The Next Level - Understood. The scary thing is, that Wisconsin A team -- and ton of other teams around the country like them -- think that they're well coached. Those poor kids. Such good raw material at age 8, they'll be crap at age 14, and they'll never know why. Come of think of it, they may never know that they're crap, either. The bright side of living in a second-tier soccer country!
i have a friend from brazil, and he said kids play the game with themselves or their friends for hours and hours every single day. He said you can go to the beach at 2am and see firest setup and games being played all over the place. I think more than anything playing and practicing the game for this much time is what makes these players so good. I dont see this ever happening over here.
johnr said: "After all, the easiest way to beat somebody off the dribble is to be faster than them." sounds like mia hamm to me and the rest of the uswnt....run faster, jump higher.....those days are fading rapindly in the female game...
Hey, I only say it's a problem, I didn't say I could fix it or anything. It's reflective of our culture, in a way. Americans are focused on competition and winning in all walks of life, and that's often a good thing. However, when there's a genuine choice between more of a short-term outcome and more of a long-term one, we tend to choose the short-term. That's usually not such a good thing.
Ya, well ... I was e-talking to a friend about the new artificial turf that Pele seems to like so much and then began to reminisce about all the surfaces I played on: from an asphalt basketball court to a hardwood dance floor to sandy beaches and the long-jump pits to waterclogged dirt to snow to a forrest, where you had to dribble your opponnents as well as the trees, to high grass, et cetera, et cetera.
Well, I guess your son's team is a lot different because very few players on my club team watch soccer period. One time, I was talking to a friend during practice about wayne Rooney and how Man U had recently bought him. Another guy was eavesdropping on the conversation and his question was" "Who's Wayne Rooney." I think this is a very strange phenomenon in the states where you have kids who are part of the youth system setup who barely if ever watch soccer or really have a passion for the sport. Outside of school work, hanging out or working, i spend quite a lot of time watching soccer games, playing with my friends and doing tricks. However, I really couldn't say the same for a lot of the kids who are on my team.
I heard a lot of such stories--a super skilled Latin team was beat by a super strong blonde route 1 team. My question is why we don't have a super skilled & super strong team that beats both of those teams? :>) Looks like the Brazilian team is what I just described. Back to ghe great athelets but bad soccer player vs. great soccer player but bad athelets discussion. Sanneh, Hedjuk, Jones, Stewart, etc. should be in this category. Remember, Sanneh's East European teammates told him: " If I am you (the body Tony has), I will make tens of millions a year...". Those guys are right. If you have Tony, Frankie, etc. physical ability with those guys ball skill, you are world classes. In our development, Donovan, Beasley, Convey, and Capano are still small frame but do have the stamina and speed to be good. Only when Clark, Dempsey, Johnson, Quaranta, Mapp etc. begin to show the kind of players we are looking for.