The USA will win a world cup before England's second

I wouldn't doubt it, I think the BPL would have to get rid of its big money foreigners and focus mostly on English players in order to get England another WC win.

 

British people are naturally pessimistic. Moaning about the state of football, the government , the NHS etc is a national past time.

So it wouldn't surprise me if Brits held that point of view.

I don't think either country is in the position to win a World Cup. But I would give England the edge because they already have the football infrastructure (8-tier pro/rel pyramid with 366 clubs). The US is decades behind when it comes to that kind of football infrastructure.

The problem with England is style of play. Big center-forwards are favored over smaller technical players. That's one reason why England is not an exporter of football players. The typical English player is not suited for the more technical European leagues. They need more players like Michael Owen(before his injuries) and less like Andy Caroll.

 

People are gonna laugh right now because they are making hard work of their group when it should be easy but make no mistake about what I'm about to say.... England is quietly adding pieces to their team that could win the WC. They need their defense and Joe Hart to have a monster World Cup. Sturridge and Rooney will score.

For this World Cup, the US needs more help than the English. Our defense hardly plays a mistake free match and the entire team has been inconsistent on offense. For us to win to win the WC, our defense will have to play the tournament of their lives and the attacking players will have to get really hot and take their chances on goal. The area that I'm least worried about is DM. Jones can and needs to defend well and let Kljestan and Bradley worry about the attack. If all this happens, we may stand a chance, even if we are to draw the group of death.

 

Here's something that disagrees with that:

http://afootballreport.com/post/644596805/group-c-its-easy says:
"Group C: It’s EASY (England, Algeria, Slovenia, Yanks) isn’t it?

With Rooney, one of the top 5 players in football, Lampard, possibly the most clinical club midfielder in the world, and a host of patriots, talents and adulterers in the team, who can argue with the fact that England will dominate this group totally?"

 

I think the problem with England is that they believe there is a problem with England.

That said, I strongly believe USA will win one before England wins two. The momentum behind soccer is strong in America and America always produces amazing athletes. Its only a matter of time before the Michael Jordan/Babe Ruth/Peyton Manning of Soccer emerges....

 

Why would English soccer players want to play abroad if they're good enough to play domestically? The only scenario I could see would be if a team like Barcelona outbid Man U for a world-class star. Players tend to leave their home countries for better opportunities and pay. That's a rare situation for an English player.

 

Did you even read the link that you quoted?

 

Lets look at the US roster, who on the US roster would be considered for England at the moment? Howard, Guzan, Dempsey, Donovan, Bradley, Jones? With the exception of Howard every other guy on the list is a maybe. If you are starting regularly in the Premier League and American, you are going to Brazil. Not the case if you are English. Pretty clear indication of difference in talent levels.

Now we all know a team can be better than the sum of their parts, and US players seem to excel and play better for the National Team, and it seems a real burden for English players, I still think the quality of players available to England make them a favorite to win a 2nd before we get one.

 

Neither current squad really matters much as neither are likely to win it anytime relatively soon. That's not to say one of us couldn't get lucky and go on a streak and pull it off but its extremely unlikely if we're being honest.

The fact of the matter is the sport is as big as it can possibly be in England and this is what they've been doing for decades, muddling about at this level of play relative to the rest of the world. The EPL's English player content has been sliding. It is now UNDER 1/3 English. Include into that there are more Americans than ever playing in the EPL; we are the 6th most represented country there.

In MLS, the American content is 55% and the quality of that league continues to rise. As the money and popularity of the sport continues to rise in this country, the participation of better and better athletes will continue to rise. Thus, America is on an upwards trajectory while England has stalled, or worse, is regressing.

 

The real truth is that hardly any Englishmen at all would have ever given the question any thought. The USA/England "rivalry" is entirely one-sided, and people in England don't measure the team against the USA the way that it seems to happen the other way round.

Why, for example, do you never see people asking whether the USA will win a world cup before the Dutch do?

Most, if asked, would probably say an English win is more likely, but no breath would be held waiting for either to happen.

Whereas the view in the USA does sometimes seem to be that the USA is on an unstoppable rise where intergalactic soccer domination is inevitable, in England the USA are more viewed along the lines of South Korea, Japan, Turkey, Australia etc, as teams that used to be hopeless but have got their act together now an are decent sides.

 

I think England is about where it should be in terms of soccer success, based on its population, economy and so on. Some of its fans may have high expectations due to the history of the sport in that country, certainly. But some of those expectations are unrealistically high. England will remain a top-tier soccer power for the foreseeable future, and will likely be competitive for the WC on-and-off, but it's unrealistic to expect the English NT to dominate the sport.

The US has a potential higher ceiling than England, but we also have limitiations due to the fact that soccer will likely never be as popular a sport here as it is in countries like England.

 

Yes but people eligible for England are still number 1 in the Premier League. Our Number 1 forward has yet to score a league goal for the worst team in the league. This is not to bash Jozy, I have more confidence in him as a striker than any US forward since Mcbride. But lets be real, if Jozy was English he wouldn't even be considered for their National Team.

Now I understand what you are saying about the trajectories being different but I don't agree with that either. There are massive advantages that the English national team has going forward when it comes to developing top English talent. England just opened up a new state of the art training facility. The FA has significantly more money to invest in elite level coaching than the US soccer federation. And the best athletes predominately go into soccer. To just name a few advantages.

Finally even if the trajectories are opposite it will take generations to overturn. This is the best US National team I have seen (at least on current form we shall see what happens in June). But still only a few would even be considered (and only as outsiders) for places on the England Squad. Now this is an improvement, 20 years ago there wasn't a player in the US set up who you could say this about. But it's taken 20 years to get a limited few. So how long until we could have a majority of players better? 20 years? 40? 60?.

So the quick answer is NO the US will not win it's first before England wins it's 2nd.

 

England under performs severely based on the quality of their league, the popularity of the sport and their heritage. Their main issue is in youth development and their domestic way of playing. The English game traditionally centers on power and speed. In the meta game of international football those elements have become less important compared to passing, technique and creativity. Their football education is only slowly adapting to the changed game, especially compared to the way the Germans changed course a decade ago. Premier league sides are less involved in long term youth development due to the financial risk of relegation and will simply buy foreign talent to cover any deficiencies.

It's anyone's guess how fast the game in a country can develop. Spain went from also-rans to the dominant force in football in a very short period of time. Simply by having a great generation at the right time and football rules/game play changing to fit the qualities of their domestic style. I doubt they would have been world champion with these players, had they been born 20 or 30 years earlier.

It's very hard to predict when or even if the US will be a major contender in the future. A lot of factors are involved and there simply is not a single route to success. The potential is certainly there. If we look at the non traditional nations in soccer, I'd say Japan is probably the most successful at the moment. A dominant force in Asia and they are developing creative and technically sound players that play in a number of top leagues. I don't know what they do different from other countries but they found something that suits them.

 

Decent not descent.

 

Babe Ruth was no-one's idea of an athlete. He happened to have great skill at a game that doesn't really prize fitness.

 

I remember reading other accounts in other sources (that, of course, I can't conjure up, mostly because they were something like 20 years ago).