You are totally wrong. MANY countires across the globe love these sports and maybe the goal for them is to play in USA but FC Porto and Real Madrid have a basketball team?
Typical whining that I’d expect from a non-alpha male who has not been selected by the high-status females. /s
He is directing snark at @NietzscheIsDead , whose childhood was depicted in the Netflix series Adolescence.
american sports culture is not alpha male but i am bigger so i everybody follow me. there were so many videos of mma beating up that mentality out of football players in usa. first those two mma figters that beat two oklahoma ollege football players on party where they had that"alpha male" mentality of i am biger you do what i say and follow and funniest one was brian urlacher got into argument with bas rutten and told bas he will beat him and bas was smaller then him well brians buddies told him who the guy he wants to beat is he came and appologze go watch best damn sport show period and inserr bas rutten into it search engine.and only guy in football that had that same mentality was gooch guy though he is tough everytime he played for milan or benfica nobody was intimidated by him and that was his all he had. he even went and insulted flamish guy in belgium he thought he could be insulting people guy called him n-word and guydid nothing just complained he called me this and that
I’m not sure what you are saying here exactly, but MMA has a different niche in the alpha culture. They’re like the extreme alphas here that are a little too violent for the high status women. The Venn diagram where MMA and soccer meets is a really small group, but you’re much more likely to find American football players and wrestlers who spend time in MMA.
Madrid basketball attendances aren't bad. Liga ACB: 8,592 and EuroLeague: 8,914. The Spanish domestic league has the fourth highest attendance after NBA, Euroleague and WNBA. But you don't see many people wandering the streets of Madrid wearing Real Madrid basketball jerseys.
In the US, scouting young talent tends to prioritizes athleticism (speed, power, explosiveness) over technical skills. There seems to be a common belief that physical traits can’t be taught, while technical abilities can be developed later. That mindset might explain why many Americans assume, as I regularly read, they're not good at soccer because top athletic prospects are often steered into other sports early on. The thing is, while athleticism does matter in soccer, you simply can’t reach the top without solid technical abilities. In soccer countries, dribbling is highly regarded. Being able to beat defenders one-on-one is the way to earn respect. I don’t feel that kind of skill is as appreciated in the US, but I may be wrong. Maybe that's part of why soccer isn't fully understood in the US as a sport, and therefore why mainstream Americans don't get the appeal.
And as long as that's the case, the USMNT will forever remain an average to poor national team. I suppose the U.S. will continue to not learn this lesson and will continue to lose over and over again until they do.
German scouting has also been criticized domestically for focusing on physical maturation over skill level. The Germans are going through an introspective phase.
Whenever I watch our U 17s or U 20s, I see the literal exact opposite…our players are small and slow compared to the opponents, pretty good technically…and absolutely woeful tactically. How often do you watch our youth teams? Like I said, it’s the complete opposite of what you wrote here.
You certainly know better than I do. I'm referring to the 2022 World Cup, which was indeed a while ago. I remember the US national team as a very athletic and powerful team, but with a very stereotypical style of play. Now if this has changed, good for you.
I thought the US team looked physically small compared to England and the Netherlands. The US squad had the 17th highest average height in Qatar.
Physicality isn't a matter of height to me. It's more about the physical intensity that is brought on the field. Now the games are quite old, but I think I remember a team starting in giving a lot of physical impact in their first half and getting out of gas in second. Maybe I remember wrong?
It is kind of hard to generalize about a countries development system from one world cup. In a developing soccer nation (which I think most agree that we are), watching the full national team and comparing to developed nations is not necessarily reflective of what the goals and methodology of the youth system. At any level, Physicality and athleticism can compensate to some degree for a lack of technical ability. The reality is that the top players generally are BOTH highly skilled AND athletic freaks. One can compensate somewhat for a lack of the other but it one is lacking, than greatness will be lacking as well. The top teams have rosters filled with players combining both qualities. Everyone else has to compensate the best that they can by using what they have. If a nation is lacking in skill and technical ability, then they will compensate with athleticism when possible and appropriate. The lack of technical ability compared to developed soccer nations is reflective of our stage of development. All that being said, I am sure that there are plenty of players that get more attention and support than perhaps they should because they are athletically gifted.
You're missing the context that several key players hadn't fully recovered from injury and and with the short recovery between games they struggled for fitness.
Paul is right. One thing our then-coach was criticized for was using the same midfield every match, and using them in a high energy, pressing style. Most fans felt he wore them out, leading to a poor performance against Holland (who, to be fair and also obvious, were better than us and clear favorites anyway. But our fatigue made an upset much less likely.)
Fact is that soccer outside maybe like 10% of families is the 3rd of 4th sport down the totem pole. It doesn't help that it's also played mostly during the same season as both travel baseball and organized school FB. I know personally I gave up soccer as soon as I started played travel baseball. It just was a lesser priority and I couldn't do both in summer. Fall in our school all the best athletes usually did football and track, maybe both. I'm old enough to have thought that by 2025 this would have changed and maybe soccer would have passed baseball and basketball as participant sports for kids but it just hasn't seemed to happen. One thing working against soccer is that seemingly for AA kids in the south if their parents don't want them going into the potential danger of football they are now having them do baseball, not soccer. I don't know, it just doesn't seem possible anymore that soccer becomes big here. It's had a ton of time to cook, our domestic league is almost 30 years old and in many ways we seemed to have a better player pool relative to the world from 94-2008.
Still can't believe there are so many schools not offering soccer. NFHS 2023-24 boys high school participation Baseball Schools: 16,146; participants 471,701 Soccer Schools: 12,754; participants 467,483
I don't know how old you are but I am old enough to have had similar beliefs on how long it would take us to become one of the better teams in the world. I began playing in the early late 60's and early 70's and by the time I was in my twenties and later 30's I was seeing far more young kids that could play the game and weren't just kicking. I thought that by the time 90's came around we would be competitive. My error was not simple but multifold. Among other things, I failed to truly understand the importance of and what is meant by a soccer culture in terms of soccer development. I failed to understand the total picture of how long it takes to develop a soccer culture from scratch; it is a generational process but like population curves, it is exponential. The first part of the curve is relatively flat due to small numbers and quality of players in the first generation(s). With each succeeding generation, the population increases exponentially but at the same time, the quality of knowledge and instruction etc from the parent also improves. My son, if he has children, will have a much broader and deeper understanding of the game than I did with him. Another huge factor is the density of the culture. It started with a small number of players scattered in pockets around the country but the size of those pockets is growing in size and density. I know many disagree but taking the full picture and comparing where we were in the late 60's/70's to the current state I believe it is difficult not to say that soccer will stop growing in popularity...and if it doesn't stop, it will eventually become "popular" (use whatever definition you want for "popular"). The problem many people have (not saying you) is being too young and not having the necessary full picture. Of course I am sure that there are some as old or older than me that have the opposite opinion