Hi I have always been interested in the history of Central American as well as Caribbean countries. I had always wondered why countries like the Dom. Rep, or Nicaragua had never become as soccer crazy as other nations in the area (Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, even Haiti). Thanks to some serious and important research, my conclusion was that US intervention and meddling in such countries (and PR) have led other sports to become much more popular (baseball specially, and even basketball). Yet Panama has been able to "withstand" this American sport influence, and now soccer has become increasingly popular. In PR, even if soccer is not currently the most popular, it has at least earned much recognition in the last few years. So my question is, since the US does not influence these countries (and PR) as directly as before, why is soccer still in such a primitive stage there??? I find this a very interesting topic, and I hope people come to the fore, and take part in this interesting debate. Metro
I think, for Dominican Republic, it's about the superstars. Look at baseball; DR produces "heros" like Ortiz, Pujols, Tejada, Alou, etc. Then look at soccer. What big name players does Dominican Republic have? I can't think of any... This is what the kids see, they see that DR produces these amazing baseball players who make a ton of money in the USA and who reach the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic... and then they see their soccer team who gets knocked out in the early round(s) of every competition and the players aren't making big money... some who even have jobs outside of soccer to support themselves. Well... given these views, most kids from DR are going to pick baseball because it appears to offer "better rewards" and the nation appears to be "better" at it than soccer. I think it's going to take a generation of players like Yorke, John, Latapy, etc (like Trinidad & Tobago has) where DR makes some noise and starts to do well before anything will change. I have no idea about Nicaragua or Puerto Rico (though I would guess PR is similar to DR... Nicaragua didn't even enter the WBC so I don't know how many great baseball players they have or whatnot).
I know that the nation that I am about to mention is not in the FC, but Venezuela is in the same boat as Panama. Only until recently they are starting to exert themselves in the world game.
Victor ¨el mambo¨ Nuñes Born in DR, moved to CR when he was 8, now he´ll play for the CRNT in the WC Vamos mambo! old interview in spanish
If he plays for Costa Rica then I don't think he can be classified as "Domincan" (or whatever you call people from DR... I would think Dominican would be for people from Dominica, so I have no idea what verb to use actually) any more.
I say Panama is still baseball dominated or 50/50 with soccer. They have a modern world class baseball stadium, while their soccer stadium is very old and little or no modifications have been done to it since its construction.
Well baseball in PR as been a dying sport during the last couple of year we still create good players but sence must of them have been bared from playing in the Puerto Rican league for fear of injuries by their MLB teams the league here as been avreging about 100 fans per-game only having full games in the finals. You could say that soccer is the new rising sport as basketball has maintain itself at its normal rate and even improve geting a Orlando team to join the league. With the PR Islanders and the future River Plate PR (affiliate team from the River Plate, Arg. team) in the USL (United Soccer Lague based in Tampa, FL.) soccer on the island has improve greatly and the local soccer federation has been gearing up to improve the quality of the game on the island, but the local league has alot of ground to cover as its preaty low grade, almost at the level of a 3 or 4 div. league in other nations. Dont be shocked if you begin to hear about the PRNT in a couple of decades. We already had a good player that played in the USNT but i can really remember his name right know, damn traitor , jeje his better of playing in the US, here his talents would have been waisted.
I think soccer is growing in Panama, they were just waiting for the team to give them something to cheer about before they started making any noise. When they qualified to the hex and then almost won the Gold Cup I think soccer's popularity took a huge boost. If they had actually won a couple games in the hex and threatened for a spot in Germany it would be even higher. If they manage to make it back to the hex in 2009 (and don't lose 80% of their games again) I think it'll help push the sport past baseball in that country.
i live in the DR since 1993 and this is not really a good place for a huge soccerfan as i am i truly believe the entire country has no more than 15 or 20 soccer pitches, most of them in bad condition in this country baseball, basketball and boxing get 90 porcent of the media attention the big heroes are baseballplayers making millions of us dollars in the USA, so who can blame the kids trying to imitate them one day? i believe that dominicans do have a lot of talent for soccer (in fact if brazilians are half portuguese half african dominicans are half spanish and half african, so that s more or less the same) but in this country it is very hard to improve soccer skills best players are the CR guy and the brothers Espinal who play in Italy all 3 of them left this country when they were still very young the goalie of the MNT Junior Mejia played in the A league with Long Island a few years ago nevertheless, soccer is getting more and more popular (media coverage, cableTV, national youth teams obtaining some decent results, etc) it would be excellent is Victor Nuñez could get some playing time at WC
SO i dont know if you guys already now but Club Atletico River Plate is opening up a atletic club in Puerto Rico and with it its bringing a United SoccerLeague Div.-1 team called River Plate Puerto Rico who would join the already playing Islanders FC as the second USL - 1 teams on the island
Very nice..is there gonna be an actual direct connection or is it gonna be a relationship based solely on sharing the name like R. Madrid and RSL? I mean, is there gonna be the loaning of players and such? Metro
I dont know yet ill try to find out and let you know as soon as posible, but theior website is basically an extension of river plate and their using the same river plate shield thing. Heres their web: http://riverpr.com/index.php Its only in spanish, sorry
good question i will ask it to a few haitian friends i have but please never forget that although Haiti and DR are 2 neighbour countries they have very different cultures
The French influence could be one reason. It was a French colony, but if we were to follow that theory then just about every country in America should be soccer-crazy, considering the colonial "powers" in the area have been England, Spain, France, and Holland. Metro
1. There's a Dominican goalie in the Salvadorian league, but I can't remember his name. I think his last name is Mejia. 2. There's a Nicaraguan called Mario Acevedo who plays in Guatemala
Why would you say that? It is a widely played sport in the Caribbean (specially in Jamaica and DR), but Haiti has always been soccer-crazy. I had a teacher from Haiti at my school last year, and she said that bball is widely played, as well. Metro