Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer is not popular in the U.S. because it’s harder to master than the other popular sports despite the volume of children who have played it at some point. Why? Because you need to control the ball with your feet which is not what feet are meant to do. Compare to lacrosse which many athletic players can break into in high school and still do really well.

Thus, it’s a sport that’s harder to break into unless a kid has been doing it since they were young. Athletics kids that start later can do well in youth and college soccer but rarely get past college.

I mean at many “high” levels of youth soccer, so many kids still haven’t mastered something as basic and fundamental as juggling the ball. At the end of the day, kids find it too hard and move on to a different sport that’s easier.

Have you tried hitting a 99 mph fastball or a curve ball that starts at your shoulders and ends at your ankles with a wooden stick or shoot a ball into a hoop that is only slightly larger from 30 feet away? Soccer is no harder to master than any other sport...golf is probably the hardest sport to master yet the US seems to be pretty good in that area.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Soccer is not popular in the U.S. because it’s harder to master than the other popular sports despite the volume of children who have played it at some point. Why? Because you need to control the ball with your feet which is not what feet are meant to do. Compare to lacrosse which many athletic players can break into in high school and still do really well.

Thus, it’s a sport that’s harder to break into unless a kid has been doing it since they were young. Athletics kids that start later can do well in youth and college soccer but rarely get past college.

I mean at many “high” levels of youth soccer, so many kids still haven’t mastered something as basic and fundamental as juggling the ball. At the end of the day, kids find it too hard and move on to a different sport that’s easier.

Have you tried hitting a 99 mph fastball or a curve ball that starts at your shoulders and ends at your ankles with a wooden stick or shoot a ball into a hoop that is only slightly larger from 30 feet away? Soccer is no harder to master than any other sport...golf is probably the hardest sport to master yet the US seems to be pretty good in that area.

Anonymous wrote:Soccer is not popular in the U.S. because it’s harder to master than the other popular sports despite the volume of children who have played it at some point. Why? Because you need to control the ball with your feet which is not what feet are meant to do. Compare to lacrosse which many athletic players can break into in high school and still do really well.

Thus, it’s a sport that’s harder to break into unless a kid has been doing it since they were young. Athletics kids that start later can do well in youth and college soccer but rarely get past college.

I mean at many “high” levels of youth soccer, so many kids still haven’t mastered something as basic and fundamental as juggling the ball. At the end of the day, kids find it too hard and move on to a different sport that’s easier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are people really arguing that soccer is somehow different than the other sports, more complicated, harder to master, and that's why dynamics that work fine in this country for football and basketball and baseball and tennis and golf and hockey and lacrosse and gymnastics and all the other sports we are competitive against the rest of the world, but those same dynamics don't work in soccer because it's harder to master and complicated? Same parents, same money culture, same winning mentality, it works for everything except soccer and that's the reason?

I think some of those sports aren’t relevant to the conversation but yes, it’s a factor among many factors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Olympics routinely shows that we have the best athletes. We don't have the best soccer players. That comes down to knowhow, culture, hunger, and system structure. A significant issue is the microwave society we live in. Everyone wants to win NOW. That results in picking big, fast kids - early developers usually. When those kids can no longer rely on their size and strength, they come what most who truly know the game recognized they would be all along - average. Nobody looked at Phil Foden or Kevin DeBruyne as kids and thought they were physically gifted or dominant as youth. They saw game IQ, potential, and dedication to excellence. In the US, those kids get put on the second team and forgotten in favor of the kid who is six inches taller and can score with raw size and few skills or smarts. We're great at collecting U11 trophies and not much afterward. (See SYC.)

What you are describing also happens in other sports. You don't think coaches are choosing the biggest and fastest basketball and football U11 kids in order to win NOW? They are but somehow we are still able to excel in other sports. Same microwave society works fine for all these other sports but not soccer?

Anonymous wrote:Are people really arguing that soccer is somehow different than the other sports, more complicated, harder to master, and that's why dynamics that work fine in this country for football and basketball and baseball and tennis and golf and hockey and lacrosse and gymnastics and all the other sports we are competitive against the rest of the world, but those same dynamics don't work in soccer because it's harder to master and complicated? Same parents, same money culture, same winning mentality, it works for everything except soccer and that's the reason?

Anonymous wrote:Soccer is not popular in the U.S. because it’s harder to master than the other popular sports despite the volume of children who have played it at some point. Why? Because you need to control the ball with your feet which is not what feet are meant to do. Compare to lacrosse which many athletic players can break into in high school and still do really well.

Thus, it’s a sport that’s harder to break into unless a kid has been doing it since they were young. Athletics kids that start later can do well in youth and college soccer but rarely get past college.

I mean at many “high” levels of youth soccer, so many kids still haven’t mastered something as basic and fundamental as juggling the ball. At the end of the day, kids find it too hard and move on to a different sport that’s easier.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every sport in USA is structured as hell, almost year-round play. There's no incentive to go out and play in the street when you have gaming inside and air conditioning. American youth is sucked up by four way more popular sports before a boy thinks of soccer after the age of 8. Girls gravitate to it because only basketball takes athletes away. Don't blame just the kids either... i see the sidelines heaving with heavy-set parents who very likey never usher their kids outside because they too sit on their phones all day.

i think everyone is trying to find fault when there is no fault. Soccer is just a fringe sport in America, it's just the way it is.

The facts are most boys would rather play basketball, baseball or football and it's likely because that's what one of their parents grew up playing or watched or whatever reason.

I agree with this. Our best athletes in the US are not choosing soccer. If we took our best athletes in the NBA and NFL and they played soccer throughout their lives, we would dominate.

It's not just that our best athletes are in the NBA and NFL. It's that all our best athletes are TRYING to be in the NBA and NFL. That 5'6'' kid whose body type would work great for soccer, but maybe not for basketball because they aren't very tall, is still playing basketball but their playing career ends in high school. Imagine if that 5'6'' kid didn't spend the first 15 years of their life trying to become a basketball player, and had started with soccer instead. Those are the players that we're missing out on because soccer isn't popular.

I call BS on this. More kids are playing organized soccer at some point than any other sport. The stats are over 3 million according to multiple sources - just above basketball. And twice as many as American football. The 5'6" kid gets pushed out of both sports and quits sports all together. His odds of going pro are slim in soccer, but they are microscopic in basketball. The problem is that at some point a short-sighted youth coach wanted to brag to his buddies about winning the U9 league and decided that the diminutive player didn't give him the best chance. This was Landon Donovan's whole point that started this thread.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every sport in USA is structured as hell, almost year-round play. There's no incentive to go out and play in the street when you have gaming inside and air conditioning. American youth is sucked up by four way more popular sports before a boy thinks of soccer after the age of 8. Girls gravitate to it because only basketball takes athletes away. Don't blame just the kids either... i see the sidelines heaving with heavy-set parents who very likey never usher their kids outside because they too sit on their phones all day.

i think everyone is trying to find fault when there is no fault. Soccer is just a fringe sport in America, it's just the way it is.

The facts are most boys would rather play basketball, baseball or football and it's likely because that's what one of their parents grew up playing or watched or whatever reason.

I agree with this. Our best athletes in the US are not choosing soccer. If we took our best athletes in the NBA and NFL and they played soccer throughout their lives, we would dominate.

It's not just that our best athletes are in the NBA and NFL. It's that all our best athletes are TRYING to be in the NBA and NFL. That 5'6'' kid whose body type would work great for soccer, but maybe not for basketball because they aren't very tall, is still playing basketball but their playing career ends in high school. Imagine if that 5'6'' kid didn't spend the first 15 years of their life trying to become a basketball player, and had started with soccer instead. Those are the players that we're missing out on because soccer isn't popular.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every sport in USA is structured as hell, almost year-round play. There's no incentive to go out and play in the street when you have gaming inside and air conditioning. American youth is sucked up by four way more popular sports before a boy thinks of soccer after the age of 8. Girls gravitate to it because only basketball takes athletes away. Don't blame just the kids either... i see the sidelines heaving with heavy-set parents who very likey never usher their kids outside because they too sit on their phones all day.

i think everyone is trying to find fault when there is no fault. Soccer is just a fringe sport in America, it's just the way it is.

The facts are most boys would rather play basketball, baseball or football and it's likely because that's what one of their parents grew up playing or watched or whatever reason.

Do you have the factual verifiable numbers to backup your argument?

Also, what does Quantity have to do with Quality?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every sport in USA is structured as hell, almost year-round play. There's no incentive to go out and play in the street when you have gaming inside and air conditioning. American youth is sucked up by four way more popular sports before a boy thinks of soccer after the age of 8. Girls gravitate to it because only basketball takes athletes away. Don't blame just the kids either... i see the sidelines heaving with heavy-set parents who very likey never usher their kids outside because they too sit on their phones all day.

i think everyone is trying to find fault when there is no fault. Soccer is just a fringe sport in America, it's just the way it is.

The facts are most boys would rather play basketball, baseball or football and it's likely because that's what one of their parents grew up playing or watched or whatever reason.

I agree with this. Our best athletes in the US are not choosing soccer. If we took our best athletes in the NBA and NFL and they played soccer throughout their lives, we would dominate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every sport in USA is structured as hell, almost year-round play. There's no incentive to go out and play in the street when you have gaming inside and air conditioning. American youth is sucked up by four way more popular sports before a boy thinks of soccer after the age of 8. Girls gravitate to it because only basketball takes athletes away. Don't blame just the kids either... i see the sidelines heaving with heavy-set parents who very likey never usher their kids outside because they too sit on their phones all day.

i think everyone is trying to find fault when there is no fault. Soccer is just a fringe sport in America, it's just the way it is.

The facts are most boys would rather play basketball, baseball or football and it's likely because that's what one of their parents grew up playing or watched or whatever reason.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:American soccer fed tried to make it their own. Not having pro/rel was a disaster. It create zero grass roots fanbase in the area of a promoted (or almost promoted) team. Next you'll cite "distances", which is a good point, and can easily be mitigated by regional conferences. Hockey does an almost perfect job of this. There's no easy fix, but trying to fit the NFL model into soccer was terrible idea. Now MLS is just the retirement ground for old used up Europeans. Sad.

Cities aren't subsidizing $500 million stadiums for clubs who risk relegation. Ownership groups are not paying hundreds of millions for a club that can be relegated. If you want to see the effect risk of relegation has on franchise value, look at how much MLS clubs are worth relative to the status of the MLS https://www.forbes.com/lists/soccer-valuations/