Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ecuador and Jamaica

Mic drop.

Bye

The D team lost to Jamaica. Ecuador was better today. Not sure that has anything to do with the youth system in this country.

Reallly? Losing to teams that essentially have no youth systems doesnt speak to you?

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.

Anonymous wrote:Tell me about the Icelandic soccer culture

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.

Anonymous wrote: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.

Tell me about the Icelandic soccer culture

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ecuador and Jamaica

Mic drop.

Bye

The D team lost to Jamaica. Ecuador was better today. Not sure that has anything to do with the youth system in this country.

Reallly? Losing to teams that essentially have no youth systems doesnt speak to you?

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ecuador and Jamaica

Mic drop.

Bye

The D team lost to Jamaica. Ecuador was better today. Not sure that has anything to do with the youth system in this country.

Reallly? Losing to teams that essentially have no youth systems doesnt speak to you?

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.

Belgium has 12 million people and made the final 4 of the world cup.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ecuador and Jamaica

Mic drop.

Bye

The D team lost to Jamaica. Ecuador was better today. Not sure that has anything to do with the youth system in this country.

Reallly? Losing to teams that essentially have no youth systems doesnt speak to you?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ecuador and Jamaica

Mic drop.

Bye

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.

Anonymous wrote:Ecuador and Jamaica

Mic drop.

Bye

The D team lost to Jamaica. Ecuador was better today. Not sure that has anything to do with the youth system in this country.

Anonymous wrote: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.

Ecuador and Jamaica

Mic drop.

Bye

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are not be surpassed because of HS soccer you.........You know what. Nevermind. It's not worth it.

Actually both HS and college soccer are an issue for national team level players.

Is isn’t realistic to expect to continue to dominate the sport when a high percentage of the top players compete for a good portion of a year in a substandard environment (HS and college) during 8 or 9 crucial development years. The reason it hasn’t affected our national team competitiveness in the past is as obvious as the nose on your face - the girls/women in other countries didn’t participate in sports (soccer) in large numbers until recently.

The DA has plenty of flaws but stats that show current USWNT played HS soccer are irrelevant - since the GDA has been here for less than 2 years - which simple arithmetic will tell is not long enough to cover any player’s high school career in its entirety.

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Is isn’t realistic to expect to continue to dominate the sport when a high percentage of the top players compete for a good portion of a year in a substandard environment (HS and college) during 8 or 9 crucial development years.

Which is why the US struggles so much being competitive in basketball internationally...

Plenty of reasons for that.

If you think the soccer and basketball landscapes are the same in HS and college especially with the level of coaching you need to educate yourself.

Basketball is also trending toward the same specialization path outside of school.

And you also have a ton of top players leaving college early to go pro. And when they’re pros at 18 or 19 they don’t squander away multiple developmental years playing only 4-5 months of organized ball.

We had a massive head start in men’s basketball too just like women’s soccer. The rest of the world has closed that lead.

Basketball here also provides plenty of opportunity to play affordably. With such a large country, we should be good at every sport, no?

Nike, adidas, under armour sponsor AAU teams for their summer tours. That does not happen in soccer. There’s little incentive for those brands in our game right now to do that.

Right, but that's got nothing to do with whether kids play high school, ECNL, and DA --- that's got to do with there not being any incentive for that in general.
And just because we have a large country doesn't mean we are good at every sport --- look at the winter olympics for sports we get dominated in by much smaller countries.

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.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are not be surpassed because of HS soccer you.........You know what. Nevermind. It's not worth it.

Actually both HS and college soccer are an issue for national team level players.

Is isn’t realistic to expect to continue to dominate the sport when a high percentage of the top players compete for a good portion of a year in a substandard environment (HS and college) during 8 or 9 crucial development years. The reason it hasn’t affected our national team competitiveness in the past is as obvious as the nose on your face - the girls/women in other countries didn’t participate in sports (soccer) in large numbers until recently.

The DA has plenty of flaws but stats that show current USWNT played HS soccer are irrelevant - since the GDA has been here for less than 2 years - which simple arithmetic will tell is not long enough to cover any player’s high school career in its entirety.

-----------------------------------------


Is isn’t realistic to expect to continue to dominate the sport when a high percentage of the top players compete for a good portion of a year in a substandard environment (HS and college) during 8 or 9 crucial development years.

Which is why the US struggles so much being competitive in basketball internationally...

Plenty of reasons for that.

If you think the soccer and basketball landscapes are the same in HS and college especially with the level of coaching you need to educate yourself.

Basketball is also trending toward the same specialization path outside of school.

And you also have a ton of top players leaving college early to go pro. And when they’re pros at 18 or 19 they don’t squander away multiple developmental years playing only 4-5 months of organized ball.

We had a massive head start in men’s basketball too just like women’s soccer. The rest of the world has closed that lead.

Basketball here also provides plenty of opportunity to play affordably. With such a large country, we should be good at every sport, no?

Nike, adidas, under armour sponsor AAU teams for their summer tours. That does not happen in soccer. There’s little incentive for those brands in our game right now to do that.

Right, but that's got nothing to do with whether kids play high school, ECNL, and DA --- that's got to do with there not being any incentive for that in general.
And just because we have a large country doesn't mean we are good at every sport --- look at the winter olympics for sports we get dominated in by much smaller countries.

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.