Schmoove Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 You silly americans. You can hardly call that football you guys play over there (yest it is football!! not soccer... that's just a stupid name you americans made up, in Europe it is football). For the real deal you should come to Europe and see the big clubs play the game. Real Madrid, Ajax, AC Milan, Arsenal, Manchester United, those are the clubs that made football what it is today. If you saw Ajax play in the 70s and the 90s, they were just amazing. Their game is still widely admired. AC Milan in the 90's and Real Madrid now play(ed) football like it is supposed to be played. I hope America can catch up, but I doubt it.... there isn't enough interest over there for the game. It is kind of weird though, every single country in the world is hooked up to football except the USA. Ah well, anyways, come to Europe sometime and see what football is all about. I bet you will love it!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ranndino Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 (edited) You silly americans. You can hardly call that football you guys play over there (yest it is football!! not soccer... that's just a stupid name you americans made up, in Europe it is football).For the real deal you should come to Europe and see the big clubs play the game. Real Madrid, Ajax, AC Milan, Arsenal, Manchester United, those are the clubs that made football what it is today. If you saw Ajax play in the 70s and the 90s, they were just amazing. Their game is still widely admired. AC Milan in the 90's and Real Madrid now play(ed) football like it is supposed to be played. I hope America can catch up, but I doubt it.... there isn't enough interest over there for the game. It is kind of weird though, every single country in the world is hooked up to football except the USA. Ah well, anyways, come to Europe sometime and see what football is all about. I bet you will love it!! Hey, fellow Euro. You make similar points to mine, but don't have to be that insulting. Also, you are showing the same close mindedness as some of the Amerks on this board by saying the same old bologna about US soccer. Need I remind you of how well the US did in the last World Cup? The funny thing is that I can see both brands of soccer and I predicted that the US will do very well before the WC while most of my ignorant (in respect to American soccer) friends laughed at me. Than they were shocked at how well the US played in France. Germany actually got very lucky in the quartefinal as they were outplayed by the US and only some major luck and a few decisions by the ref helped them escape. Had the US won that match as they should have they would have played Korea in the semis and who knows... maybe we'd see them in the finals vs Brazil. It is time for Euros to stop being arrogant and recognize the fact that the US soccer has improved by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years. I remember when I came here in 1991 the US could barely scrape 11 players together for the national team, giving citizenship to foreign players, etc. Now Bruce Arena, who is a brilliant coach, by the way, has a pool of 50-60 young players at his disposal and it is constantly increasing. The US soccer academy is producing very good young players at an alarming rate and some of the new generation Amerks have done well in Europe recently too (in the EPL, German Bundesliga and even John O'Brien with Ajax). If you knew anything about the current US soccer program you would not be so full of yourself. Mark my word, by the year 2010 the US will be one of the best national teams in the world. You can laugh now, but you will see when it happens. Just like all my Euro buddies ate it up when my predictions about how well the US will do in the last WC came true. Of course, it's obvious that for some close minded Euros even that perfomance doesn't change anything. You are basically ignoring it because it doesn't fit your stereotypes. Of course you can keep saying that the US perfomance, as well that of Korea, in the last WC was a fluke, but for people with open minds and intelligence to analyze facts as they are, instead of basing their opinions on their own prejudices, it was clear that the US and Korea deserved to get as far as they did in that tournament because they displayed a superior brand of football to that of their many celebrated opponents. For now the top Euro and South American countries are still ahead, but not by that much. If you haven't noticed the times when Americans used to be getting killed are long gone. There are no easy matches anymore. Even when they lose they are very competitive. Case and point their last match vs Holland. Both teams had their best lineups in that game and the Dutch barely squicked out a win by a goal. The fact of the matter is that today, the US can beat any team in the world, on any given day. The proof? They have done so many times over the last few years. If you need your memory refreshed log onto FIFA.com and check under the US international fixtures. Edited April 12, 2004 by ranndino Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ranndino Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 baseball sucks completely. it employs basic motor skills like throwing and catching. they even need gloves to catch the damn ball. go watch cricket, those people do everything bare handed. they even bounce the ball when they throw and it goes faster than a baseball. the ball is even harder in cricket While I would agree with the assessment of baseball in terms of excitement attacking it on the skill and comparing it to cricket is silly. Cricket is hardly a more exciting game than baseball. When I was writing about baseball before I was actually going to give an example of another excrutiatigly boring game. Guess what it was :) Cricket is another game that is very limited in its appeal to a few countries where it is a national passtime. And when I say passtime I really do mean passtime. If you think baseball games are too long at around 4 hours you should try sitting thru a 5-day long cricket test match. One thing that always made me wonder about cricket fans... Are they all unemployed and have no lives? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schmoove Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 I'm not saying that football in the USA is bad. Actually it is evolving pretty good and they indeed made some great progress. Though for such a big country they are underachieving, they potentially have the biggest pool of talent you can have, still they are not on the same level as countries as France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. They did fine in the World Cup, now it is up to them to prove that it wasn't an incident. The fact that the USA doesn't has a football history like we have in Europe is a big problem. A talented player wants to play for the big teams in Europe, like Real, Barcelona, Juventus and Milan for example. On club level there is an extreme difference. Europe is lightyears ahead. On national level (countries), the USA is doing very very well and managed to build a decent team to compete against the big football countries. The USA is famous for her baseball, basketball and ice hockey and that's great, that's where you people shine. Though football is a European thing and personally I think it will stay that way. The MLF isn't really interesting for the big players, not commercially and it doesn't offer the high level of competition like in Europe. The interest in football should grow in the USA and should get on the same level as the NBA for example, else it will never be interesting for foreign players to play in the USA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bayrider Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 (edited) actually the most popular sport in America is soccer (euro football). ie. it is played most by kids and pros (mostly kids) in an organized team. Where do u think the term soccer mom derrives from? and why does the USA have to have a history in footbal to win the World Cup? If they have a solid team and can keep working as hard as they did a couple yrs back, they should win. History has nothing to do with it, its all about skill/determination... and it seems the USA is working its way up. Also by your logic, China and India should be the best team in the world because they have the biggest talent pool... right? i think u need to rephrase what u said. Edited April 12, 2004 by bayrider Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schmoove Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 Potentially yes.... India and China statistically should have way more talent then a small country as the Netherlands. So why should I rephrase that? The conditions in those countries are just not that ideal that their talent can be put to use. For the USA that is quite different, the opportunities are there. Football is the most important sport here in Europe.... that is different in the USA, which I think is one of the main reason europe is so succesfull in football. Same goes for South America, there football is even more important, which explains the successes of Brasil and Argentina. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bayrider Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 The conditions in those countries are just not that ideal that their talent can be put to use. For the USA that is quite different, the opportunities are there. Football is the most important sport here in Europe.... that is different in the USA that is exactly why you should rephrase what u said. Does that mean because Germany who has something like 80,000,000 people should be producing 2.5x as many good Hockey players than Canada? Soccer, after the teen level ALWAYS takes a back seat to almost all pro sports(football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, tennis) in America which is why the per-capita of elite soccer players in the USA is low compared to other countries with more talented players. Their focus is on other things, population doesnt affect talent, in most cases, its popularity and determination which does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schmoove Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 No like I said. Statistically the USA has a lot more potential then a small country like the Netherlands. The fact that football is our main sport makes talent evolve and put to use. That is the problem in the USA, nobody cares about football, so talent is wasted, though if football was the main thing in the USA they would probably have been the best country in the world. All I am saying is that if the USA want to be succesfull in football they should give it more attention and create a climate in which talent can flourish. If you look at the Netherlands we have a great climate for young talent. Clubs as Ajax rather let the youth play than buying foreign players. We had some great players in the past, like Cruijff, van Basten, Koeman, Gullit, Rijkaard, Bergkamp and now with van der Vaart, Sneijder, van Persie, de Jong we have a fresh batch of potential world class players. Players as Romario and Ronaldo also benefit from the good football climate here, they became superstars after they used the Netherlands as a jumpstart. The USA could have the same thing and even better if the interest in the sport will grow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bayrider Posted April 13, 2004 Share Posted April 13, 2004 well it doesnt happen overnight... i think the US is taking some big steps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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