http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/5649612 Foxsport's soccer webpage currently features an article by Jim Reineking in which he forms a US Nat's squad from America's "top athletes". Nearly his entire list is composed of NFL players. First off, I find this article to be disrespectful of the hardwork and talent of the current US National team players. DMB and Landon Donovan posses speed and stamina that's on a world class level. Keller has reflexes on par with any athlete in the world, and plays on the level of the world's best goal keepers...which brings me my next point. By arguing that Kevin Garnett would be some phenom of a goal keeper had he chose to play soccer instead of basketball implies that he would be leaps and bounds better than Keller. Assuming that Keller can be equated with other big name keepers, which I believe he can, the author is thus indirectly implying that Garnett would be far better than any goal keeper in the world. Thus, Reineking is proposing that NFL and NBA players are better athletes than UEFA soccer players. This is enfuriating to read because it's this idea that's at the foundation of Joe NFL-fans bias against soccer as "not a real sport". These guys think Terrel Owens would run circles around Nesta, Makalele, etc. They don't understand that Terrel Owens would be a winded, useless glob of muscle by the 30th minute. Joe NFL thinks bigger is better, but what he doesn't get is that Europe and S. America have their own overgown, meat head, beast-of-a-man populations...but they play rugby because they don't have the stamina to play soccer. Reineking reveals this misconception in the intro. to his article in which he gives a description of Gooch's impressive size, then go's on to say that Gooch would be nothing special in the NFL. No crap! Gooch's size would be nothing special if he played rugby too. Gooch has probably the max size possible for a soccer player. Anyone dramatically bigger than Gooch and muscle/size becomes detrimental to the stamina required to run for 90 minutes without pause. Moreover, Gooch plays central defense which requires the least amount of stamina of any position aside from keeper. No way could someone with Gooch's physique play on the wing or attacking mid! So this whole NFL athletes are better than UEFA athletes is crap. Sure Torrel Owens speed wouldn't hurt him on the pitch, but he'd have to drop a good amount of his muscle mass if he were to be effective for 90 minutes. Professional soccer players tend to be slender and wirery for the same reason that marathon runners do...the sport requires stamina! So Reineking can keep his NFL dream team, I'll take Landon, Beasley, and Keller.
what a disgraceful article. The guy obviously knows nothing about the game, for the reasons you pointed out.
The real problem is that the top athletes in each high school play football and basketball. A few of them go on to college teams, and fewer still to professional ranks. The ones who would have been great soccer players never try the sport. High schools that have had their football teams disbanded for various reasons often have powerful soccer teams that win state titles. This may be changing, but what I often hear is that soccer is still a sport supported by mothers who think it is safer than football.
I realize we are all soccer loyalists....but I personally would rather see Michael Vick after a life of grooming running on the pitch than Donovan or Beasley. The NBA and NFL guys are better athletes........physically and athletically.
But can they kick a ball about? Dat's the ultimate question. Just because you are a good at running and throwing a ball about, doesn't mean you can run with it and kick it. Anyone who thinks differently is kidding themselves.
Hence the part about a life of grooming.....to play soccer. I'm sure if they had the drive to learn how to dribble about or throw the ball about...they would have had the same resolve to learn to kick the ball about. I love the guys on our national team as much as any of you do, but WAKE UP....If you don't think Michael Vick (as an example) is a better athlete than say a Landon Donovan or DMB....YOU'RE CRAZY!
Physically = Size, Strength. Athletically = Pace, Jumping, etc.... There are intangibles that need to be questioned...that of "court" vision or "pitch" vision for those on here that refuse to acknowledge other sports. However, I'm sure that if Vick can handle a few 6'8 320 (4.8 40 running) beasts chasing him...he can handle a 5'8 160 Italian running at him.
I think he means bigger AND better. as much as I hate articles like this, the premis is true, and its the kind of thing that non-soccer fans will be thinking of when/if they watch the cup. "what if the athlete I know played this game I don't know?" and it's still true in the US that a lot of good athletes who play youth soccer quit in favor of something else when they get older, so you can't argue against the fact that we don't draw from our best athletes in this sport yet. i just wish articles like this would spend a little time talking about the skills and athleticism our players do have. maybe the novice reader would learn little something then.
I think it is (insert journalists name) way of just puffing out his/her American Chest and saying...."we'd be better than you if...." They are fun to read, and I do often think about guys like Antwaan Randle El and Michael Vick being Soccer players instead.
The NFL players are used to playing approximately 6(SIX) minutes per game. After about 15 minutes of soccer most would collapse from exhaustion and would be clamoring for the O2 mask- and apart from the QB, there are no skill players in the NFL. After about 5 minutes of soccer the NBA guys would be asking for a Full Timeout and wondering why the coach hasnt drawn any plays for them. The baseball guys would have never left the bench- they know where they belong.
Educate us please. Donovan and Beasley are both faster and have more stamina than Vick. So in what way is Vick a better athlete? He can bench press more. Is that you benchmark? In football he can run around like a chicken with his head cut off, but in soccer he would rarely be the best runner on the field. He's a great athlete for football not for soccer.
Brilliant statement.....I'm sure you've thought this out, so I'll put it down easily. If the NBA or NFL (not many raw athletes in baseball) guys practiced and conditioned for soccer...they probably wouldn't show up to a match in football or basketball shape. You see, there are different types of conditioning for different types of athletic settings. Football players condition for bursts and strength, basketball players condition for stop-go-stop-go-stop-go situations, and soccer players condition for endurance.
and thts what people do not understand "Donovan would out stamina Vick on a football field"... yeah but if u asked Landon to play QB, he would die prolly pass out on the first play... its different conditioning... now if u switched the two and had them training for that sport for a couple of years, u would see the players get better acclimated to their new environment
It doesn't work that way sadly. Although if you do put a lot of time into the sport and train hard, you can develop yourself into a reasonable professional - but to become something special (aka a Wayne Rooney or Ronaldinho) you have to be born with a unique talent. You can really teach some of the best players in the world what they do. The problem is not just getting a load of kids who would normally play basketball and football into soccer - its about trying to get those with a talent on the pitch and get it recognised and worked up to a proffesional level. In an ideal world, the large number of young kids playing the sport would equal a good return of players - it isn't always the case. Especially when coaches aren't very good and there is a large apathy towards the game. Its not so much about getting as many in as possible to play the sport, its about getting young players with a rare talent spotted from a field of sports and academics that could lose their potential gifts. This is probably a whole generation out there in the States who have been lost sadly. And most probably aren't 'athletes' either. I don't think Donovan is a better 'athlete' than Vick, but I think he's a better player with a ball at his feet. Again, you can have a team full of pure 100% athletes if it doesn't equate to any amount of talent, they will fall short. Just learn about a player called Socrates before you think 'athletic prowess' is the ultimate solution to the answer.
I feel like this guys claim is the equivalent of "If Kevin Garnett rode a bicycle, he'd be better than Lance Armstrong". That aside, the part that frustrates me about this argument is it exposes the fact that this author and his Joe NFL crowd don't seem to recognize that soccer athletes look different. It seems to me that they would look at Patrick Viera and think, "That lanky, skinny guy is one of the best midfielders in the world? Terrel Owens would run circles around him!" when in fact, after 30 minutes of full field runs, Viera would be running circles around a wobbly knee'd Owens.
Throw any of these football players on a soccer field and you will see the slowest, most uncoordinated, most unconditioned, and unagile player on the field. It's really a ridiculous article. As an overall athlete I would take Onyewu or a guy like Thierry Henry over any of these guys.
While what you are saying is true, it is very misleading. Professional atheletes in other sports finely tune their body for that particular sport (except for baseball, they seem fat and lazy if you ask me). They are so highly specialized that there is no way that they would make it on the pitch but this also works the other way. There is no way a soccer player would survive in the NFL. They're just too small and most of them probably cant catch very well considering they never use their hands (punter/kicker is a different story). I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that the vast majority of them can't dunk a basketball. I think the spirit of the article is to say that if all of America's atheletes would have concentrated on nothing but soccer since they were 5, we would be a lot better off in the soccer world. It shouldn't be taken litteraly/insultingly that any one of these guys can step in and put everyone else on the pitch to shame.
i hope this guy is just joking. Kevin Garnett as a Goalkeeper?? KG would probably be the worst GK in the world!
35% of NFL players are obese- is that "fine-tuning"? Can you picture William "the Fridge" Perry playing soccer? And right now because of the size required for the NFL there are virtually no receivers who are especially adept at catching the ball- there is no equivalent to Ronaldinho or even LD in the NFL receivers corps. And forget the NBA entirely- have any of you sat courtside?) . There are plenty of uncoordinated freaks who can barely move:Shaq, "big dog", Dirk, etc
Of course, if Viera went across the middle once against Polamalu, he'd be little more than a stain on the grass. Sachin
Which is a bit hard to argue with. On the other hand, this persistent habit of suggesting that the 5% of the world population that doesn't regard soccer as one of the most important sports (i.e., the U.S.) would blow away the other 95% if they changed their minds and took the sport seriously, is just plain silly. If there's something in the water that makes our athletes better than everybody else's, why is it that my kid can hang with all American-born boys in footraces, including dozens of African-Americans, but gets smoked by the African-born boys? Eh? So I say, it's the other way around. If the NFL guys all played soccer, the U.S. team would be stronger but world soccer would be essentially unchanged. But if the world guys took up gridiron, the NFL as we know it would be completely altered. Thierry Henry (to name one example) would take on NFL starting receiver's job, and Thierry would be a damn sight better than the guy he replaced.
According to National Geographic, 30 million people play soccer in the US-is that a large enough talent pool for you? The sports culture is also important: why is it that Romania, Hungary, Finland, and Sweden have the most Olympic medals /capita? They are a sports frenzied, health conscious people where sport has replaced religion.
You're clearly missing the point. OBVIOUSLY there are huge guys in football that couldn't play soccer.....But I think you'd find that some of those guys that stand 6'7 300 could run faster 40's than a lot of soccer players. Obviouisy their endurance wouldn't be quite up to par. But, there are also 2,000 other guys in the NFL that if they were groomed their entire life to be soccer players, would be stunning soccer players. I'm going to guess that you grew up playing nothing but soccer was made fun of by the other athletes at your school...am I correct?
How would Thierry Henry change the game of football? He isn't faster than ANY first WR in the NFL, He isn't stronger than any WR in the NFL, and I guarantee his hands aren't as good as ANY WR in the NFL.......let alone college football. In fantasy football....I'll give you Wayne Rooney, Henry, Ronaldinho, and Ronaldo. I'll take Marvin Harrison, T.O., Steve Smith, and I'll take 40 year old Jerry Rice... I bet I win