not trying to take away from the American players in Europe at all, but I think they benefitted from the English language too. Language is extremely important for any sport that requires communication among athletes. In that sense, an American player has a big plus at Europe over any other Asian player in language. Any Asian footy fan will know how much their players are having hard time because of the language barrier. That is probably the reason why US can send goalies to England. Goalies require a LOT of talking with the rest of the teammates and American players don't have to spend hours a day trying to say "to your left." It would also explain why there are American talents concentrated in England and less on Italy/Spain/Germany. But even when they go to Italy, they STILL have less language-problems because the english language is international.
it is always absolute madness when you have to play with usa and korea, two of the biggest fanboy producers on bs. hamatachi likes to live in stillness. hamatachi likes to listen to the harmony of nature, flowing sound of creek, birds' singing, and echo of my girl's sweet voice reflecting from a mountain enriched by full of trees. but alas, the world that i dreamt has been devastated by those merciless and barbaric little goblins. there is no way out to the freedom from this gloomy everyday living as long as they don't stop howling and invading my privacy every night. god please help me
Does someone think U.S. is better than Korea or Japan are now? I hope not. I think the 3 are at about the same level.
I would agree that the three countries are on the same level right now. One is not head and shoulders better than the others. If only Japan had not pulled out of the friendly in Seattle, for obvious and levelheaded security reasons, we would all have a clearer picture. I look forward to finding out who wins in LA. I had forgotten Inamoto and Ono's names I think they are talented and will have good careers. I don't want to bring up U-17, U-20, or U-23 results so I won't. Korea and the US have an even record but Japan beat the US back in 1993 so they must be the best. Fans of all three countries can point out how they are going to be better so here it goes. Donovan, Beasley, Convey, Bocanegra, Howard, the second best player named Edson in the world, Martino, Twellman, Clark, Spector, Szetela, Gaven, Magee, Whitbread, Johnson, and Adu who scores goals with his magical power to confuse opponents with his positive PR while being carried around the field by his agent, Phil Knight, and Sir Alex. Most haven't done crap except current players Donovan, Beasley, Bocanegra, and Howard. Japan is in better shape than the US because they avoided the possibility of injury by not making it to the quarters of the World Cup where they outplayed Germany but lost. I can't wait to see how 2006 goes; both Japan and Korea will be there because China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are no Costa Rica, Jamaica, Guatemala, Canada, or Honduras. I'm not saying that the US is better now, just that we will all see at the Olympics and in 2006. And this game in LA is not the end all be all of who is better. Unless the US U-20's win then that will show you all suck and we are better based on no concrete or complete evidence.
Re: Bob Morocco / Hey, your posts are actually quite reasonable! Except for: "don't want to bring up U-17, U-20, or U-23 results so I won't. Korea and the US have an even record but Japan beat the US back in 1993 so they must be the best." Which I think is a bit of sarcasm from your part, and; "China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are no Costa Rica, Jamaica, Guatemala, Canada, or Honduras," Well, I dunno about that! (KSA suffered quite badly in the last WC, but traditionally they are a quality side; Iran did beat US in '98 (dunno if they went backwards since then, tho); and China is up and coming (may take several miore years but...) But otherwise, a nice post
First, the Japanese-American I mentioned is Futagaki. Two, I never see the US is better than S. Korea and Japan. I just say in U-23 games, don't expect they are suprior than US. Third, in the past record, the youth of Japan definately was better than US. So this game is a measure to see if the gap is closed even though no Europe-based players will attend this game.
ha ha ha, who are you? Lee Corso? next thing you know you will be doing commentary next to Kirk Herbstriet and be saying "Yo" all day!
Hold on a second there, Rhinestone Cowboy. What about guys in the English First Division? Marcus Hahnemann has been huge for Reading and Eddie Lewis has been a key component in Preston's attack. We've also got guys who are supposed to be invisible (i.e. defenders) like Gregg Berhalter (Cottbus) and Oguchi Onyewu (La Louviere). Believe it or not, they're not all Jovan Kirovski.
imo-Japanese players in general are more technically gifted that their US and Korean counterparts, one just has to look at their wealth of talented midfielders and their fine youth system developed around the Brazilain style, but US can tip the scale in we are more physical and I give the edge to the US in team cohesiveness.Korea, also gifted in team play and determination, may not be as technically gifted as the Japanese, yet, but they are rising fast too..I don't think there is enough evidence to say one NT is better than the other... If I HAD to pick one who would provide consistent winning results over a short period of time, I'd probably go with Japan.
As I mentioned a long time ago, I STILL hav eno idea where the notion that Japan is a technically gifted side comes from. Aside from Nakata, Ono, and Nakamura, there isn't a single japanese player who are considered great players. Korea is, in my opinion, technically more gifted than both the US and Japanese national teams. I think you may have played too much of Winning Eleven there, bro to think Japan is a technically more superior side than Korea is. Almost everytime Korea has played Japan, Korea has displayed overwhelming superiority on the pitch, but of course you dont know this since you probably have never seen Kor-*#*#*# matches consistently and again probably saw the biased team stats on a video game like winning Eleven. Comparing just the three nations, I'd say South Korea's national team is a more complete squad than the Japanese and American squads. Of course I'm not saying the South Korean NT is flawless. compared to European national teams, we still have a long ways to go. And in hindsight, I also think the U.S. NT is much stornger than the Japanese NT. The American squad has at least one good thing going for it in their ability to counter attack with great efficiency to opposing teams that play attacking football like South Korea where teams constantly on the offense can hav vulnerabilities in their defensive lines.
Why the hell would someone be "Japanese-American" if they were born and raised in the US? It's like saying I am Irish-American because my dad was born in Ireland. It's absurd....of course unless he was born and raised in japan and then moved to the US. If someone's father was from America and then his son was born and raised in South Korea, would you call him American-Korean? I am not really sure how it works in other parts of the world. Is there a stereotype that only caucasians and people can be considered Americans, but anyone else has to have a hyphen? Wow, maybe I should start a new thread. And I am not trolling if it seems like I am, I just wanted to expand on a topic covered within this thread.
Is this game open to the public? I noticed it's not listed as an event on the HDC Calendar This could be just a glorified scrimmage, meaning nothing.
I have to chime in on this! Given that the best measure of teams is the world cup I would say that the US and Korea are about even. Korea advanced a round further than the US but did so with what can be called a bit of controversy. No offense to the Koreans, who played great, but Spain should have won that game and everyone who saw it knows it. In their last three matchups the US and Korea are 1-1-1 with each team winning a friendly at home while tieing the match at the world cup. Now Korea did dominate that match, but they did have a little advantage, namely 50k screaming fans. Now the both teams seem to be a little superior to the Japanesse given that both have made it to more WC recently and have done better. The one thing going for the US is that we have advanced out of the first round when playing on the road while neither Japan nor Korea has proven they can do that. Granted one tournament does not make a team, but it's all we have to go by.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I've seen Korea play more times than I care to..and sorry to to further difuse your thought, but I don't know whatever winning eleven is...I assume a video game...when I say technically superior, I think I made it clear that I meant individual skill...if you can't see that my friend, then, I'm sorry for you...just ask the rest of the football playing world(besides certain xenephobic Korean fans, you know, the one's that thought a decisive win over the US in the WC was certain after beating Poland, even though their first team couldn't score on a CONCACAF opponent in the Gold Cup two months prior) and see what answer you'll get.
Badazz is probably correct. No offense to the Japanese but their new age players (u-22) are crap compared to Korea's. US, I dunno.
Why don't you just say that the 'U.S. is better' instead of going around in circles? Sorry but AFC is stronger than CONCACAF. Bye.
No.. It will be on the center practice field and will be a closed match.. They were worried about too many people showing up for the practice fields because of Freddy Adu... Using the stadium would have meant quite a financial commitment for such a match. Perhaps with a small charge and a little "free press" promotion they could have done that but that's not the case this time.
Do you guys know why FIFA rates USA in their ranks higher than S. Korea and Japan? In fact, all three teams are in same 2nd tier level now, but compare with Japan and S. Korea, US begins to produce youth players better than what it has before. For example, In goalkeeper, Fridel and Keller both had to either start in a mid-tab first division team or second division team, but a young Tim Howard straight went from MLS club to start in Man. U. In the past, only a young O'Brien started working in Ajax's reserve team, but just last weekend, there are three 18/19 Yanks played for reserve games for Liverpool, Arsenal, and Man. U. For both Japan and S. Korea, maybe you can say: "those young players are as good as Nakata/Hong...etc.", but what US can say is "those young players are far better than Reyna/Ramos at that age ..."
The FIFA Coca-Cola rankings. Very reliable. But of course, the United States has the most registered soccer players in the world. So it's only natural.
It certainly helped that USA played two full years of WC qualifiers while Japan and Korea played nothing but friendlies (save the '01 Confed Cup) between 2000 and the World Cup. Guess which games count more towards FIFA rankings? That, and the decent record against Mexico, who in turn has a not-bad record in Europe. As for the youths, we really won't know how good they are until the next World Cup or the one after, will we? Until then, we can only speculate. But from what I'm reading, Korean youngsters are experiencing a golden age of sorts.