There seems to be a non-zero chance that we could have the better talent over the next ten years. And by non-zero I mean over 50%.
I read through every post of this. Seeing 2 decade old takes is great. I was really interested in that argument about whether rugby players or football players are tougher, shame it didn't last very long @wasdykec and @HalfManHalfAmazing we need a resolution
One guy said the other was "buttered", the wave of nostalgia hit me harder than Sanneh's header hit off the side netting
I felt like building a time machine and whispering "psst. FIFA 2010 and YouTube soccer skillz will be key".
He was absolutely key for Chelsea to make it past Real Madrid in the semis and brought some danger in the last part of the final.
I recall that BigSoccer suffered a huge crash (or was it hacked?) not long after the 2002 WC, which wiped out pretty much everything. This must be one of the earliest threads from after it got restored.
This post from the first page was pretty prescient. By 2014, there was discussion about how we kept ending up in Groups of Death precisely because, as one of the strongest teams in our geographic pot, we were one of the teams that could potentially create a Group of Death.
Also FIFA's old seeding format kind of screwed the USA over (and in theory Mexico, although they always seemed to luck out with the draws) because they always put CONCACAF in a pot with AFC, meaning USA was always guaranteed 2 UEFA/CONMEBOL + possibly 1 African, still often a strong team, while being separated from most of the weakest teams in the tournament.
If we improve as much in the next 20 years as we did in the last 20 years, I'll be happy. Now let's send this thread back to the darkness whence it came until 2040.
This one's from Sept, '02. The oldest thread in this forum is from Jul 27, 2002. I'd bump it because it's a doozy, but it's rightfully locked.