In general, do you think its better to be big and strong or small and wirey in Soccer? Pele and Maradona are considered a couple of the best players ever, both small. Henry, Shevchenko, Ronaldo, Zidane all around 6ft to 6 ft 2inches. It seems to me that most midfielders are average size and weight, 5' 10" or 11", defenders are taller 6' to 6' 4", goalkeepers are almost always 6' 3" or better and forwards around 5' 11" to 6'2". Do you think the game is evolving towards taller players or is that unnecessary given that the majority of the game is played on the ground? In the past, the biggest problem, I thought, with the U.S. teams has been our lack of stature compared to European, Brazilian and Argentine teams. Along with our lack of skill, of course. This all seems to be slowly changing. Is it possible for big men(around 6' 2"ish or more and around 190lbs or more) to be highly skilled? Would a big man that is highly skilled be an unstoppable weapon?
I think it will always differ. Bigger goal keepers will always be better no matter how athletic you are.There will always be short good players, but i think you will see more and more highly skilled taller players. The game is changing but it's always good to have tall players on your team to win them high balls.
i maybe getting mixed up here but a certain player, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, seems to be a tricky player but is very tall can someone correct me if i'm wrong?
It could be true but i am 14 and I am only 5'2'' which is short but my doctor said that I still haven't reached my growthspurt and I know how to break and get past fully grown defenders. Although some people get mad and trip me up and I get my foul. I learned from cris ronaldo to confuse your defenders with speedy stepovers and unpredictable crosses. But what sucks is that I hardly go for headers because of my height. Any way I am a winger so I hardly need to go for headers.
I agree with you, there are some very talented tall players. It just seems as if it may be easier for smaller players to have better ball handling skills than tall players due to the lower center of gravity, I may be wrong on this. No doubt in my mind that a tall player is a good weapon to have for winning balls in the back and scoring opportunities up front. Does anyone know any great midfielders that are around 6"3" or so? I'm 6'4" myself, so don't think I'm picking on tall guys. The reason I wrote this was because I see the U.S., in the past more than recently, would tend to favor smaller players ie. Ramos, Cobi Jones, Reyna, Donovan, Beasley etc. and in my opinion would be out muscled by teams like Germany, Italy, Brazil, Netherlands, Poland(WC 2002). I think its changing now though, Eddie Johnson, Ching, Onwayhu??, Pope. I saw a tall American kid on Chicago Fire play, Nate Jaqua. I think he's really young, around 6'4" and he looked like he had some good skills. Then again, that was against FC Dallas.
FC Dallas are going to challenge for the MLS cup this year with the addition of Ruiz and Johnsons emergence as a nat's level striker. SO that is a big deal to do well against them. Jaqua played for the good ole Portland Pilots, and is, I believe 23. Fairly young... Anyway, soccer is one of few sports where any body type, as long as it is a fit one, can become that of a world class player. Short, stocky guys, like Maradona (5' 8'', 180), Ferenc Puskas, and others have been great down the years, but tall, lanky guys, like Henry, have been brilliant as well. But tall players have always been around, guys like Mario Kempes dominated even as early as the 70's. Yes, taller players are becoming more skillful, but that is just an evolution of the game as training evolves.