No--I am saying that D1 teams would get buried in most European countries1st-4th divisions-they would compete at the 5th step of the uk pyramid for example.......
You guys realize that college teams routinely go to Europe for spring training - NCAA rules allow a program to go once every four years - and tend to have pretty good results playing reserve teams of pretty big clubs, right?
thats what i thought too anyway 95% of the people i nhere that said d1 schools would get killed by most leagues ARE WRONG !!!! how do i know? i went to trials in Germany for 3rd league team and i know how they play. i think it would be a good game and if we lost it would be about 3-1 or 2-1
O.K. maybe the ages aren't parallel, but try this. When we have polls on these boards most of us say MLS roughly equates to the Colaship in England. Now, last year Wake Forest produced Michael Parkhurst and James Riley for The Revs. Also last year Derby County's academy produced Giles Barnes who is now having a run in the first team and Lewin Nyatanga who is established in the first team, has captained the Welsh U21s and the other week made his full debut for Wales against Paraguay. These players are both 17. There is also Lionel Ainsworth who at the same age is breaking through into the first team. Two years previously there was Lee Holmes and Tom Huddlestone ' now at Spurs ' and the goalkeeper Lee Camp, all of whom represent England in their age groups. That's why I compare D1 with our academies.
Why? They are both sources of young players for the pro ranks. It's not as though young players in the States aren't given sporting scholarships. In addition, I was comparing playing standards, nothing else. Both systems are made of players who have yet to break through to the pros, but who mostly have ambitions to do that.
Duke and Ohio State are going to Germany this June to play some teams and I guess take in some WC games. However, I have no idea who they are playing over there.
I've yet to see a post on HOW D1 teams would compare in the lower leagues of Europe. Based on what I've heard from a number of college players that have traveled to Europe, American college players are, as a whole, athletically superior. Simply stated, the better college teams have more physical speed and can out work the typical 3rd level teams in the top Euro leagues. Technically and tactically the Euro teams typically are superior. How long this disparity will exist is the interesting question.
The Athletic superiority is why the French league and others are full of African players. And like Americans they do not have options at home so therefore they are also cheap.....until it is time to renew the contract. I think more and more US players will find their way to countries like Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
In other words, about at the level of the Conference, right? http://www.thepyramid.info/pyramid/Pyramid2.htm
Are there European countries that US players can play without USMT caps or an EU passport? And if a US player finds an English or French bride what has to happen to get an English or French passport...... does he have to live for a certain time in that country? I was thinking this has been happening in the US for green card status? Anybody know the rules for different countries.
No. The English or European players may have those overriding ambitions, but the Americans mostly don't, which is why there's no real basis for any comparison, even for the sake of argument. Regardless of where anyone would propose a comparison based on similar abilities (which is entirely illusory anyway), the top end of the US college game involves more athleticism, more contemporaneous athletic training, more highly compressed competitions (with less recovery time), more travel, and more off-field discipline than the low end leagues of either England or Europe. Say what you will about the caliber of the game on any specific day. But unless those Conference (sic) dolts are willing to do the business over 10 weeks the way, say Maryland or UCLA does (including keeping themselves sober long enough to do it), there simply isn't any comparison worth the argument.
I had produced a really long reply to the above post, but it got lost when I tried to post it. Suffice to say, the Football Conference is a strong league, as shown by its results in the FA Cup against Premiership teams, attendances are booming (indeed, at an all-time high of 1,918), and almost all teams are fully professional, with intense full-time training accordingly. With the reward of elevation to a higher level (ala DJ Campbell) and the risk of not having one's contract renewed, most Conference players these days refrain from getting drunk, and follow an appropriate diet for a professional sportsman, as directed by their coach. The risk-reward ratio is obvious, and the stereotype of drunken English footballers is simply no longer accurate. Schedules are often extremely compressed, what with league matches (46 from next season, play-offs, FA Cup matches and replays, LDV Vans Trophy matches, FA Trophy matches and replays, and county cup matches, and there is often as many as five games in seven days towards in the end of the season. This lasts not for ten weeks, but for a full nine months, with the vast majority of games both competitive and meaningful. I'm not saying the Conference league is wonderful, or even that it's necessarily better than the NCAA D1. But please don't criticise this league, or refer to its players as "dolts" without first coming over to England to see a match and judging for yourself.
All of which begs the question of the relevance of comparing no-longer drunken (sic) professional Conference players with 18-22 year old US collegiate amateurs?
It's interesting to make comparisons, but when you say the UK pyramid. I wouldn't involve any other of the counties apart from England. The Scottish first division is as bad or worse than the conference!!! I've not seen a D1 game, but I think the top teams could compete with most English teams physically aprt from the premiership. Even at 18-22! The strength/conditioning in the US is so much better and the culture is different. Theres still many pro's not looking after themselves, by drinking and not eating right. It would be good to see a proper match between the best of D1 v the top teams in League one in England.
Top 50 is going way too deep. In any given year there are maybe 20 D1 schools that put a solid team on the field. These top 20 teams are all quite athletic and, as a team, play with good, basic technical skills. Most are tactically simplistic and very, very direct.
Good point. And it can change from year-to-year, based on class composition. The Top 10-20 are usually fairly consistent among themselves yearly. The next 20 through 60 are teams that can compete on a given day with the Top 20, but can vary considerably from year-to-year simply because of the class composition or available roster depth. Among things that prevent any relevant comparison between European professionals and US D1 collegians, the roster issue is among the most telling. Once a US D1 player commits to a school and accepts an athletic scholarship, he's basically there for 4 years, and can't be shopped around, put on injured reserve to open roster space, or released (as long as there aren't rules or academic problems). So, when you bring a player in, you're essentially stuck with him and you can't get rid of him simply to strengthen the team. For the life of me, I can never understand the underlying significance of these ill-informed comparisons, and the attempt at "calibrating" US intercollegiate athletics against a European professional model (as though they were mutually convertable and equally accessible). Suffice it to say that whatever Anglophiles and Europhiles like to believe, the US college game has been an important component of the upward trend of the USMNT into the FIFA Top 10 during the pastr 20 years, which is probably the only comparison that's even relevant.
Dsocc... college soccer's substitution rules vs FIFA rules everywhere else? PDL might be more relevant.
Amen. And ditto for MLS, which has also contributed to that success, and which Europeans, Anglophiles, and Europhiles also like to look down upon. To listen to some people, MLS is terrible, college soccer is terrible, PDL is a joke, ODP is terrible (and it is all just politics, which is why my son/daughter did not get chosen!), our youth clubs are doing everything wrong, Super-Y is a joke, etc. Yet, somehow, as you point out, the USMNT keeps getting better and is in the top 10. Pretty mysterious, isn't it?
You can make that the Top 5 now, and include the handwringing among the Brits that their "young lads" are falling farther and farther behind the rest of Europe developmentally. Apparently, lower division football isn't even suitable for the development of their own guys, much less arguing about whether it's any better than US collegiate ball. FWIW. By my count, at least 1/2 of the US roster for the upcoming Germany friendly are former US college players, although I'll defer to Sandon's extensive database for the exact number.
As you wish. No College: 3 - Bobby Convey, Landon Donovan, Ed Johnson Two seasons of college ball: 2 - Steve Cherundolo (Portland), Taylor Twellman (Maryland) Three seasons of college ball: 5 - Gregg Berhalter (North Carolina),Frankie Hejduk (UCLA), Ben Olsen (Virginia), Heath Pearce (Portland), Josh Wolff (South Carolina) Four seasons of college ball: 9 – Brian Ching (Gonzaga), Jimmy Conrad (UCLA), Cory Gibbs (Brown), Marcus Hahnemann (Seattle Pacific), Eddie Pope (North Carolina), Chris Klein (Indiana), Pablo Mastroeni (NC State), Kerry Zavagnin (North Carolina) So, clearly college soccer is well-represented on the national team as most of the players on this roster have played 3-4 seasons of college ball. Of course, let’s see how the team does in Germany before we start lauding it, but clearly college soccer doesn’t keep you from having a good international career or from playing in Europe. Having said all that, I think this will be the last World Cup cycle where most of the players have played 3-4 seasons of college soccer. The next cycle, the norm will be 2 or less and the four-year players will be the exceptions. I’m not saying there won’t be four-year college players, but the pendulum is swinging the other direction and this time four years from now there won’t be that many 3-4 year college players vying for a spot in South Africa.
No doubt. And if they could all get gigs at the likes of Yeovil or MK Dons instead, we'll be all the better for it.
The pendulum is swinging, but I'm not sure how fast. Of the 8 players who debuted this year, by far the most hyped are Adu (no college) and Guzan (two years). However, five of the other six were four-year players -- Dunivant, Ihemelu, Boswell, Wells, and Reis -- and Jaqua played three. If Arena remains in charge of the national team, I think he'll continue to give a lot of the three- and four-year college players a chance to win a place. A different coach may not.