this is the most entertaining thread i have read in a long time. i thought the topic was an interesting one and was suprised to see that so many people took offense to the fact that someone actually wondered if the world cared about US soccer. I don't think that the original post mentioned that the world SHOULD care... Anyways, i am a recent soccer convert, who like many americans played it as a child and as i grew older i moved on to "real" sports, meaning football(american, that is) i was one the americans who bashed on soccer as a girl's sport. then for some reason i decided to form an indoor soccer team with a bunch of buddies(most of which played football, and had simlar feelings about soccer) and have since seen how foolish i was. let me be the first to admit that many americans are conceited idiots, and the biggest of those idiots is running our country, but not all of us are like that(look at idiot #1's approval ratings). i would love for america to becaome a soccer power, but i have no fantasy of this happening any time soon. i also realize that europeans, africans, south americans, etc. aren't sitting up at night wondering who will be the new USMNT coach, but it seems so me that if you are a true lover of the beautiful game, you would want it to spread to every corner of the earth, even to americas, bloated, commercialized, imperialistic corner of the earth. now, proceed with the flaming!
I think the US needs to embrace it catch the love for soccer and start playing more often. I believe it so much that my buddies and i are starting a street soccer brand CALLE to help kids play more often even in the streets. Check out the street ball at callestore.com.
With this type of thing http://www.northjersey.com/page.php...lRUV5eTY5OTEwNjImeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2 where it benefits a club to lose why do you actually think your playing soccer? every other league in the world losing costs millions.
No dude you are wrong, nobody gives a royal shit, about the mls, actually, the MlS is not even consider a ''CADLE LEAGUE'' refering as they dont, bring quality footballers in stock. Nobody plays attention to it, because they just dont produce quality. Rejects like donovan, instead of staying in Germany to prove a point, they leave to become stars again at the MLS. The USA, is always going to struggle with Soccer, because its way to competitive. In order to have a launch, they is many, many things that have to happen. You guys need a real world class star player, to even start thinking about the Mls future.
clueless as usual would qualify as a compliment. that's some mighty stupid shit there villareal. well done.
Another reminder of how "dominant" the US is in sports: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/golf/specials/ryder_cup/2006/09/24/bc.glf.rydercup.ap/index.html?cnn=yes
Well people can call me "Euronob" for only watching european football leagues but; as a European grewing up in Europe and fallowed English, Dutch, German football leagues in my whole life i do not like the MLs becouse for me it is just dull also when you have a league where a 5th team in East conference who lost 7 games and only won 3 can make it to the play off and beat a team from West who won 9 games and only lost 2 and become a MLS champions is just not interest me at all.
If the US keeps losing as badly as it has been in Golf, Basketball, Baseball, and Ice Hockey, soccer might have a chance here. But then again, I get the impression we Americans just don't care much about int'l competition, yet when we lose, they make a big deal out of it.... I just get the impression we don't try very hard or don't even care at all during int'l events. As for this topic, the world doesn't want us to embrace it. It's becoming more and more clear to me as time goes on. If we do embrace it, and we beat the Euros, they won't be able to live it down as the US is not a true "soccer nation." So, they make sure during all World Cups hosted in Europe that we do badly. Do I even need to point to the US/Italy game as example?
How about we not care what the Europeans or South Americans or Asians or Martians think about MLS and our national team or the fact that our women's team is good or whatever. Let's just concentrate on building soccer in America. I am really convinced that a bunch of you are unable to move your bowels without positive reinforcement from a European. As for the Ryder Cup -- I am clueless as to what to do next. I used to think it was that our golfers stopped taking it seriously, now I have no clue what needs to be done.
In defence of your country men, they didn't ask the question to get some kind of recognition from the rest of the world or it's allowance... They were just curious.
i think it's funny how we americans delude ourselves into thinking that we automatically have the best athletes in any sport. even if football was suddenly at the top of the food chain, we'd still have to show up and play... and frequently lose. millions more fans and millions more dollars pouring into the game wouldn't change that.... especially at the elite club and national levels. france isn't exactly a fitness-crazed nation, but it didn't stop the country from producing maybe the two greatest players of this generation in zizou and henry. cubans drive around La Habana in rust buckets yet field a national baseball team that's indisputably better than ours RIGHT NOW!
I'm a hard-core American soccer fan. Obsessed with the game more than most europeans I met in my 3 months traveling through Europe this summer. I met fewer than a dozen europeans who I could have an informed conversation with about the game in general. I want the game in the US to grow and over take other American sports. BUT I could NOT care less than I do now about how Europeans, Asians, South Americans, Australians, Africans or Antarcticans feel about the growth of, strength of or current size of either MLS, USMNT or anything else relating to soccer in my country. Just like I don't care if badmitton grows like crazy in Luxembourg. I want the game to grow in the US because I want to see games on tv all the time. I want to hear about MY league and I find myself caring less and less about the EPL, La Liga and especially Serie A. So what? I'm not a xenophobe. I just don't give a ratt's @$$ about what is happening in leagues thousands of miles from me because I have no way to experience it first hand or be involved in it with friends in MY daily life. Part of being a true hardcore, love-the-game fan is grabbing onto what is YOURS. Not becuase its the best or biggest but because its YOURS!!! True fans are there through thick and thin, good times and bad times and I'm a fan of the game in the US and I ALWAYS will be no matter what anyone says regardless of where they're from. Rant over.
We need to set up the courses on U.S. soil to favor our game. This means more forced carries, more hazards(both sand and water) and longer rough. We cannot beat the Euros on flat courses where the ball can be run in and where the rough is nonexistent. Back to soccer.
Well, being a native born of Hong Kong, I personally think that soccer is degenerating in my old home. My dad says that HK used to be the best in Asia for a while, and that only few teams in Asia could beat old HK fair and square. Now i'm not gonna take his words as a fact, but it is true that HK has gotten much worse in soccer that it was previously (mostly because of technology and the abandoning of the sport because of new technology, namely play station ). But on the contrary, the people in China would never stop talking about their basketball team and how yao ming is da shiznit lol. HK really failed me in soccer tho, my dad has so much positive things to say about HK soccer and no present support to back up his argument....sigh...and then i moved to Philadelphia
A bit off topic, but I am really sick of Europeans especially those who follow rugby make comments about the NFL being for wussies. There are very few sports as violent as professional football. Just look at the guys who play a few years in the NFL. Most of them have severe arthritis. No sport is as physically demanding as the NFL. If they did not wear pads, people would die. Anyway, I really dont care whether the world wants us to get good at soccer or not. We are getting good and the day is is quickly approaching where we will be a world power. Just because it has not happened yet does not mean it wont.
haha, yea, well, I'd love Hong Kong to get a grip too, just like the US. My dad has tons of stuff to say about how his friends were THAT good, but he really just got nothing to back it up i mean like now that we're in Philadelphia he practically doesn't really want me playing soccer. Everytime i ask him about US soccer all he talks about is that business and commercials don't allow soccer to live and that I shouldn't invest my precious time on soccer here in the US(as if that's the only thing he knew, and then he would go on talking about beckenbauer and pele and cruyff, as if they were the only good thing that happened to US soccer. I think my dad is anti-american too haha). That's really a sad and true thing but seeing how America is supposed to be a melting pot, I don't think my dad knows the fact that kids are trying to "melt" but then they just don't have as much connections as the richer kids do. Hence the 5 million kids playing in America is acctually like 1-2 million in the suburbs and the other 3 in the cities and eventually getting STUCK IN the city and never had a chance to show his/her talents That's another thing, that the kids who really want to play soccer doesn't have the connections especially if they live in the city( i.e. me). My high school coach coached for many years and everytime i tell him i want to try out for DivII or maybe DivI college soccer he says forget it because i wouldn't make it and he tells me he's been coaching for like 20 years and he knows all the facts (and the conversation ends right there for many times). I would agree but I really want to go pro in soccer and I wouldn't want to stay in DivIII cuz thats the last place anyone looks at for recruits My coach thinks like as if I am just never possibly going to play soccer for a living, and i think this comment from another article supports that: Our culture with many young adults' goals of going to college and getting a degree may also be a factor in the lack of star athletes. A culture that has young adults making education their main priority is much different than that of other nations, said Paul Bravo, Los Angeles Galaxy assistant coach. I am the ONLY SOLE person in my high school that brings a ball to school and practice. Just wanted to give a 16 year old's perspective of US soccer, and possibly using the stupid fact that I used to live in China, i give the opinion that i would love for US to embrace soccer
Another thing i thought about the MLS after reading this : http://sundial.csun.edu/media/stora...ite200611162241&sourcedomain=sundial.csun.edu Sorry for not really knowing how a pro team forms but I really wished that if all 50 states had a team, it doesn't matter how much sponsor, maybe just jersey, shorts, socks,and a municipal field in the state. The league needs more teams, and more people playing it, no matter how bad the people are. I agree that Serie A and La liga, or any other international leagues are well known through the talents they produced, but i also believed they got their fame from how many people played in the league.
I just wanna say something about your comment of your dad being anti-American. It may not be anything more than a defensive mechanism on his part to look for the negative in order to compensate for his feelings of loss of the previous culture and identification in HK. I mean, he's here in the US willingingly and possibly hoped to come here for awhile. On the other point, about how soccer is somehow less appreciated here, I think it is steadily improving, just look at the last MLS cup final, genuine fans and stadium atmosphere to rival just about anywhere. On the question of how the soccer culture can change the attitude of youngsters to forsake education for the glimpse of a chance at a professional soccer player career, I cann't see it happening here for a long time if ever. Not that there's anything wrong with it.