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What Will It Take For The US To Be Competitive In World Cup? (1 Viewer)

Stinkin Ref said:
I hear this talk of "world ranking"....top 15....top 25....just curious what does that really mean and how is it measured exactly...?..
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it is just a formula that tracks points earned during international matches.   The US played 67 matches from the time the WC in 2014 ended and the WC in 2018 started.

You can't do a WC every year because it takes 2-3 years of qualifying games to whittle the 200+ countries down to a final 32.

 
So now we have "constructive" criticism coming from someone who doesn't know that international teams play year round? Why, I think I'll head on over to the NBA thread and tell them what's wrong with their game.

 
Stinkin Ref said:
I hear this talk of "world ranking"....top 15....top 25....just curious what does that really mean and how is it measured exactly...?..I mean besides getting together every 4 years for "THE Tourney"...what does that really mean the other 3 years....?...and should I care?....don't most of these guys play on some other team/league most of the time and then just get together that 4th year?....kinda confusing to non soccer guy.....I don't think average sports guy would have a clue what that means or if we should care....maybe that the problem....maybe they should think about doing the WC every year or every two years?....its when interest is at its peak, why not do it more often...?...I think 4 years is a little much even if the women do it in between there somewhere...
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In between World Cups there is plenty of international soccer going on. Every continent has its own championship tournament, plus you've got World Cup qualifying which is a lengthy process. All this has to be sandwiched in between regular season play. For people who are into soccer, there's almost no offseason, always something going on.

 
Stinkin Ref said:
sorry...struggle in terms of ultimately passing any of those other 6 sports in terms of popularity here in the USA....which I think will contribute to the continued struggle with culture/development/infrastructure....I'll give it to you that it's getting bigger, but I think at some point it is still going to max out and when it does max out it will still fall short in terms of popularity with the other 6 sports mentioned....

kids don't seem to be out there wanting to be the next __________ (insert best USA soccer player here, not sure who that is)...they want to be the next Steph Curry....why?...well i will say in part because of the NBA and ultimately college implementing things like the shot clock and the 3 point line....and other major sports changing rules to make the game more appealing/popular....

let's be honest...the number one thing yo will hear from non soccer guy is that the sport is boring....most don't get excited by the little things in the game that maybe soccer guy finds exciting....like you mentioned, things that could be done to promote things to open up the offense and make them be more aggressive and take more chances....instead of seeming like a team would rather not "make a mistake" more than they want to take a chance to score....anything you can do to increase the exciting parts of the game would be great...but it's like the end of the world or slamming somebody's religion if you suggest changing anything to the soccer world...I used the term "wow" plays in the other thread....soccer guy didn't like it....anything you can do to get more of those....a couple I can think of...get rid of offsides, if a team wants to implement some form of cherry picking, go for it...but when an attack does start and gets pulled back cause one of the guys was too far downfield....it's frustrating....and make the field smaller to promote more action instead of just eventually launching the ball down the other way any time there is some "danger"....I don't know, maybe there are holes in both of those suggestions because I am not a soccer purist...
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The scoring in soccer is similar to that in football, in terms of goals scored per minute that you watch.  The sport is fine for the rest of the world. Who cares how popular it is in the USA.  

The NBA is a sport I've loved since i was born, but as I've grown older I've enjoyed it less and less.  It's about dunks, big plays and the finals.  Scores of 120-100 don't make the sport exciting, it just means that individual points don't really mean that much.  The more rare the point, the bigger it is when it happens.

 
NewlyRetired said:
it is just a formula that tracks points earned during international matches.   The US played 67 matches from the time the WC in 2014 ended and the WC in 2018 started.

You can't do a WC every year because it takes 2-3 years of qualifying games to whittle the 200+ countries down to a final 32.
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excuse my ignorance....but aren't our guys and guys across the world also playing on other teams and other leagues during that time....how do they get together for those 67 matches....is there like a regular soccer league season during part of the year and then all those leagues end for awhile and they then go practice/play for their national team....seems a little crazy to take 3 years to play 67 games...

 
Stinkin Ref said:
excuse my ignorance....but aren't our guys and guys across the world also playing on other teams and other leagues during that time....how do they get together for those 67 matches....is there like a regular soccer league season during part of the year and then all those leagues end for awhile and they then go practice/play for their national team....seems a little crazy to take 3 years to play 67 games...
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the international games are placed in windows around the regular club soccer season.  There is not a lot of room for practice at the international level outside of the times just before major tournaments.

 
Stinkin Ref said:
I hear this talk of "world ranking"....top 15....top 25....just curious what does that really mean and how is it measured exactly...?..I mean besides getting together every 4 years for "THE Tourney"...what does that really mean the other 3 years....?...and should I care?....don't most of these guys play on some other team/league most of the time and then just get together that 4th year?....kinda confusing to non soccer guy.....I don't think average sports guy would have a clue what that means or if we should care....maybe that the problem....maybe they should think about doing the WC every year or every two years?....its when interest is at its peak, why not do it more often...?...I think 4 years is a little much even if the women do it in between there somewhere...
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Most soccer fans in other countries don't really care much about international football, outside of the World Cup, the Euros (championships for Europe) and the Copa America (championships for South America).  The FIFA rankings is based on all the games that are played throughout the year, which are typically boring and generate little support among the fanbase.  In England, international breaks (a 2-week period where club football stops and players go play for their international teams) is almost always seen as a huge nuisance.

Soccer is the world cup and club football.  Barcelona, Real Madrid, the premier league, the leagues that are played in each and every country.  That is the heartbeat of the sport.  The World Cup is a huge celebration that happens once every 4 years, but there's no need for it to happen more often because the bulk of the sport happens outside of the World Cup.  

 
roadkill1292 said:
:lmao:

The balls on this guy.
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am I getting trolled?  I am trying to be patient and answer but your response has me wondering if there is some active  :fishing: going on.

If not, his questions only highlight how much he needs to learn and that it might be better to listen than to instruct.  We have all been there at one point. 

 
roadkill1292 said:
So now we have "constructive" criticism coming from someone who doesn't know that international teams play year round? Why, I think I'll head on over to the NBA thread and tell them what's wrong with their game.
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forgot this wasn't a message board where things get discussed.... and people might have varying opinions and levels of knowledge....never said I was soccer expert, in fact said the opposite....didn't know we couldn't participate or make suggestions unless we knew all the ins and outs....have said before I enjoy the back and forth and if I get swayed by something I'll admit it and admit to having a better understanding....

but I do think a factor in trying to answer the OP's original question is getting more of the casual sports fan on board with the sport....making it more popular....and I only made suggestions about what might help...there are certain non soccer guys who will never be on board and they will most likely pass that down through their family generations...however if you are able to make the sport more appealing to the casual sports fan or draw in the "bubble" group, those just on the outside of soccer fandom, then you might continue to make some headway....but I really think the boredom factor for the casual fan is a huge issue that soccer guy doesn't want to really address...and what will keep it from entering the top 6 here in terms of popularity....which in turn may at some point see the growth reach a max out point....some sport has to clock in at #7, #8, or #9 in the top 10 here...its perfectly fine if one of those is soccer....

 
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NewlyRetired said:
am I getting trolled?  I am trying to be patient and answer but your response has me wondering if there is some active  :fishing: going on.

If not, his questions only highlight how much he needs to learn and that it might be better to listen than to instruct.  We have all been there at one point. 
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No, I don't think we're being trolled. But it does seem to be symptomatic of message boards everywhere that being woefully uniformed about a topic doesn't deter everyone from weighing in pretty forcefully and critically.

I suppose I'm guilty of it myself.

 
roadkill1292 said:
No, I don't think we're being trolled. But it does seem to be symptomatic of message boards everywhere that being woefully uniformed about a topic doesn't deter everyone from weighing in pretty forcefully and critically.

I suppose I'm guilty of it myself.
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calling the sport boring has nothing to do with being uninformed

 
NewlyRetired said:
I was around at that time and the league did alter some rules (see my earlier response to Tasker).  FIFA did not care too much since they did not go over board.

MLS also told FIFA at their launch in the 90's to use the league as a testing board for changes but FIFA never took them up on that.

Eventually when Garber took over as commissioner, one of the very first things he did was to return the league to normal rules.  The fact that this realization had to come from an NFL guy was kind of a head scratcher but thankfully it happened
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Sure would be nice for the college clock to roll into the rest of the soccer world.  Something very legitimate about knowing how much time is left and stopping the clock for injuries, water breaks, sorting out melees, and stalling.

 
BassNBrew said:
Sure would be nice for the college clock to roll into the rest of the soccer world.  Something very legitimate about knowing how much time is left and stopping the clock for injuries, water breaks, sorting out melees, and stalling.
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Who cares?

Makes for much more tension when you don't know if this attack is the last one or if there may be time for another charge.

 
msommer said:
Who cares?

Makes for much more tension when you don't know if this attack is the last one or if there may be time for another charge.
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how about also trying to think of ways to encourage more of these "attacks" or "charges" throughout the game and not just at the end by a team that is losing...more incentive to open it up and take chances....honestly it really seems like the game is played from a defensive stand point and its considered too risky to charge or attack because it might lead to a mistake or being out of position going back the other way....and that doesn't go over real well to the casual viewer...many times it feels like unless there is a corner kick, there really isn't going to be many opportunities during the 90 minutes to see some potential scoring/action....defensively ping ponging the ball back and forth most of the game kinda sucks....

 
Stinkin Ref said:
how about also trying to think of ways to encourage more of these "attacks" or "charges" throughout the game and not just at the end by a team that is losing...more incentive to open it up and take chances....honestly it really seems like the game is played from a defensive stand point and its considered too risky to charge or attack because it might lead to a mistake or being out of position going back the other way....and that doesn't go over real well to the casual viewer...many times it feels like unless there is a corner kick, there really isn't going to be many opportunities during the 90 minutes to see some potential scoring/action....defensively ping ponging the ball back and forth most of the game kinda sucks....
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LIke the prevent defense is fantastic viewing? Or a no hitter is anything but a tv snooze fest? 

We can agree to disagree, you'd still be wrong

:P  

 
I guess if you want to call it trolling...fine...but I have offered up reasons relevant to the topic and why the US is not competitive at the WC level...and I have tried to offer some suggestions on what could help to make it more appealing in the USA and thus help develop the culture needed to possibly compete...all coming from the POV of a general sports nut who is admittedly anti soccer but hates seeing the USA suck at anything...I'm not pretending to be the most informed, but my POV and the things I have said are not based on how informed or uninformed I am about soccer and all the ins and outs.....its a message board and discussions like this are kind of the point....if everybody agreed, had the same opinion, and looked at it from the same direction...it would be kind of boring....kind of like watching soccer...

eta: plus Joe gets some of the blame here cause if the Hottest, etc. threads were still around I probably wouldn't have stopped in here....

 
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Amazed when a small country beats a huge one? You’ve got it backward, and that’s bad news for American soccer
 

The four largest nations by population in the world, in order, are China, India, the United States, and Indonesia. None qualified for this World Cup, and the three Asian Football Confederation teams didn’t even come close. India finished last in its second-round qualifying group, China finished a point out of the play-in series with CONCACAF’s fourth-placed team, and Indonesia’s incompetence runs so deep that it was disqualified from this World Cup due to government meddling in the domestic league.

Together, with roughly 3.2 billion people, those four nations make up 44 percent of the world’s population. Not one of them played a single World Cup minute this year, and Indonesia and India have never played in any World Cup. Of the top 15 largest nations by population in the world, only Brazil, the fifth-largest, has won (or even come close to winning) a World Cup. If you change the focus to the physical size of the country, the picture is even bleaker. Again, there is Brazil at No. 5, and two-time winner Argentina makes the list at No. 8. After that, you’d have to travel all the way down the list to France at No. 42 to find another World Cup-winner. There are just three in the entire top 50.

Through the round of 16 at this World Cup, countries with smaller populations went 24-26-10 against countries with larger populations through the Round of 16. In a number of cases, the population gulf is in the tens of millions. However slim the margin, there’s hardly anything special about a smaller nation beating a larger one. In fact, it’s almost a 50/50 proposition.

This is a particularly vexing question for Americans at the moment. How is it, with the world’s fourth-largest population and a well-established sporting infrastructure, that the U.S. could miss a World Cup berth?

There are things in play like the lack of sub-U12 coaching education, and the relatively nascent state of the Development Academy. Those matter. But the biggest reason? The one that keeps the country’s youth administrators up at night? It’s the country’s sheer geographic size. And that’s not something we can fix, only something we can address.

Most top European academies have a fairly hard-and-fast rule stipulating that its young players should never spend more time in the car than they do on the field at any one training session. That’s plainly impossible in the U.S. barring residency programs that most MLS clubs, let alone non-MLS clubs, have not had the resources to implement until recently. Just getting across Los Angeles to a practice might take three or four times the length of that practice.

In soccer terms, size makes everything more difficult, more laborious, more expensive, more fractured. Uruguay, our South American Connecticut, has had a single man at the head of the country’s entire men’s national team program for 12 years. Oscar Tabarez presides over everything, keeping a vigilant watch over every tier of the men’s program from the U15 team upward. It has obviously worked—players like Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani, and Martin Caceres all made their senior team debuts under Tabarez. (And it is thanks to Tabarez that Suarez got a shot with the national team after what many local observers viewed as a disappointing debut with Nacional.) That he is able to do this isn’t surprising; Uruguay’s size allows its club system to mortar over the cracks that players in larger countries regularly fall through. That the U.S. ever expected a national team coach to do the same, as it did when Jurgen Klinsmann was initially hired in 2011, is either comical hubris or numbing naivete.

Bigger countries are constantly chasing formulas worked out by smaller countries they can’t possibly replicate. Germany isn’t a giant country, but it has overcome its relative size by spending eyewatering amounts of money to close gaps in talent identification that were already quite small. Successful countries with vast swaths of land and large populations like Brazil and Argentina overcome their size by sheer, incalculable cultural devotion. Kids in Brazil and Argentina in particular do little else but dream of lifting another Jules Rimet Trophy.

The U.S. has haphazardly glued its development system together like a Frankenstein from multiple countries’ best practices. (Judging by the personnel currently in charge at Soccer House, the Netherlands is now in vogue.) What it has largely not done is figured out a way to mitigate its sheer size. Travel costs are still prohibitive, and competitive games for top academy teams are often many hours and thousands of dollars away.

If the U.S. is to become a true World Cup contender, it will essentially have to write the manual for countries like China and India, not borrow from those already written by Brazil and Germany and, heaven forbid, Uruguay. The U.S. Soccer Federation will have to segment itself far more than it already has, essentially creating dozens of semi-autonomous youth federations in each state, each of which is overseen by a single executive who reports in to the federation’s youth czar. This has been U.S. Youth Soccer’s model for decades, but it fell into disrepair over the years for a variety of reasons, many of them silly and avoidable. The USSF can and should revive the model as it brings more clubs into its orbit.

If it can, then perhaps, Connecticut and Uruguay will finally have something truly in common.
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Aaron Rudnicki said:
Amazed when a small country beats a huge one? You’ve got it backward, and that’s bad news for American soccer
 
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this has been a common theme the last few weeks in the threads and multiple people have commented on it, similar to this article.  I mentioned it in this very thread too way back on page 1.  The concept from a high level really does not make a lot of sense but the facts are there.

https://forums.footballguys.com/forum/topic/767664-what-will-it-take-for-the-us-to-be-competitive-in-world-cup/?do=findComment&comment=21172562

 
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NewlyRetired said:
this has been a common theme the last few weeks in the threads and multiple people have commented on it, similar to this article.  I mentioned it in this very thread too way back on page 1.  The concept from a high level really does not make a lot of sense but the facts are there.

https://forums.footballguys.com/forum/topic/767664-what-will-it-take-for-the-us-to-be-competitive-in-world-cup/?do=findComment&comment=21172562
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Except that size does matter, within an important context. There are some admirable, amazing minnows out there in absolute terms (Uruguay, Croatia, Belgium, even Costa Rica) but the most consistent powers are the bigger nations of Europe and South America. Maybe there is indeed a top end range where too much efficiency is lost but the soccer woes of the U.S., India, China, etc. are because of historical and cultural developments more than their population sizes.

 
CletiusMaximus said:
The point you keep missing is that we don’t need better athletes to play great soccer in this country. It might help a little, but we wouldn’t dominate other countries and start winning world cups if only we had better athletes. That’s never been our weakness.  As stated over and over, our soccer players aren’t good enough. We don’t have the right youth development culture or infrastructure to find and develop great soccer players here. 
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...because all our kids want to play other sports.

HTH

 
Stinkin Ref said:
here in Merica....we have THE major baseball, basketball, hockey, football leagues.....the top shelf of those sports....and thats not even bringing up the popularity of the feeder sports for some of those (NCAA football and basketball)....
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Hockey?  :lmao:

Gotta love that example. The NHL is the best league in the world. The best teams in the NHL are located in the U.S. And the U.S. is still a second rate nation.

 
Christo said:
Hockey?  :lmao:

Gotta love that example. The NHL is the best league in the world. The best teams in the NHL are located in the U.S. And the U.S. is still a second rate nation.
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:lol: Good point. Same can be said of baseball too, no? Don't we lose those international competitions?

 
Sebowski said:
:lol: Good point. Same can be said of baseball too, no? Don't we lose those international competitions?
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I don't think the best players tended to play in those and the rules are kind of funky to protect pitchers if memory serves. 

The competition was a financial failure and I believe it was discontinued a few years ago because no one, including both fans or players cared at all about it. 

They tried to make it work when Baseball was tossed from the Olympics but it may be just one of those sports that does not function in this capacity.

I believe I read some where that the Olympics are going to try again in 2020 to include baseball.

 
Christo said:
Hockey?  :lmao:

Gotta love that example. The NHL is the best league in the world. The best teams in the NHL are located in the U.S. And the U.S. is still a second rate nation.
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Not really true. US has been developing better players than anyone lately. 

 
Christo said:
Hockey?  :lmao:

Gotta love that example. The NHL is the best league in the world. The best teams in the NHL are located in the U.S. And the U.S. is still a second rate nation.
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Bump

The NHL is the best league in the world

NHL is in Canada

Canada has the best players and best team in the World

so...there you go

 
msommer said:
BassNBrew said:
Sure would be nice for the college clock to roll into the rest of the soccer world.  Something very legitimate about knowing how much time is left and stopping the clock for injuries, water breaks, sorting out melees, and stalling.
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Who cares?

Makes for much more tension when you don't know if this attack is the last one or if there may be time for another charge.
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It gets rid of the fake injuries and 2 minute walk to the bench for a sub with 3 minutes left and all the other games that do nothing to add entertainment.  The ball is already out of play 38% of the time.  https://talksport.com/football/315919/average-ball-play-time-each-premier-league-side-201718-season-171127263506/

 
Getting this back on track, this is how we win the World Cup:

1.  Eliminate Europe.  This is what Trump is trying to do now.

2.  Host the World Cup.  We are in luck, we are hosting the World Cup in 2026.

3.  Ban all non-white immigrants from entering the United States.  This is what Trump is doing now.

4.  Schedule the World Cup Final against Canada opposite of Hockey Night in Canada.  Win Bigly.

 
Joe Bryant said:
I think this makes sense. It's not as upper income as something like lacrosse. But does feel like it's often a suburban thing.

But at the same time, I'd argue a lot of popularity is with urban kids in my experience. For some of the same reasons it's popular worldwide. One being low cost to play. Get a ball and empty lot and go at it. In Knoxville, the nicest soccer facility in town is operated by an organization focused on urban kids with a fair number of them first generation immigrant or refugee kids. So i see the push from both sides of the economic spectrum. 
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I’m late to the conversation so sorry if this has been covered before but I disagree with soccer being “low cost”

My daughter has been playing since she was 4 or 5 (she is almost 15 now) . It started off being low cost, about $100 for a season. A “season” at the “rec” level was 6 to 8 games with one day of practice per week.

As she got better in the sport and wanted to play on a more competitive level that cost jumps to about 2K for a season – 8 to 10 games. Plus another $400 for uniforms. Plus travel cost to out of town tournaments.

 
Yenrub said:
I’m late to the conversation so sorry if this has been covered before but I disagree with soccer being “low cost”

My daughter has been playing since she was 4 or 5 (she is almost 15 now) . It started off being low cost, about $100 for a season. A “season” at the “rec” level was 6 to 8 games with one day of practice per week.

As she got better in the sport and wanted to play on a more competitive level that cost jumps to about 2K for a season – 8 to 10 games. Plus another $400 for uniforms. Plus travel cost to out of town tournaments.
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:shock:

 
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