What if the South won the Civil War, who would be better in soccer -- the Union or the Confederacy? personally i think the Union would be better because fewer northerners would have migrated south, meaning that the immigrant communites would all remain in the north.
Hey! This thread again. Actually if the South had won, they may have been able to establish the "Latin Empire" they wanted, so they'd have all those Mexican, Central American, and Carribean players to draw from as well. Assuming they weren't like South Africa used to be.
This is one of the things that make the loss of the old threads so disheartening. I bet I could pull up three or four older versions. It might be cool to see if we arrived at different conclusions over the years.
No, because there are only 3 logical conclusions to make from the south winning the Civil War. 1) Any other states that wished to leave the US would feel empowered to do so. 2) The South would be widely different from state to state in laws and regulations. 3) Nascar would be really huge with soccer players in California.
y'know what's really interesting? think of how strong the austrians would be right now if world war I had gone the other way! yugoslavians, croatians, romanians, et. al. - all playing for the red, white, and red! and you can be damn sure that they would have taken a big chunk of northern italy at the peace conference following the war. three world cups for that withered italian state? i think not! the 'magnificent magyars' of the 50's? they'd have been the 'awesome austrians'! who'd have thought that von kluck's turn toward paris and the german halt at the battle of the marne would eventually have such a dramatic affect on the state of the world?!! and, wait! what if the roman empire had never collapsed??!!! talk about a dominant footy power...
And would Austria-Hungary have played together, or separately? I can't remember offhand what they did in the pre-World War I era. The Byzantine Empire would have had a good team, if we're counting the territory under its control at its peak.
this is an excellent point. how can we be certain that a people who demanded their own parliament wouldn't also demand their own footy side? conversely, however, if the hungarians would recognize the austrian emperor as their king, who's to say they wouldn't line up behind austria's gaffer, as well? resolution on this will prove difficult.
please. the home countries won't even play together now. the british would likely want seperate sides (and FAs) for every colony, so that each would have a pending vote, and thereby entirely control FIFA.
I would say the Mongols, but they never controlled UEFA. So, Roman Empire it is. France and the Netherlands have done respectably with their colonies though.
indeed, the empire would be odds-on favorites to take the cup every time around. however, we must consider that when armenius defeated varus and his legions at the battle of teutoberg forest in 9 a.d., he was, at the most fundamental level securing the future of the DFB. so while rome would have enjoyed the talents of every italian, spaniard, frog, southslav, and much more, in the 70s; they still would have had to go up against a german side featuring beckenbauer, mueller, et.al.. it's not unreasonable, also, to assume that this side might also include some nordic stock that went on to become dutch - namely, cruyff, krol, and that lot. the latin powerhouse would surely have faced some stiff germanic opposition in the 70s. for what it's worth, my first post here was designed to gently mock the silliness of this thread. it is now clear that i have become the worst offender. i now shamefully withdraw.
I think the Ottomon Empire would've given the Holy Roman Empire a run for it's money in it's heyday, and what if Napoleon wouldn't have been out-thunk at Waterloo? Would we have seen a French team full of Africans, Eastern Europeans, and other colonies?...oh wait...
I would say that the Roman Empire would be the greatest Soccer Empire. All of the European continent (but not russia), and Northern Africa. Unless you somehow controlled England, Brazil, Argentina, and the rest of Africa no way you could defeat that one. Here's a runner up for ya. Before the Spanish Armada (late 1500s I think), Spain controlled Portugal AND Netherlands. Thats a pretty good pool of talent there
the incan empire could field a pretty good team, northern ecuador to southern chile and peru and bolivia.
Yeah, but looking at which countries we're talking about. They'd probably just end up with a mostly Russian side.
Back to the original question- I think the North would be better because they would let African-Americans play. All the South would have would be Josh Wolff, Clint Mathis, Agoos. Or would the South have been permitted all-slave teams? That would be cool. The coach could whip them right on the sidelines.