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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t think the number of legal immigrants necessarily matters, to be honest.  They don’t define the culture.  The culture in this county values and rewards young men for playing sports like basketball, football, and hockey.  Not soccer.  When I was growing up, I knew many kids who were of Spanish and Portuguese decent who were first generation Americans.  Their parents were soccer fans, but they aspired to play football.  That was the sport they played in the streets with other kids, not soccer.  It’s true that some play soccer today, but I doubt it’s anywhere near the entire figure you quote, not to mention culture is so much more than the population of x or y ethnicity in the country.  You are neglecting the fact that many immigrants came to this country with a love for it and it’s ideals.  The kids of immigrants  I played with wanted to be American, and most of all that meant football, baseball, and basketball in terms of sports, not soccer.   To state that number as a justification for saying we have the culture is not correct and misses the greater point on what culture is and how hard it is to change. [/quote]

The culture has changed with the demographics in our area.  This year three Virginia high schools cancelled varsity football team because of lack of interest by students.  It would have been unheard of at the time you were growing up.  I see a lot of pick up games in our area with mostly kids whose parents came from South and Central America with some European, Middle Eastern and African families mixed in.  They are doing it outside the club structure and some are very good players. [/quote]

I agree with this and that it is changing.  I think the nature of the disagreement is in how long it takes to make it's way through the system.  More interested players makes for more interested fans and ultimately more $$$ in revenues.  This makes the pro sport more lucrative, which increases salaries and perpetuates the cycle.   That's how football supplanted baseball in this country in the 70s-80s, but it took about two generations to complete the cycle for the culture as a whole.   I just don't think the culture switch can be flipped so quickly, essentially less than one generation since the 90s/early 2000s when football and basketball still reigned supreme.   I think what you will see is that as the culture becomes more soccer focused, more talent on the coaching side will be generated and rise up to the top, as the stakes become higher and higher.   Look at the progression of the former top sports in this country.  It just takes time....and I agree there's nothing to be rah rah about from the past several years.[/quote]

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