Oh come on...rugby is kinda fun to watch and British food isn't that bad. I love a deep fried greasy basket of cod and chips. Nothing better, always looked forward to it in this formerly Catholic fish on Friday house when I was a kid. With some runny American cole slaw dripping all over the chips.....beats the frozen Gorton's any time....
Yes I think the popularity of the sport is one advantage, I don't think its the only reason why some countries are good at certain sports while others aren't though. Football is big in China (well big enough) and China has a large population but they can't seem to put together a half decent team, I think infrastructure is important. Africans have the 'skill' set but miss something at the 'high end', it can be quite difficult to put your finger on exactly, here in the UK we're 'pretty good' at football, cricket and rugby but couldn't dunk a basketball if our lives depended on it! There has to be fundamental reasons why.
Are you really saying that you don't think the English perpetuated some historical atrocities? To be clear, the Americans have been the baddies a lot, too. But holy crap, I think you need to read some history.
Our main problem is - we keep wallowing in CONCACAF swamp, since we can't drain and change it, we must find the ways to play better and more diverse competition on regular basis. We stagnated in CONCACAF, and not just us - MEX dropped too, CRC is on the brink, CAN won WCQ, but went 0:3 (being eliminated after 2) in WC. So this is a level of teams we play now year after year after year. If there were confed rankings in WC CONCACAF would be at the bottom based on our results.
This isn't that hard. Population of the Netherlands = 17M Population of the US = 330M The economy is relevant because both in the Netherlands and the US there are the resources, professionals components, leisure time, etc. for sports to be viable and desireable professionals as well as coaching, etc. It's important because part of the reason China or India don't dominate is because the per capita economy isn't there and the culture isn't there. The simple, basic formula is Culture x Population x Resources = Success. The entire premise is that IF the US increased the cultural relevancy to that of other top soccer nations, it has a huge amount of resources and people. And generating outliers is partly a function of numbers. There's no talk of genetic superiority here. If people cared about soccer at the same rate other countries cared about soccer, we'd be very good. Because we have those other things. And on the flip, if you think Croatians are genetically superior, or the English, or Brazilians, or whatever, do I have something to tell you about our gene pool. We've got all of you suckers in spades.
CONCACAF usually outperforms Asia and Africa (and Mexico has a lot to do with that). This time we didn't, but with only two R16 matches to go, no one yet outside of UEFA and CONMEBOL has gotten through to the quarterfinals. Perhaps Morocco will upset Spain tomorrow, but if they don't, the R8 will be an entirely European/Brazilian and Argentine affair, as is pretty typical, and no one in Asia or Africa will have gone further than we have. And in any case, you're forgetting the OFC. You can't make an argument for any other region being worse than the OFC.
Well, almost certainly more, just on the bases of more opportunity -- I don't think the English were particularly unethical relative for their time and station. But holy crap, some of the shit you did wasn't even profit focused -- just awful to be awful. And a lot of that revolved around how you treated the ancestors of the people who make up those viewing numbers you seem so proud of. I just found it ironic you call us Nazis -- which, really? -- and then trumpet numbers that only exist because your country committed a bunch of not so different acts.
Again I ask what advantages EXACTLY does the US have over the Netherlands when it comes to resources? You mention professionals components, leisure time, desireable professionals and coaching, but in what way does the US surpass the Netherlands in any of those catagories? Does the US have more 'leisure time'? I'm not so sure, does the Netherlands have more available 'coaching'? Do we even know? What do you mean by 'desireable professionals'? or 'components'? If I had to guess I would suggest when it comes to competent coaches or facilities it is likely that the US has more of both when it concerns baseball but it's the other way round when it comes to football no? This is just my assumptions of course, why would you think it could be different?
Again I suggest you've gotten this from god-awful stereotypical Hollywood films no? I don't think I've ever called you Nazis - perhaps you should go and re-read my posts more carefully.
Culture trumps all as long as there is reasonable resourcing. When I visit my friends in NED, I can't help but be very, very impressed with their local sport club, the very high quality of instruction and facilities. Their kids can ride their bike there and get top notch training to as high as their talent and ambition takes them. The same is replicated the next town over, and the town after that. It is what they do.
With China, the culture isn't necessarily there. Football has only recently become the most popular team sport there, and still lags behind individual sports (especially racket sports). Until around 2000, it was only really popular in the relatively sparsely populated northeast of China. Even today, something like a quarter of all Chinese pros come from Dalian, which is China's 16th-largest city. Also add in the large number of club relocations in Chinese professional football over the last 25 years, which resulted in very little investment in academies. With Africa, it's mostly a matter of infrastructure and access to high-quality coaching -- that's why so many African national teams are full of French-born players who qualify through ancestry. Density and transportation infrastructure help a lot, too, even though they aren't directly relevant to the game itself. Being able to get to training by bicycle is a big advantage. Clint Dempsey's parents had to drive him over to the Dallas area, two hours each way, to get quality training. Also, talent develops talent: the more that elite youth players can play with and against each other, the more they'll push themselves and each other. Low population density means, even if the overall population of the US produces a large number of players with outstanding natural talent, they aren't challenged on a regular basis due to the limited player pool in their local areas. Also, scouting is easier when you can see more players per travel mile. Of course, culture plays into this too: a strong football culture means the same population can support more clubs, which in turn means clubs can be closer together. It also means each individual city is more likely to have a critical mass of talent -- both players with pro potential and players who, while not necessarily future pros, are good enough to challenge them.
I think one of the big challenges for us is how spread out everyone is in this country. The more compact you are the easier it is to communicate and work with each other. I would guess almost all the EPL, Bundesliga, Seria A teams, etc take busses to and from games where here you have to fly. There's a ton of space in between our metro areas which isn't the case in Europe or Argentina or Brazil.
I never said the US had an edge on the Netherlands in monetary resources. We had 20x the population. In contrast to say, India, we have an edge in resources. Yes, this is the whole ********ing point. As we've all said, if football was culturally as important in the US as it is in other countries our resources --- like coaches, pro leagues, time spent by parents with children -- would be focused on football, not baseball or American football, not skiing or tennis or lacrosse or volleyball or hockey. In turn, when that focus is applied by 330 million people, you tend to churn out a few good athletes. Again, we have half the population of all of Europe. So imagine if we had the culture of football here that is in Europe. Now take the player pool of say, the Western half of Europe -- France+Spain+Portugal+England. That's 180 million people. You're right that we don't have that culture, that history, etc. I doubt we ever will. But if we did, yes, we have lots of people and nothing else holding us back.
You did. Yes, you should look up the history of England and Ireland. It's absolutely horrific. People make fun of Americans for not knowing history, but you are definitely taking the cake here.
I've noted before, in other threads, that we have "derbies" in MLS like Colorado-RSL, where the distance between the two "local rivals" is approximately the same as the entire length of Britain.
I think the big key is the MLS academies. They've finally started taking professional development seriously and invested in it. It's not even about the actual teams really. Look at FC Dallas and how many players they've sent to Europe who never even played 1 game for them. What academy (and owner) doesn't want to produce the next McKinney or Aaronson? Young players also now see teams are willing to sell them if it's profitable and makes sense. One of the biggest obstacles to overcome was Garber's comment years ago that MLS wasn't a selling league. UGH
One unfortunate thing here: the UEFA Nations League takes away a large percentage of the decent friendly opponents in each window. We complain about the lack of friendlies against European countries this cycle, and it was indeed fewer than we normally had before -- but outside of Qatar, who didn't have to qualify, the US actually played more friendlies against European opposition in the 2022 cycle than anyone else, including European teams! With UEFA taking itself mostly off the table for friendlies, the pool of quality opponents for friendlies is reduced by about half, and everyone remaining is in greater demand. Not having to qualify for 2026 means we can schedule friendlies during qualifying windows, and there are always at least a few decent opponents available because of qualifying groups with odd numbers of teams on other continents. But we definitely need to find something that will still work beyond 2026.
You essentially need a combination of 3 things to be successful as a soccer country, population, culture/knowhow, and investment/resources directed towards soccer. Of the 3 population is the least important, if you have the latter 2 you can be quite good overall. The Netherlands is a good example of this. But Germany is more successful than the Netherlands historically because they have those two things and a much larger population from which to draw from. Brazil is the extreme example of this because they have all three in abundance. The US has the population, but we have less investment/resources compared to the elite countries (though this gap continues to shrink), and where is lag is in culture/knowhow. Soccer isn’t even close to the most popular sport here and we don’t have the coaching talent/youth development system the way a Germany or the Netherlands do. Part of that is also we don’t have the scouting network to identify talented players at a young age in every corner of the country and make sure they get the development needed. Whereas in the Netherlands or Germany it’s much more likely a talented youth player will get spotted and identified early on. Now this is something we are working on to and the popularity of the game only continues to grow. Now if you ask me what USSF can do, it’s to continue to do everything in their power to increase the quality of the coaching in this country, all the way down to the lowest youth teams. And at the top of the pyramid, it’s to bring the quality of USSF A license to the level of the UEFA A license.