Very true, i mean, seeing how being with the ball all your life is the only way a player can be good. Many soccer players, even myself, is just swept away by everyday life in the US, such as fatty foods, video games, and tough control-freak school districts. Many people i knew who plays great soccer is older but a grade lower than me. I myself kept my grades up because i really want to play college soccer, but truth be told keeping my grades up in 3 Advanced placement classes (i should mention that to me they're quite difficult classes), while practicing soccer, and often getting swept away by material goods is one task that is quite hard to follow. And might i comment on the way college recruiters recruit!!!! (here's where i get really mad) the colleges all talked to 3 african/jamaican players from another school on my all-star team in this scout kinda game. Sure, i might not be as good ball controllers as those guys, but those guys just dribbled dribbled and dribbled, they are slow to passing the ball and team work, exactly why we lost like 5-0 that day.
Soccer, like any other human endeavour, you go with a proven method, i.e. African over Asian, that's what the scouts know, it's up to you to prove them wrong. BTW you brought up Div 2 pro clubs. My local USL div2 club , the Western Mass Pioneers has quite a few college players in the team. Another outlet for you to consider. Good luck.
jamaican players ball controllers????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
lol don't hate that much, the way i said jamaicans was because i don't wanna screw anyone's ethnicity
I'll admit i only read half the comments on this thread as there was too much bitchiness & xenophobia going on. Results matter. In the last few world cups the US has done ok. Some of the team, Reyna for example are getting older & need replacing before they start to make too many mistakes ( like Seaman). The national league is of a reasonable standard from what i've seen on tv, maybe english championship level. Its unfair to compare the mls to the j-league as in Japan the only other main sport is baseball. Mls is competing against basketball, NFL, ice hockey, tracter pulls etc. As long as the league is expanding, hopefully to each state having at least 1 team each, then football will eventually make it as 1 of the top 3 sports in the US.
As someone probably considered a "latinosnob" who prefers to watch South American soccer and the Mediterranean leagues(loaded with South Americans) I can say that American kick and run soccer played in front of half-empty stadiums is just not as entertaining as soccer that has had time to develop for 100+ years overseas. Only a serious soccer fan(like me) would rather watch what he consideres boring soccer over no soccer at all. I was hoping to see some attractive soccer when the Chivas USA and Miami Fusion came to town, but they where even worse. A little flair wouldn't hurt...
The world want the US to embrace futbol. But don't want Yanks comein and think it is their devine right to dominate the game. Like some loud mouth US fans think. The world want the US to take its time and pay its dues in creating the tradition and rasie the young around the sport first.
Funny tiger comments like that, a man who earned fame and fortune playing and competing in some cases with 70 year olds. What a manly game he plays. Golf is peace of crap game wasting an otherwise useful land. Go to Africa and see the paper cities, with people live packed like sardines next to big Golf clubs. What a shame. Commenst like this make me puke.
Such as what, baseball? Basketball? Women's lacrosse? We no longer hold the world championship in ANY of those sports. The globalization of sport is a good thing -- both importing and exporting. Here in the U.S., we even have leagues for Irish hurling and Aussie Rules football. And we have a Colombian driving in NASCAR next year.
Soccer actually used to be the second biggest sport here,especially in the 1920's. Around the beginning of the 40's its popularity died off. In fact in 1885 the United States and Canada played a friendly match,first outside of Great Britain.
In the northeast and parts of the south (St. Louis,a city which had their own "league")And the northeast had a league too. here's an example: http://www.sover.net/~spectrum/year/1925.html (I don't live in New England though)