I guess we never would have known, but the answer would have been clearer if we'd had a chance to pass on Rossi and did. I rather doubt that would have happened. As far as the size issue, I have four words for you Ritchie Williams Steve Cherundolo. 'Dolo should never be a back in a country that values height. Yet he plays for the US and Germany. How is that possible? He is not the fastest guy on the field. Not the toughest. Not the most skilled. Not some great leaper. But he's pretty fast, pretty tough, pretty skilled, decent ups for his size and he's a good football player. He would not be likely to be a basketball player of any note. He's unlikely to be a volleyballer of any note. Could be a baseball player, I suppose. Golf - who knows. Badminton. Archery. Gymnastics. Probably a decent skiier. Ritchie Williams - short, not exceptionally skilled, tough and focused as nails. Starting US CM for too many games for my taste. Never gonna have a basketball career beyond point guard for a small Catholic DIII college if he's lucky. Tab Ramos is what - 5 7' in boots? I really think there is some truth that there is a natural societal prejudice toward height in the US, Germany and England - and not just in sports. There are lots of studies that suggest taller dudes get better salaries, etc. And there is no doubt that a towering, fast, strong player gets notice, esp as a kid. But there are plenty of American, German and English soccer players who are not tall, not "pure athletes" and have been chosen "despite" not fitting the mold simply because they are good. I remember so fondly some of the games back in the "Sanneh whacks El Blondo in the nuts" days watching Dolo and Sanneh play together - there could not be two more different body types playing the game well in very different ways. Look at Steve and Gooch standing next to each other in a wall and think there is any "type" in US or any soccer. It just ain't so - and wish Rossi had stuck around for us to prove it. In the meantime kids like Duke Lacroix at Penn or Daniel Garcia at Dallas continue to challenge these assumptions. Sure, Duke is a speedster, so that helps, but Garcia has to be smaller than every player on the USWNT. Guy is a straight peanut and ranked in the top 20 youth players in the country. He ain't playing no football or basketball. That is for sure.
His accent is a freakin' Triumph Spitfire crashed headlong into a Dodge Charger on some backroad near Goerme. It is what the Picts spoke before they were run out of Scotland by the Irish. It's what you get if Wallace had children with Grommet and they moved to New Jersey. That is what MadBrad's accent is.
Football (soccer) requires far too many different abilities to make a certain body type better than others. Short players have a low body mass center, so they can dribble more easily. Or at least that's common wisdom. It's also easier to turn on a dime if you're 5'7" and 140 lbs, rather than 6'2" and 190 lbs. A side defender must be able to turn on a dime, to provide cover against a skilled, dribbling winger. Even if the emphasis were initially on the physical, eventually the program figures out more variety is better. So far they are fit, can run at least 90 minutes, are good enough in their roles, and put some courage into it. I think the American program is realizing this, and that's why we see more and more Hispanos (who tend to be smaller) becoming part of the program, the youth squads, and the USMNT. After all, some of the most skilled NTs in the world are composed of rather small players. Heck, Barcelona is jocularly called "the team of the midgets."
A study last year showed that European soccer players were getting taller over the years. Barcelona isn't just a short team, they were the shortest team in all of Europe. That's because they made a conscious decision not to prioritize size at some point. Still, even with them, the goalie and at least one central defender are tall enough.
There is an american player in one of the Barca' youth teams. In the specific thread, I read what one of the coaches told his father or (maybe it was mentioned in the thread?) that Barcelona doesn't look at size, or speed, but more about their 'skill'/touch, and 'soccer brain' on the ball more than anything else. Size to them didn't matter.
Makes sense. Doesn't make sense. Do they also not care if he's fast? Do they care if he's strong? You don't have to rate height highly, but it's nonsense to act like it doesn't deserve any consideration. (not directed at you..yadda yadda yadda)
This was at the youth level.... but I mean, I think they def. aren't as big in size as they are over touch and skill. That's why Puyol, as old and slow as he is, is a starting CB for them, and a HELL of a one.
I know. I'm not knocking the idea that they should be looking at how well someone understands the game, but it's even dumber to completely disregard other aspects.
I disagree. In theory, you're right.... but there are guys out there that are small, and killing in positions that 'big men' should be ruling.
Height isn't the only factor, and it never should be. There are players in the world who aren't fast. That doesn't mean you should never take speed into consideration.
My point being, Physical limiatations shouldn't be THAT big of an issue, whether its speed, size, etc. But I will end there.
The point is though that Barcelona took the "soccer brain and skill above all else" to such an extreme that they became the smallest team in all of Europe. And were ultra successful, and came up with Xavi, Iniesta and Messi because they had made that conscious decision. No other team in Europe took it to the same extreme. Sure, the small superstar would find a place in other teams, but there was a limit to how many small technical players they had room for. Barcelona moved the goal posts.
A did not lead to B. A made B an option, but A absolutely did not directly lead to B. Please don't correlate small with intelligent because it doesn't make sense.
Except in practice, A did lead to B. I never thought that shorter players are smarter, but now that you mention it, there is the possibility that shorter players are forced to be smarter, simply because they don't have the mass to hold defenders off with strength only. I've actually seen Iniesta quoted as saying that was the case for him. It' not just that Barcelona became shorter than average. They became the shortest team out of all the teams in all the European leagues! And if that team was being mentioned as one of the greatest teams of all time, in an era where increased speed size and athleticism was the trend, this is not some coincidence.
Reyna, Ramos, Dolo, Armas, Hejduk, Williams, Torres, Cobi Jones, Donovan. None of them are real big guys. Mastroeni and Hodlen are real big either. While I do accept the height bias theory generally in society, the idea that short players are given fair shots with the national team is absurd.
Humans are getting taller over the years. Only three generations ago, the average German was over a full inch smaller. It's an evolutionary thing, like having fewer and fewer points in our molars.
Einstein had a little known hypothesis. It's kind of like entropy or something, but it says that in all USMNT bigsoccer threads there's a point where either American coaches "preferences for size and speed over skill" or "coaching youth teams to win instead of to play properly" will become the focus.
Albert was a smart chap. I have my own theory. The Pendulum Theory. Everything related to culture swings like a pendulum, and after enough teams start emphasizing skill and soccer IQ, we'll see that the few teams stuck to the old fashion style of doing things through physicality and hustle, will start dominating the skillful, brainy sides --just because their rarity makes them unexpected. And the pendulum will swing again. Away from Barcelona, and more towards Stoke.
I love this part. Is this the stage where somebody tries to convince me that somebody being short means they're not an elite athlete? Let me assure you that they are all VERY athletic and that helps them a bunch. And yes, it's a coincidence. To say it isn't means that you think smaller = smarter, or smaller = better soccer player. Both of which are major wastes of time to try and argue if you don't already understand it. So, yes, it's a coincidence.
That coincidence thing is going to be a hard sell. The paradigm-shifting team is all the way out on the extreme end of the bell-curve of height, and there's *zero* connection? You've given your answer, but hmmmm. I'd explore other possibilities, like extreme possession soccer keeping the ball on the ground, and keeping teammates closer to each other, and so taking away the advantages that height and longer legs can give, while at the same time rewarding the advantages of a lower center of gravity, like being able to make multiple changes of direction faster.
Anyone know where we can get a count of consecutive passes against the Scots? I would be very interested in how many preceded each goal and how many 10+, 20+, etc passing sequences the US strung together.
Arlo White said something in a tweet about a 31 pass sequence (obviously made by short, skilled players and not tall, athletic ones - to bring this thread back on topic).