Just For Fun: A Michael Vick Soccer Thread

Excellent post!

 

Yes! The point is that if we had more top class athletes in Soccer, the better chances would be that when a player with Reyna's soccer specific skills came along, this player would be more likely to be a top class athlete as well (which in terms of what we normally consider "athleticism" Reyna falls short. Other than height, Donovan is much closer to the standard).

Look, when a ball is crossed in, is it really a question that the taller guys who can jump high can get to more of those than Reyna? Is it really a question that speed is critical in breaking offside traps and getting forward ahead of the back line, or in tracking back and running down opposing attackers who have come forward? Is it really a question that things like agility and balance are seen in high numbers in the top athletes in sports like football and that those attributes are quite valuable to have in Soccer players?

As far as Shane Walton goes, that's really the point. Walton is talked about because he stuck with Soccer as long as he did. And frankly, Walton _is_ the sort of player MLS would have been greatly interested in. An 18 year old player with passable soccer skills, and tremendous raw athletic skills is just the sort of guy developmental programs are designed for. As a freshman:

"During his freshman year, Walton was the leading scorer for an Irish soccer team that finished 9-6-3. He had 10 goals and seven assists, was named Big East rookie of the week three times and was a Big East All-Rookie team selection."

So as a 19 year old, he was the best player on his team, an all-rookie selection to his conference. As a 20 year old he was on the bench sitting as far away from the NFL as possible.

So if Walton's physical abilities can have him grow from a benchie to a First Round Draft pick in the NFL in two years, why do you suddenly think you have any idea what Walton's future would have been if he'd pursued soccer?

How many goals should he have scored in 17 games his freshman year at Notre Dame? 30? 40? 50? 80?

If our system is deciding who the best players will be at 25 when they're 18, and then closing the book and not reopening it, they're making a dreadful mistake. Walton was good enough to get on the radar, and the rest was speculation.

 

This post will try to educate the great unwashed masses as exemplified by Fat "for Brains" Mike, Puma "The Peon" Bear, and last and most certainly least Dr. "The Wanker" Wankler.

http://www.cybersoccernews.com/usmen/021112arena.shtml

Q: What is the big difference between the college game and MLS that causes some good college players to not even make it?

A: If you compare the transition of college football to the NFL, college basketball to the NBA, college soccer to MLS, it's the speed of play. It doesn't mean that player doesn't have the skills to be successful but he probably needs more experience at that level. The transition from amateur sports to the professional level is clearly the speed of play. The technical skills are still the same it's just that everything happens a lot faster. If you play baseball and try to hit a ball thrown at 85 mph, there's a difference when trying to hit a ball thrown at 95 –– 100 mph. It's the same thing and that fraction of a second makes all the difference in the world and that fraction of a second in every sport makes a difference. I'd say that MLS is played at 40 mph, CONCACAF games are played at 60 mph, while international games are played at 100 mph. Whether it's mental speed, physical speed or what have you, it's just simply making that transition. Some athletes make the transition quicker than others, some coaches make the transition quicker than others, it's always a challenge. There's only so much you can do in college soccer because the environment is what it is. The demands at the college level will only go so far due to the speed of play. They can’’t artificially make it faster than it is so they have to make that adjustment as they move up and play against more experienced players. You can't create that on a college campus, it's not there.

 

Again, this post will try to educate the great unwashed masses as exemplified by Fat "for Brains" Mike, Puma "The Peon" Bear, and last and most certainly least Dr. "The Wanker" Wankler.

 

I realize you have the equivalent of an ant farm for a brain (otherwise you wouldn't think that Bajoro is an authority on par with Bruce Arena, whom you're quoting here), but note the line about mental speed. I realize also that "mental speed" is clearly a foreign concept to you (otherwise your brain would've been quick enough to think, "gee, maybe typing "Wanker" instead of "Wankler" isn't all that original, and in fact, it will only call attention to my impotence when it comes to smack-talking"), but that's crucial here, and there is absolutely no way of knowing which guy with a huge shoe contract would be able to develop the MENTAL SPEED to read the game of soccer, which happens in a way that is literally foreign when compared to dominant American sports (the absence of time-outs, and in-game opportunities for coaching, rest, etc.)

Anyone remember Chris Connelly on ESPN radio about a month back? He's a great fan of soccer, and he said that one thing that annoys him is soccer fans acting like school nerds who long to have the popular kids come to their party. These threads are manifestations of the same longing. "OHHHHHH, I wish we were popular enough that Michael Vick or Shane Walton would come to our party, OHHHHHHHH that would be sooooo cool!"

 

The search for "The importance of speed in Soccer" produced 18843 results.

http://www.soccer-magic.com/archives/importance_of_SJ.html

As a Ghanaian, I know that most young soccer players in West Africa can not only juggle, but more importantly, Speed Juggle. One only need to look at Ghana and Nigeria's international youth achievements in recent years to attest to the fact that Africa is no longer a sleeping giant in world football. They are masters of the ball with tremendous speed and quickness.

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~soccernsams/wmnsoccer.html

Talk to young women who play soccer and they will tell you of their love for their game. It demands speed, grace and endurance and rewards these skills over size and brute strength.

http://www.soccertimes.com/wagman/2001/sep20.htm

It’s hard to quantify what effect events in New York and the Washington area had on the team. But throughout the tournament, the Americans showed as a team, and as individuals, they simply didn’t measure up to the speed and skill levels of those they were facing.

http://www.agilesports.com/AS/programs/soccer.asp

Soccer and football are probably the only sports that the importance of speed, agility, or quickness is equally and evenly distributed.

http://marshallsoccercamp.com/

Speed and Agility Training

Each day and residential camper will have one session of speed and agility training for a 1/2 hr by a certified trainer and conditioner. This will give them the opportunity to experience and learn some of the latest speed and agility training techniques.

http://www.serieasocceracademy.com/fast.htm

In the modern game of soccer, strength, speed, and fitness are becoming more and more important to the success of today’s players. The future of soccer requires a special athlete and that athlete needs a training program aware of the specific demands of soccer.

http://www.sport-fitness-advisor.com/soccertraining.html

Step 2 -- what is your current level of conditioning? Be more precise than "fit" or "unfit"! Which elements of fitness do you need to work on most? Speed? Strength? Endurance? If you don't know...

http://www.satorsoccer.com/tap2speedac.html

Over 300 exercises and drills designed specifically for players to develop and maintain speed, explosion, acceleration, change of pace & recovery.
55 minutes.

http://www.thepitch.org/text/a7.htm

The Pyramid Concept-

During the most recent National Strength & Conditioning Association, (NSCA), national conference Al Vermeil, conditioning coach for the Chicago Bulls, detailed a plan for developing in a step wise fashion the physical talent of young athletes. His plan had three important points. (1) There is no time in-season for improving your athlete's physical assets, they use all their energy working with the technical coach and maintaining the conditioning they have acquired off-season. (2) Off-season time is too short, and must be spent developing the physical side of your athletes. (3) The nervous system does not respond to working on everything at once. In my training and experience, most conditioning plans involve identifying the physical demands of a sport, testing athletes against those needs, and prescribing exercises to remedy deficiencies, shotgun style. Vermeil suggests testing the young athlete against norms of physical development in five areas, 1. Work Capacity 2. Strength 3. Strength/Speed 4. Speed/Strength 5. Speed.

http://www.thepitch.org/text/dr3.htm

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/world/2002/world_cup/news/2002/06/01/us_focus_sa/

The first two days of the World Cup have underscored the importance of speed and fitness. It was the speed of Senegalese striker El Hadji Diouf that weighed on the aging French defense in the Lions' 1-0 victory. Saudi Arabia couldn't handle the strength of Miroslav Klose and Carsten Jancker up front.

http://www.hallsports.com/soccer/5.shtml

87. 5 Ways to Improve Soccer Speed by Vern Gambetta

Performance Conditioning Inc Paperback
(December 1996)

http://www.golsport.com.au/products/reedswain/books/bkcondfit.htm

#A185: The Complete Handbook Of Conditioning For Soccer $49.95

A complete guide to developing every aspect of conditioning for soccer players. Europe's top soccer conditioning specialists contributed the following chapters on their area of expertise: Soccer strength training, speed training for soccer players, soccer specific endurance training, pre-season conditioning, goalkeeping training, fitness for soccer players, injury prevention. Over 250 Pages.

#A787: ATTACKING SCHEMES AND TRAINING EXERCISES By Fascetti and Scaia $39.95

This book is packed with creative exercises and combinations to improve ever aspect of your attacking game. Over 100 Attacking Schemes emphasising overlapping, midfield penetration, backs exploiting the weak side, screens to prevent zonal marking, and so much more; Plus a 21 day per-season training program; 5 strength Training Circuits; 9 Interval Training Circuits; Exercises to develop quickness, Speed and Reflexes; 27 Technical Drills; and a very useful chapter on communication. 200 PAGES EXCELLENT

#A265: Coordination, Agility and Speed Training for Soccer $39.95

Coordination training is an important but often overlooked aspect of every soccer player's development. In this excellent book, renowned German Coach Peter Schreiner provides a detailed overview of his innovative system for coordination training at all levels of the game.

Using a combination of drills with and without a ball, players develop not only coordination but several other aspects, such as balance and body control, proper running technique, acceleration, reaction speed and orientation.

This book is not only for coaches looking for drills to improve their players` coordination and soccer speed, but will also benefit players in search of activities which they can do on their own or with a partner to gain that elusive winning edge.

 

Michael Vick's NFL team played a game last week that ended in a draw! He is basically a soccer player...

 

Time Warp

I sometimes feel like it's 1962 on these boards.

In 1962, most cornerbacks and running backs in the NFL were white. That changed when the black guys adopted football in earnest. Ditto for point guards in basketball. Now of course there is the occasional exception (Jason Sehorn, Mike Alstott, Steve Nash) but for the most part these positions have been taken over by the black guys, due to their superior speed & athleticism.

Have those guys play soccer from a young age, and yeah, you better believe they'd change the make-up of the national team.

Because while soccer is about skills & thinking & competitiveness, etc., it's also very much a sport that rewards pure, raw athleticism. Once you have a large pool of skilled kids who were raised with the sport from birth, and you weed out the stupid and/or lazy players, the real differentiator that's left is athleticism. The fast survive.

You think that's wrong? Ask Bruce Arena what he learned most from the World Cup ... at the top level, there's no room for the slow. Hell, Arena came darn close to saying that he won't bring anybody over 30 to the 2006 Cup, because they can't cut it at that level.

Is Claudio Reyna better than Shane Walton would ever have been in soccer? Well, duh ... you're talking about arguably the best U.S. player vs. one particular prospect, so of course the answer is, almost certainly.

Would Claudio Reyna have a job on the U.S. National team if the talent pool included all the guys who are now playing other U.S. national sports. Probably, yeah. Again, he's Claudio Reyna. But a whole lot of other guys -- Joe-Max Moore, Gregg Berhalter, Carlos Llamosa, and so forth -- would have been watching on TV, just like me.

 

The inability ". . . to develop the MENTAL SPEED to read the game of. . ." American Football explains why ex-USMNT member Dr. Wankler sat on the bench on his high-school football team.

 

Time Warp

Mr. Cam wonders how many people like Dr. Wankler qualify as closet bigots, classists, elitists, and racists and believes in an American soccer-football ideology that wants to maintain American soccer-football as suburban and lily-white.

 

Uh. Yeah. Thanks for clarifying my ideological perspectives for me.

Actually, my only problem is, as I said before, that I don't feel the metaphorical need for all the popular people to come to my party. That's it.

Oh, and if you assume that only black people are fast, you're making a racialist assumption that deeply troubles several black activists in the US:

"but for the most part these positions have been taken over by the black guys, due to their superior speed & athleticism."

Nice stereotyping.

 

Re: Time Warp

Hey, wait a moment ... I happen to agree with you and no the Doc on the athleticism thing, but that's a long from meaning that Dr. Wankler is a racist. Let's keep this argument on a civilized level.

 

You can't be serious. You think black guys make up 95% of NFL cornerbacks because they're slower than white guys? You think the black guys make up 95% of Olympic 100 meter finalists because they're slower?

Most Swedes are taller than most Thai. There's another stereotype. Gosh, I must be a wicked guy.

 

I think that there are cultural factors involved in this, all of which make it too complicated to reduce simply to race. For example, the whole "white men can't jump" myth looks pretty silly when you start to examine the vertical leaps of Olympic caliber volleyball players, and then notice that an overwhelming majority of them have been white, and that, lo and behold, their numbers stack up pretty competitively with the African-Americans in the NBA.


So, again: there are cultural factors involved, it is not JUST race. Anyway, I appreciate that you are not calling me a racist, and I'm not calling you a racist.

 

When did football-soccer become your "party"? here did you obtain the "authority" to determine who can and cannot attend your "party"? Does the above statement imply that you, Dr. Wankler, don't want the "popular" people to attend your "party"?Remember, many of the "popular" people happen to be Black people, did that in some way influence your above statement? How can American football-soccer grow if it adopts your: if you happen to posses great athleticism, speed, and strength we don't want YOU to come to our party, if you have or continue to play American football and football-soccer and posses great athleticism, speed, and strength we really don't want YOU to come to our party, if you have the ability to sign the very first MLS shoe contract as a Black athlete that has or continues to play American football and football-soccer and posses great athleticism, speed, and strength we absolutely don't want YOU to come to our party ideology?

 

It isn't about popular people, it's about fielding better Soccer teams both at the National and Club level. If nobody cared about Soccer but we were still getting the best players we possibly could into the sport, I wouldn't give a damn. Besides I cut a paycheck from a sport that is _extremely_ popular (most attended professional sport in the country), so I really don't have any needs in that regard.

Basketball is an excellent example. Basketball _is_ part of the culture for African-Americans. They play it in school, they play it on the playgrounds, many play it every free hour they have growing up. On weekends from sun-up to sundown.

They dominate the ranks of the NBA partially because of this. Virtually every black potential NBA caliber athlete is in the "system" at some point with an opportunity to make his mark. Some lack the skills to make that step, but they're there and sheer numbers is important. There are other reasons of course, most notably that for any athletic endeavor in any country, the poor develop athletes at hugely disproportionate rates to the more advantaged athletes in the country. The reasons for this are often fairly controversial but you see it fairly consistently.

As a result, because of past injustices, and the very slow process of trying to correct them which is still very much in its infancy, blacks suffer from vastly higher rates of poverty than does the general population. Furthermore, many theorize that many of the reasons why poverty tends to produce athletes have to do with available opportunities apparent to young disadvantaged kids. (The idea being that when very few avenues of success are available to you, those that are available, like athletics, are pursued much more vigorously). In the case of African-Americans, they get hit twice here: one because a larger percentage of them are poor than the general population and two because due to racism, Jim Crow, and a thousand other injustices they find themselves doubly closed off from opportunities in other areas.

This reasoning follows that it also explains black success in the entertainment industry as well. Black children see successful black entertainers and realize that this avenue may be open to them. And it also explains why children of famous athletes )like Barry Bonds) also tend to do well athletically, because the opportunities athletics brings generally and the special opportunity their parentage brings further facilitates this.

To bring this all back on topic, whereas in other countries the opportunity to "elevate your station" is often provided by football, in the USA that's also the case but it's the wrong kind of football. As far as Soccer is concerned, that's not really out there as of yet and naturally the sport will not attract the kind of athletic ability the other sports have.

We all know guys who have excelled at high levels of multiple sports: Bo Jackson, Brian Jordan, Kenny Lofton, Delino DeShields (Deion Sanders is iffy, he's a good minor league player), and plenty more like Adam Dunn where we'll never know, so there's no reason to believe Soccer should be immune to this. There's a much closer correlation to the athletic skills to play football and soccer than say football and baseball. Furthermore, in the specific case of Shane Walton, Walton was a much better Soccer player than he was a football player after his freshman year at ND, and the NFL is a much higher level of football than MLS is of soccer, and yet both Walton and his Soccer coach saw that with his abilities, his best opportunities were in pigskin. This decision is often not conscious like it was in that case, but it nonetheless occurs with some regularity.

My point is that Soccer's station as a second-class sport in this country diminishes the level of athletes the sport attracts and as a result, diminishes the quality of players available to us. You seem to be implying that it's because the coaching sucks, which is a hard argument to make since we can be, and have been importing coaches from elsewhere for some time now.

Now you may be sick of hearing about how "If only Michael Vick played soccer" but the fact is that it's a relevant point. If an athlete like Michael Vick were born in Brazil, he would almost certainly be playing Soccer, and frankly I think it's a fairly reasonable argument that there's a decent chance he could be quite good at it. The question then becomes, if that is the case, what can the USSF do so that at least a few morw athletes of his caliber _are_ playing Soccer and do see it as a reasonable avenue for their future.

I just don't understand why you think that this is an irrelevant topic. I think it's impossible for me believe that the USA is currently reached its ultimate potential in developing soccer players and from here on out its all about coaching. I don't see the evidence to support such an assertion. If it is the case that the USA is not developing as many players as it could, then it's reasonable to ask what can be done to start to remedy that.

 

The assumption is that a lot of that is dietary in nature. You can make Darwinian arguments about cultural selection and preference, but most of those usually tend not to be borne out when fully investigated (in other words environmental causes trump genetic causes 19 times out of 20 when the research is done).

As far as blacks and atheltic ability goes, this is again mostly assumed to be environmental in nature (as opposed to the "Jimmy the Greek hypothesis," which really isn't racist, though it can be used by racists). They've done lots of research on kids 4 through 8 about this and you see consistently disparate results on questions about "what do you want to be when you grow up" across different ethnicities and income levels. Things like Track Star or Movie Star consistently show up much higher on the lists amongst blacks and the poor than they do amongst the whites and well off.

When these issues come up with different countries, Darwin is a little more in play (like Sherpas for instance), but moreso diet comes into play greatly, with the height of Asian men being one of the most cited instances (the tradeoff between lower levels of heart disease and physical stature that "eastern" and "western" diets bring).

I thing those that have theorized that the difference between Black levels of athletic achievement in this country and those of Whites have probably gotten a bad rap, since their work often doesn't get a fair hearing because of the political implications of it. But I still think that most of what I've read on the subject tends to indicate that the conditions necessary for it to be a predisposed genetic difference, are simply not existent in the current American landscape.

One final thought, in the late 19th century and the early 20th century in Baseball, the percentage of Major League players who were Irish as compared to their proportion of the population at that time was absolutely staggering.

Here's the starting lineup for one of the great teams of the era, the 1896 Baltimore Orioles:

William Clarke
Jack Doyle
Heine Reitz
Jim Donnelly
Hughie Jennings
Steve Brodie
Joe Kelley
Willie Keeler

Managed by Ned Hanlon.

This isn't an abnormal rate of Irishmen for a club of that time and it looks an awful lot like 78%.

Other stars of that decade were Jimmy Collins, Hugh Duffy, Roger Connor, Joe Quinn, King Kelly, the Delahanty brothers, etc. It looks like the Irish World Cup team.

The point was that the Irish Americans of that time suffered from a lot of the problems the Blacks of our time suffer from (with some obvious important differences), and saw Baseball as an opportunity.

I think that's the most reasonable explanation of Black dominance in modern American athletics.

 

BS, pickup soccer is valuable because it teaches ball skills: trapping, dribbling, passing.

Playground football teaches kids the fundamental skills of the sport: throwing, catching, tackling, running with the ball, kicking. Coaches can refine these skills, but they can't teach a kid how to do those things.

 

Originally posted by appooOnU
Anybody who has seen Michael Vick in action knows he is close to the greatest pure athelete on this planet. Seriously. Even football haters who have seen him toy with NFL defenders must be forced to at least consider this. Undoubtedly he has a strong leg but he has never tested it, for obvious reasons. But even so, let's pretend his kicking leg is as relativly strong as his throwing arm. Meaning he pretty much would have a stronger shot than any soccer player in the world.

"kicking leg". A strong leg does not guarantee a powerful shot. Skill and technique make the difference and that is more difficult to develop than power. There are lots of soccer players around with impressive leg muscles, but only a few of them can hit the ball REALLY hard and accurate. That requires endless hours year after year practicing firing on goal and not hours on a leg muscle machine.

Add to that the accuracy he also has. Now with his athletcism and god-given skills (foot=arm, shotaccuracy=throwing accuraxy) how great of a soccer player would he be?

Way too many ifs and buts to be considered remotely interesting theories.

He is already faster than Landon Donovan (legit 4.2 40 speed), he is 6"1 (almost the same height as Brian McBride) and can probably bench press close to 350 Ilbs, he has the hips of barry sanders and the accelaration of cheetah. So let's translate all this into a soccer player.

The benchpress thing is just as important to a soccer player as strong leg muscles are to a chess player. The human being reaches maximum speed after about 60 meters based on studies made in World and Olympic sprinter finals. The 40 yarder (only about 36,37 meters) is all about acceleration and not top speed. If Landon Donovan is slower than this guy on a 40 yarder it does not automatically mean he has a slower top speed. Carl Lewis was also pretty slow the first 40, but came like a rocket on the last half of the race on the 100m and usually won gold.

He has the fluildity of movement like a Figo or Zidane, is faster than Landon Donovan, can change directions and accelarate better than DaMarcus Beasley, can outjump almost any defender (just watch him jump for a TD) or fight through anyone. And then add the laser-guided cannon. Do you people realize that the US are producing atheletes like this? And that within the next few generations we'll probably find a player like this?

The athletic stats of this Mr. Vick are hardly interesting. Sure, it's nice to have an extra gear of speed to use when required, but the game of soccer is too complicated for anyone to become a star only by being super athletic. Athleticism is only a tool - one of many that you need in this game. In other sports being super athletic can get you far, but in soccer it won't even guarantee you a career. You might even be the worst player on your team even if you are the best all-round athlete with the best stats.

#################

Generally...

It's an interesting thing - which was mentioned earlier on this thread - that most of the very best players in soccer history weren't what we call superb pure athletes. May be that was because these players spent more time developing the important things in soccer rather than working specifically on their bodies. They lived from Day 1 to become soccer stars. Quality time with the ball beats anything athleticism can offer and they had that as main priority. Then comes other important factors such as the tactical part and functioning in a team and be able to make teammates around you better. Athleticism won't help you there either.

John Carew of Valencia is one of the best all-round athletes in the world game today. He is like 6'5" 225lbs and is lightning fast also. I read an interview with him recently and he talked about all the mistakes he made before last season which was awful from his part. He hardly scored a goal. He had spent too much time in the gym working to improve his physics, but it backfired even if his physical results were improved in numbers. "The opponents ran circles around me", he said. He was building a body not suitable for soccer. "I had no energy towards the end of the game". He had to take off what he had built and even more. He took off lots of pounds and increased time working with the ball instead. Now he is improving again.

May be this is the key to soccer's popularity world wide; that a superior athlete not necessarily is a superior soccer player. That extra physical quality that seems very useful to have might backfire on other parts of your game. What can't backfire though is magical ball skills. It will benefit you and your teammates.

I think Alvaro Recoba at Inter Milan is a good example. He is a speedy little devil, but he doesn't look like an athlete. He took off his shirt in celebration once and it looked like he had signs of love handles. He was definitely not clean cut. He would probably not be good at any other sport, but that left foot of his is probably the best in soccer since Maradona. It has not been achieved by spending time in the gym. Why should you have an Olympian's body when you have feet like Recoba?

 

NOT TRUE!!! In close quarters, a strong upper body will allow an offensive\defensive player to push-off or keep the opposing player at bay.

NOT TRUE!!! Athleticism does not replace ball skills, tactical sense, game savvy, passing skills and shooting techniques. Athleticism MAGNIFIES them!!! Speed kills ALWAYS!!! Remember the Olympic motto: Higher, Faster, Stronger!!!

 

"May be this is the key to soccer's popularity world wide; that a superior athlete not necessarily is a superior soccer player."

This is true in a fair number of other sports, probably even moreso than Soccer. A player built with John Kruk's athletic ability (or lack thereof) cannot play high level Soccer regardless of his Soccer skills. He can however become an All-Star baseball player. Hence his famous statement, "I'm not an athlete, I'm a ballplayer."

Lance Berkman of the Houston Astros is pudgy and probably has the vertical leap of Arnold Palmer. Julio Ramirez plays the same position and is the same age. Ramirez has World Class speed, is one of the strongest players in organized baseball, has a cannon for a throwing arm and can leap high above outfield walls to snare potential home runs...

...and if you were a GM and traded Berkman for Ramirez you would be out of a job about 7 minutes later and be ridiculed across the country for about 35 years.

The reason is that Berkman's baseball specific skills are so vastly superior to Ramirez's that Ramirez's vastly superior athletic ability doesn't matter.

But that doesn't mean athletic ability doesn't matter in baseball or that the better athletes that play baseball the better quality of players will be developed.

Berkman's baseball specific skills are virtually second to none but he still isn't close to the player Alex Rodriguez is because Rodriguez has all of those skills in spades too, AND he's a world class athlete at 6'3" 220 pounds of muscle, tremendous agility and outstanding raw acceleration and speed.

In other words, you can be a great player without being a great athlete, but you have a better chance of being a great player if you are a better athlete.

Hockey is a lot the same way. Football less so, basketball only slightly less so, though that has been disguised by the current style of play (de-emphasizing the sport specific skill of shooting).

To put this mathematically, the way skills and athletic ability work in sports is not additive, it's multiplicative. IOW, if you have two players one has Athletic Ability = 20 and skills = 3 and another where Athetic Ability = 9 and skills = 12, the quality of player they are is closer to:

20 * 3 = 60
9 * 12 = 108

Than:

20 + 3 = 23
9 + 12 = 21

Just because the superior athlete isn't close to as good a player, does not mean that superior athletic ability is unimportant. It only means that they require a high level of the sport-specific skills in order to exploit this advantage.

The argument with regards to the USA and Soccer is that almost all of the Athletic Ability = 20 guys in the country (likely more than most countries in the world) are Soccer-Skills = 1 or 2 guys whereas in other countries that number would be higher.

 

Where'd we lose this thread

At one time this thread was funny and interesting, then it was ugly, and unfriendly, then funny again, and now technical.

Needless to say I was watching some ESPN today, and a minor preview of the Saints-Vikings game was on (Quarterbacking Cousins Michael Vick, and Aaron Brooks, two of the most athletic QB's of all time dual this weekend) and I thought again about this thread.

I'm a fan of both sports (and for that matter hockey, basketball and baseball as well) and I'm also familiar with all the sports having played them myself, and these days I even teach some of them in the inner city (Oakland, California). I'm equally intrigued at the idea of athletes like Michael Vick taking up soccer at a young age and continuing with it. What might be possible if a guy like Vick, loved soccer, and took to it mentally, and physically as well as he has with football. This isn't about fielding a team of All Stars from all the most popular american sports. This is about soccer finding away to attract the interest of, and maximize the potential of the best American athletes. The possibilities are extraordinary. Of course as others suggest there might be a low ceiling, considering the lack of a soccer infrastructure even minutely comparable to that of England, Spain, Italy or Latin America. Still, if athletes like Vick, Seneca Wallace, Lebron James, Brian Urlacher, and so many others had a passion for soccer, the instructors to focus that passion and maximize it, and the institutions to refine that passion into legit, dominant, eyepopping skills, and mental soccer acuity then things could really become interesting.

Its fantasy. But it's a nice fantasy that could become a reality some day. Not now, but someday. To laugh, or ridicule the idea of what Michael Vick could do on the soccer field, or even to compare him with Henry is a stretch beyond all measure. Henry possesses world class skills and talent for his sport as does Vick in his. But I don't think theres anything remotely similar about what these guys could achieve if funnelled into eachothers sports, rather than their own, from childhood onward. There are few, very, very few individuals alive that possess anything remotely like Vicks athletic skills period. Henry isn't even in the same universe, let alone the same planet as Vick when it comes to athletic gifts. Players with Vick's athletic gifts come along maybe once a decade, Perhaps Barry Sanders, and Deion Sanders in the 90's had similar athletic ability, Perhaps Michael Jordan in the eighties, and Walter Payton in the 70's/early 80's, and of course the inimatable, incomparable Gayle Sayers in the sixties. The thing with Vick is that he seems to be an almost amalgamation of all the athletic assests one could want in a sport: Elusiveness on a scale almost unduplicatable, Enormous strength for his position, physical mastery of his tasks in his position (strong arm, excellent vision, does not lock onto targets, works through his progressions, and can make something out of nothing, terrific leadership), outstanding speed, and a quality mind abundant with creativity.

We can't reverse engineer him, and recreate all these capabilities as they would be necessary for soccer (great vision, nimble footwork, elusivness/speed/juking capacity, creativity, ingenious intuitive abilities etc), but there is a certain scary quality to the idea of what soccer might become if the pay off for playing it, the infrastructure to support it, and the passion for the game were as vibrant here as it was elsewhere. I imagine the world would not like that at all, and I have to admit that the World Cup might be mighty dull if as many of our very best athletes grew up playing and pursuing careers in soccer, as they did in football and basketball. However, I also have to admit that I love the sport, and would love it all the more if it would take hold here as it has done nearly everywhere else. It's a shame that so many of mine countrymen simply don't get the beautiful game, even if I do get great seating for San Jose games with relative ease.

Anyway, I've enjoyed the thread, and appreciate all the interesting perspectives that have been offered and some of which have been deeply provocative (particularly the insightful comment that our national teams height challenged issues may be directly related to the fact that the NBA, and NFL always has room for athletes with height and athleticism).

 

Originally posted by Mr. Cam
NOT TRUE!!! In close quarters, a strong upper body will allow an offensive\defensive player to push-off or keep the opposing player at bay.

Yes, a big upper body will enhance your chances to knock an opponent off the ball, but might backfire in the long run on the 98% of the time that you are not in a situation to knock someone off the ball. A big bulky upper body then becomes a burden rather than an asset. It's not worth it to put on extra pounds so you can excel in one single type of situation during the game where you might win ball possession or a throw-in. Soccer is very much an endurance sport and too much muscle will not benefit you throughout the game. Rather the opposite.

Athleticism does not replace ball skills, tactical sense, game savvy, passing skills and shooting techniques.

There you said it! Therefore it's important to focus on improving the IRREPLACEABLE. As I said in my original post: Athleticism is a tool to success, but it doesn't separate the Zidanes from Joe Average. The qualities that you listed above do.

Athleticism MAGNIFIES them!!! Speed kills ALWAYS!!!

Yes, athleticism magnifies, but first you need to have something to magnify which again brings us back to square one: Ball skills, tactical sense, game savvy, passing skills and shooting techniques. If those are not there, it doesn't matter how much you magnify, you will not become world class anyway.

Remember the Olympic motto: Higher, Faster, Stronger!!!

Yes, and that's why soccer is an insignificant sport on the Olympic program. That motto will win you gold in Track & Field, but not necessarily gold in a World Cup!

 

Modern weight training can enhance the performance of ANY football-soccer player. A Question for you Bauser, how many Professional European Football-Soccer clubs use weight training as a method to increase on-field performance?

Although at WC 02 Zidane looked very Joe Average!

Remember the Olympic motto: Higher, Faster, Stronger!!!

Bauser, what tournament do you consider of greater importance; FIFA’s U-20 World Youth Championship or the Olympic Gold Medal in football-soccer?

Finally, give your assessment and impressions of the U.S.A.'s performance in WC 02 on a scale of 0 to 100. With 0 representing the French and 100 representing the Brazilians. What impressions did the American performance at the 02 WC make on the Norwegian sporting press? Also, should the USA advance to the quarter or semi-finals in Germany, will you and Europeans in general take the USA seriously? Give me your prediction on what will have to happen first and in what order to enable a U.S. World Cup victory. The MLS joins the EPL, La Liga, and Serie A in quality of play. The U.S. wins FIFA’s U-20 World Youth Championship or the U.S. wins an Olympic Gold Medal in football-soccer?