Population has very little to do with athletic success. The fastest people in the world for a while have been from Jamaica. China isn’t the best at anything. |
Nutrition, money, cultural focus, and opportunity have a lot to do with it. We have 3 of the 4 but for soccer the culture is still emerging and there are a lot of alternatives here. |
| cultural focus --- best phrase I've heard to describe what's missing. Also nice that it doesn't contain the words DA, ECNL, or any other league. |
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Ecuador and Jamaica
Mic drop. Bye |
So what. U20 boys played well on the loss. Arguing that the US hasn’t improved their level of play over the past few years is not smart. |
The D team lost to Jamaica. Ecuador was better today. Not sure that has anything to do with the youth system in this country. |
Agree. “Mic drop” is a moron. |
Reallly? Losing to teams that essentially have no youth systems doesnt speak to you? |
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Belgium has 12 million people and made the final 4 of the world cup.
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Underscores the point that population and "youth systems" don't matter. Culture does and that's why we're behind in general. And still the u20s played a great game despite the loss and have much to be proud of. Great coaching and very good play, just not enough today. |
Cultural? Our talent identification system is horrible. USSF is fat, rich, and lazy. |
| Tell me about the Icelandic soccer culture |
Everyone gets a decent crop of players every so often. I mean even our men’s team made it to the WC quarters once. Soccer is also bigger in Iceland (per capital) than here. Meanwhile, our U20’s did a nice job today despite the loss. Weah is a superstar in the making and Mendez has a hell of a shot. I’d prefer to watch them play in the place of our senior team. Just add Pulisic, McKennie, Miazga, Sargent, and Adam’s and we’re good. Oh, and Ramos too as coach. |
OK, its one of the more popular sports in Iceland, behind Team Handball (apparently). After 60 years of trying, they qualified for the World Cup, and they've had some success in the Euros. Good for them. If you're trying to say that they don't have "soccer culture", you're right and they did qualify for a World Cup. So What? So has the U.S. --- it doesn't mean that there is "soccer culture" in either country. Liechtenstein has won gold medals in skiing beating Austrians, Swiss, and the all other skiing powers --- it doesn't make them a skiing powerhouse. The reality soccer isn't a sport that most Americans who follow a sport have any passion for --- its certainly behind American Football and Basketball, probably baseball and Nascar and golf, and regionally hockey. U.S. Women's soccer has more of a buzz because they've been more successful, and women don't have as many professional leagues as the men do. If you look at South America, Central America, Europe, and Africa soccer is king. At least as a summer sport. Those countries have soccer culture --- its important to them. Really important. You can bet if American football was ever played world wide, we'd have the culture for that just like basketball. We may not win every basketball medal or tournament, but when a US basketball team plays poorly on an international stage, its a big deal. In contrast, most people don't track US Mens Soccer enough to know the difference. |
Ecuador has a professional league with a youth system and players all over Europe? Why do you assume they don’t have a youth system? We played the D team against Jamaica to figure the last few gold cup slots. |