common sense.

 

[Cythim]

Also, how are athletes who don't know how to play soccer supposed to train other athletes to play soccer? It will be a cycle of athlete over talent.

 

[Stautner]

500 students that know how to play soccer will beat 5000 athletes who don't. It's basic common sense.

There you go again, responding based on the completely illogical notion that the pool of 5,000 cannot have the same level of coaching or the same ability to learn the game as the pool of 500, and that makes absolutely zero sense.

The reality is that the odds are dramtically better that you can find players who can learn the game out of a pool of 5,000 than out of a pool of 500. The other reality is that a quality coach is dramatically more likely to be drawn to a coaching job where they have a pool of 5,000 to chose from in stead of a pool of 500.

A good coach is a good coach and a bad coach a bad coach regardless of having a pool of 5,000 or 500 to choose from. What the bigger pool to choose from does is give that good or bad coach a better group of athletes to coach.

What having a pool of 5,000 rather than 500 also does for you is give you a much greater chance of finding the kind of player that may turn into a good coach someday.

There is a reason teams have tryouts, and companies interview several candidates for jobs - it's common sense the the bigger the pool of people to shoose from the better the odds of getting the best people for what you need.

 

[daschoo]

[youtube]EW2d-QrnFgA[/youtube]
only half joking but idiots like this commentating won't help the sports profile.

 

[Stautner]

Also, how are athletes who don't know how to play soccer supposed to train other athletes to play soccer? It will be a cycle of athlete over talent.

You aren't paying attention. This apparetly has all sailed over your head.

I'm talking about soccer competing for players AT A YOUNG AGE. If you are waiting until athletes are high school age, or people are coaching age to try and compete you are missing the boat by a long shot.

I'm talking about soccer evolving over time - I'm not sure how you have missed that.

It all starts with kids. If kids grow up believing soccer is a secondary sport and the cool kids or best athletes play football instead, then that not only cuts into soccers talent pool at that point, it cuts into soccers talent pool as that generation grows up.

The point I am making is that the bigger the share of the talent pool soccer can compete for at a young age (I've said that over and over again), the better the talent pool and the better the coaching candidates that will be developed as they grow older.

 

[Cythim]

There you go again, responding based on the completely illogical notion that the pool of 5,000 cannot have the same level of coaching or the same ability to learn the game as the pool of 500, and that makes absolutely zero sense.

The reality is that the odds are dramtically better that you can find players who can learn the game out of a pool of 5,000 than out of a pool of 500. The other reality is that a quality coach is dramatically more likely to be drawn to a coaching job where they have a pool of 5,000 to chose from in stead of a pool of 500.

A good coach is a good coach and a bad coach a bad coach regardless of having a pool of 5,000 or 500 to choose from. What the bigger pool to choose from does is give that good or bad coach a better group of athletes to coach.

What having a pool of 5,000 rather than 500 also does for you is give you a much greater chance of finding the kind of player that may turn into a good coach someday.

There is a reason teams have tryouts, and companies interview several candidates for jobs - it's common sense the the bigger the pool of people to shoose from the better the odds of getting the best people for what you need.

You are operating in a vacuum while I am talking about the current state of soccer in the U.S. The following countries have less than 5 percent of our population yet are ranked ahead of us in FIFA:

7 - Portugal 11 million
9 - Croatia 4 million
12 - Norway 5 million
13 - Greece 11 million
17 - Montenegro <1 million
19 - Sweden 9 million

So here we are with more than 20 times the population of all of these nations, yet we cannot put a team on the field that is better than any of them.

This debate was over before it started. The problem is with our youth development, not the level of athleticism in the sport.

 

[Cythim]

You aren't paying attention. This apparetly has all sailed over your head.

I'm talking about soccer competing for players AT A YOUNG AGE. If you are waiting until athletes are high school age, or people are coaching age to try and compete you are missing the boat by a long shot.

I'm talking about soccer evolving over time - I'm not sure how you have missed that.

It all starts with kids. If kids grow up believing soccer is a secondary sport and the cool kids or best athletes play football instead, then that not only cuts into soccers talent pool at that point, it cuts into soccers talent pool as that generation grows up.

The point I am making is that the bigger the share of the talent pool soccer can compete for at a young age (I've said that over and over again), the better the talent pool and the better the coaching candidates that will be developed as they grow older.

Soccer is the most widely played sport in the US. Our kids play soccer. This is why we have "soccer moms" and not "basketball moms" or "football moms" or "baseball moms".

 

[MC KAos]

i think klinsmann is a great start, the way he converted the german national team was very impressive.

 

[Stautner]

You are operating in a vacuum while I am talking about the current state of soccer in the U.S. The following countries have less than 5 percent of our population yet are ranked ahead of us in FIFA:

7 - Portugal 11 million
9 - Croatia 4 million
12 - Norway 5 million
13 - Greece 11 million
17 - Montenegro <1 million
19 - Sweden 9 million

So here we are with more than 20 times the population of all of these nations, yet we cannot put a team on the field that is better than any of them.

This debate was over before it started. The problem is with our youth development, not the level of athleticism in the sport.

Soccer is the most widely played sport in the US. Our kids play soccer. This is why we have "soccer moms" and not "basketball moms" or "football moms" or "baseball moms".

What you don't get is soccer is the most widely played sport among 4-7 year old kids. Why? Because it's safer and much easier for a small child to grasp the basics for that age group than other sports. Its the sport mommy and daddy put them in very young because there is no real concern about injury for mommy and daddy doesn't have to know anything about the sport to get out and kick the ball around with Junior.

So great - you've got a boatload of tiny kids playing soccer at an age where the only rule is kick the ball at the goal, and the only thing to remember is which goal is yours.

The problem is that as kids get older baseball, basketball and football absolutely dominates the better athletes. Soccer is the safe starter sport for little kids, but ultimately the best athletes want to be part of that high school football team that the town comes out to watch on Friday Nights, and the basketball team while dreaming of Michael Jordan. Everyobody know the Yankees, but only a small fraction knows anything about professional soccer teams.

There may be a handful of places around the country where soccer is a top sport, but I bet 95% of the people on this board would tell you that their experience as a former athlete or the parent of an athlete proves that the top athletes at any age group are dramatically more prone to gravitate to football, baseball and/or basketball than soccer.

HERE'S A QUESTION I WANT YOU TO ANSWER:

Why is it it that there are so few quality soccer coaches in the USA?

 

[daschoo]

You are operating in a vacuum while I am talking about the current state of soccer in the U.S. The following countries have less than 5 percent of our population yet are ranked ahead of us in FIFA:

7 - Portugal 11 million
9 - Croatia 4 million
12 - Norway 5 million
13 - Greece 11 million
17 - Montenegro <1 million
19 - Sweden 9 million

So here we are with more than 20 times the population of all of these nations, yet we cannot put a team on the field that is better than any of them.

This debate was over before it started. The problem is with our youth development, not the level of athleticism in the sport.

The FIFA rankings are a joke though. It has the Faroe Islands ranked above Wales for example or Hungary ranked 13 places above Scotland. Norway are nowhere near the 12th best team on the planet. Your point is fairly valid just using the FIFA rankings to back it up I don't agree with.

i think klinsmann is a great start, the way he converted the german national team was very impressive.

The success the Germans had in 2006 was not down to Klinsman. He did well no denying that and his stock rose immeasurably off the back of that tournament but he was not the catalyst for the re-emergence of Germany as a force in world football. You need to go further back to 2001 and the collapse of the TV deal that the Bundesliga had in place. This denied clubs money to spend on transfers thus meaning they had to blood youngsters in the first teams. Because they had to do this and because the German Bundesliga requires all its clubs to be financially viable or face points deductions (unlike say the Premiership where you have teams hundreds of millions of pounds in debt) it meant they concentrated on youth development and invested in coaching the young players coming through their systems. If you look at the current German team (and 2006) most of them came through when clubs didn't have the money to spend on ready made stars and had to develop their own, probably not coincidental that its the best German team since they won the World Cup at Italia '90.

 

[Stautner]

The FIFA rankings are a joke though. It has the Faroe Islands ranked above Wales for example or Hungary ranked 13 places above Scotland. Norway are nowhere near the 12th best team on the planet. Your point is fairly valid just using the FIFA rankings to back it up I don't agree with.

The thing some have to remember is that while these other countries have a much smaller population than the US, they have a much deeper fanaticism about soccer, and have no problem drawing a much larger portion of the elite athletes into soccer.

Soccer will likely never gain the national fanaticism in the US it has in other countries, and football, baseball and basketball will always be tough to pull elite athletes away from, but clearly the more soccer becomes accepted and enjoyed and followed by a larger portion of the US population, the better able it will be to compete for elite athletes, and the bigger and better the pool of quality coaches there will be.

The reality is soccer is an evolving sport in the US, and while it certainly has made big strides, it still has a long way to go to attract athletes, and subsequently coaches, in the same way football, baseball and basketball can.

 

[Cythim]

What you don't get is soccer is the most widely played sport among 4-7 year old kids. Why? Because it's safer and much easier for a small child to grasp the basics for that age group than other sports. Its the sport mommy and daddy put them in very young because there is no real concern about injury for mommy and daddy doesn't have to know anything about the sport to get out and kick the ball around with Junior.

So great - you've got a boatload of tiny kids playing soccer at an age where the only rule is kick the ball at the goal, and the only thing to remember is which goal is yours.

The problem is that as kids get older baseball, basketball and football absolutely dominates the better athletes. Soccer is the safe starter sport for little kids, but ultimately the best athletes want to be part of that high school football team that the town comes out to watch on Friday Nights, and the basketball team while dreaming of Michael Jordan. Everyobody know the Yankees, but only a small fraction knows anything about professional soccer teams.

There may be a handful of places around the country where soccer is a top sport, but I bet 95% of the people on this board would tell you that their experience as a former athlete or the parent of an athlete proves that the top athletes at any age group are dramatically more prone to gravitate to football, baseball and/or basketball than soccer.

HERE'S A QUESTION I WANT YOU TO ANSWER:

Why is it it that there are so few quality soccer coaches in the USA?

3.7% is a small fraction and that is the population of several nations who are better than the U.S. Are you trying to argue that there are not 11 million of 301 million Americans that love soccer more than the other sports? That argument contradicts your 500 vs 5000 argument from earlier. We have enough population playing soccer to be competitive.

I love how you pass off soccer players as being 4-7 years old. Football doesn't get popular for kids until high school, where about 1 million kids play football compared to about 400,000 for soccer (yes, this is boys only).

Why don't we have good coaches? Because of the culture of soccer in the US. Our players are taught a physical game where technical aspects are not as important. Alex Morgan, one of our premier women, said the part of her game that needs the most work is her first touch, but it is okay for now because she has the speed to recover. That is the mindset of the American soccer player: if I have the physical skills I don't need to worry as much about the technical aspects. It is what the coaches learned, so it is what they teach. If Alex Morgan becomes a coach will she teach speed and recover or will she teach first touch? She will probably teach what has worked to get her to the top in the U.S. game.

 

[Cythim]

The thing some have to remember is that while these other countries have a much smaller population than the US, they have a much deeper fanaticism about soccer, and have no problem drawing a much larger portion of the elite athletes into soccer.

Soccer will likely never gain the national fanaticism in the US it has in other countries, and football, baseball and basketball will always be tough to pull elite athletes away from, but clearly the more soccer becomes accepted and enjoyed and followed by a larger portion of the US population, the better able it will be to compete for elite athletes, and the bigger and better the pool of quality coaches there will be.

The reality is soccer is an evolving sport in the US, and while it certainly has made big strides, it still has a long way to go to attract athletes, and subsequently coaches, in the same way football, baseball and basketball can.

Where do you come up with this idea that superior athletes create superior coaches? The best coaches may have played in their youth, but they are also extremely intelligent students of the game. Sir Alex is a great coach but certainly didn't have a stellar playing career, José Mourinho wasn't a very good player either. Erickson, Wagner, Hiddink or Rafa? You wouldn't call any of them elite athletes or great players, but they are all among the best soccer coaches in the world.

If you look at American sports, was Phil Jackson an elite talent? No, he was a 6th man who played good defense. He made up for his lack of athleticism by being a smart player. Vince Lombardi? Jimmy Johnson? Bill Belichick? None of them were great players. Do you think Jordan would make a good coach? How about Kobe or LeBron? Troy Aikman? Emmitt Smith?

 

[Stautner]

3.7% is a small fraction and that is the population of several nations who are better than the U.S. Are you trying to argue that there are not 11 million of 301 million Americans that love soccer more than the other sports? That argument contradicts your 500 vs 5000 argument from earlier. We have enough population playing soccer to be competitive.

I love how you pass off soccer players as being 4-7 years old. Football doesn't get popular for kids until high school, where about 1 million kids play football compared to about 400,000 for soccer (yes, this is boys only).

I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying we should intentionally keep soccer as a minor sport in America so it will be more fair to smaller countries. Do you think there should be a quota of elite American athletes so that we will have approximately the same number of elite athletes as smaller countires?

What you should be thinking about is how to get the most elite, most athletically gifted athletes in America to play soccer, and if it means we end up with a team that is so overwhelming more talented than the international competition, then so be it.

As for where you live, I don't know where that is, but football becomes popular way before high school in most of the country. That's actually pretty ridiculous - do you think kids strap on the pads for the first time at 15 and make good football players? Besides, the issue wasn't simply about the number of participants, it was about the number oof the elite athletes.

As for the 500 vs. 5,000 number, did you actually ridiculously take that as me saying that is the proportion of people who love soccer as opposed to other sports. If so, it's mind boggling that you could pull that out of your backside because that fringes on lunacy. I was talking about the difference in competativeness between a school with 500 kids versus 5,000 kids.

Why don't we have good coaches? Because of the culture of soccer in the US. Our players are taught a physical game where technical aspects are not as important. Alex Morgan, one of our premier women, said the part of her game that needs the most work is her first touch, but it is okay for now because she has the speed to recover. That is the mindset of the American soccer player: if I have the physical skills I don't need to worry as much about the technical aspects. It is what the coaches learned, so it is what they teach. If Alex Morgan becomes a coach will she teach speed and recover or will she teach first touch? She will probably teach what has worked to get her to the top in the U.S. game.

As for the "culture of soccer" in America, are you really suggesting there are no coaches that understand the importance of the technical aspects of the game, or are you saying there aren't enough of them?

Do you not think football, baseball and basketball started out having llimited quality coaches? Of course they did, but as the sports became so engrained in American culture, and drew more and more athletes, the pool of both althletically gifted and athletically minded players, and eventual coaches grew.

The question, again, becomes, why wouldn't soccer want to increase the quality of BOTH the coaches and the athletes? And, again, the bigger the pool of the athletic and athletic minded people that are involved in the sport, the bigger the pool of potential future coaches along with the better the pool of athletes.

Where do you come up with this idea that superior athletes create superior coaches? The best coaches may have played in their youth, but they are also extremely intelligent students of the game. Sir Alex is a great coach but certainly didn't have a stellar playing career, José Mourinho wasn't a very good player either. Erickson, Wagner, Hiddink or Rafa? You wouldn't call any of them elite athletes or great players, but they are all among the best soccer coaches in the world.

If you look at American sports, was Phil Jackson an elite talent? No, he was a 6th man who played good defense. He made up for his lack of athleticism by being a smart player. Vince Lombardi? Jimmy Johnson? Bill Belichick? None of them were great players. Do you think Jordan would make a good coach? How about Kobe or LeBron? Troy Aikman? Emmitt Smith?

You need to go back and read again because I never said superior athletes make superior coaches. What I said was the bigger the pool of athletes and athletic minded people soccer can draw from the bigger the pool of potential coaches, which will lead to better coaches.

 

[Cythim]

How do we get the best athletes to go to soccer instead of some other sport? We stop putting an inferior product on the field! If we could put players onto Champions League caliber squads and avoid poor results against lesser opponents the interest in soccer would increase. You do this by increasing the level of technical ability on the field.

Quality over quantity. Once you take care of the first the second will happen on it's own.