Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pkang0202]

I don't believe what people say about Americans being bad at soccer because the other sports take all the talent.

To me, that is a cop-out excuse. With a population of 300+ million people, the other sports should be able to take all the athletes they want, and there should STILL be plenty of athletic talent to go around. I don't think sports starts like Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Derek Jeter, would've made great soccer players, so the other sports taking all the talent doesn't fly with me.

I look at teams like Ururguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Slovenia who have populations much much smaller than the US, and they have good teams. So, you soccer experts, what do you think? I don't know too much about the sport. Just recently i've been reading more about it.

In the US we have Soccer Moms. That term was coined from all the suburban moms taking their kids to and from soccer practice/games in their minivans. Don't tell me Americans don't play soccer. There are millions of little kids playing soccer all across the US.

[Senior]

The US team is fairly talented. They are lucky that they can make up for many of their short comings with superior financial resources.

[oskinny1]

[Seoulio]

In most of those countries you listed the countries are geographically quite small, and the population is hardly diverse at all.

Most people in Urugau, Slovenia etc are born and raised there, and very few people in the country are immigrants.

Soccer is like THE Game in many of these places, largely in part because of the relatively low cost and need for nothing more than a ball and some nets on an open field. Its a national pride to eat sleep and crap soccer, and to play it from a young age.

Also NONE of these countries have a huge league for ANY professional sport, theres no hockey, no football, basicaly they have cricket ( if they are lucky)


THe Americans and Canadians don't care about soccer as much as there are far too many other exciting sports where you are likely to see more than a goal or two scored, and where 0 - 0 ties after 90 minutes of playing anything are fairly rare.

So yes when other athletes are drawn away by other more exciting sprts it does leave little room for lot's of talented soccer players.


hell even the term "soccer" shows how little the sport is regarded, GOtta take the term the rest of the world uses, and change it because "we already have football"

Its an import sport that doesnt compare to guys crushing each other and making awesome catches for the average American.

[JMO]

America has more than enough players at middle school and high school age to produce great players.

In comparison to a country like Holland (constantly produces great players), the US goes the wrong way about developing players. Players play too many competitive games at a young age. Do not get enough technical coaching at this age. In their later teens, they do not play against good enough talent and play too few games. It is the opposite in holland.

When you are 12 and very talented, you need maybe 3 highly technical coaching sessions that concentrate on ball control and short crisp passing. You need to play maybe one competitive 11 v 11 game(or preferably 8v8/5v5). You need to develop your imagination/creativity by playing with your buddies in a casual setting outside these times. This is the dutch template. When you are older (16), you train 5 times a week and play much less outside the club.

America has the players but does not have the system currently to develop them. At the end of the day, competitive games/high school games and leagues are meaningless when you are 12 years old. You need the coaching and then you need to play with your buddies in enclosed spaces where you can develop the imagination to outwit your opponent.

Soccer btw is a perfectly valid way to refer to Football. It comes from the soc in association football and differentiates it from rugby football. Football is really an umbrella name to talk about games in the same family that are played on 'foot'. The dominate game from this family in a particular region will be called football. In Ireland for example, I call Gaelic Football 'football' and association football 'soccer'.

[Steve_Rogers2008]

I believe people saying Americans don't watch soccer because it's so boring! 90 minutes for a 0-0 tie is exciting?

and who wants to play a boring game?

[JMO]

[Seoulio]

[pkang0202]

[El Macho]

A big problem is that soccer is pay-to-play. There's not a reliable academy system. Instead, youth join as many teams as they can and play a ton of games. It's been suggested that this accounts for much of the lack of creativity among American players.

Additionally, that the system is pay-to-play means that many (otherwise talented) athletes drop out. Once MLS is able to get an academy system in place, this will change and we'll see a better development of the sport across the country.

[JMO]

[JMO]

[El Macho]

NY Times Magazine had an article about the Ajax youth system. They talk about how the US pay-to-play and college soccer systems are probably detrimental to developing our players.

I think the argument makes lots of sense since we are producing great athletes with mediocre skillsets.

Also, the lack of competition doubtlessly hurt US players. Look at Altidore, Adu, Kljestan, even Donovan...they all have or have had the rep of not trying hard in practice. (This has kept a number of them out of Europe.) Since they're rarely challenged in the US, it makes sense that they'd be used to just not working that hard. In MLS they can coast. The more competitive and skills-oriented things get, the better we'll become.

[JMO]

Yea, I read that article. I actually heard about on this blog.

http://mustreadsoccer.com/

It collects all the best writing from around the web on football. Some of the best blogs out there are American btw.

[metalhead]

It's not popular? Same as soccer is only popular with the blacks in South Africa and not the whites?

It's a very boring game for the most part, no wonder the patrons at matches need to drink themselves nutless.

Who knows, soccer is huge in England, and they are horrible at it (to be fair though, they suck at everything these days pretty much, except unfounded arrogance).