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Ok, so I know it has been awhile, but with the World Cup almost upon us, I would like to respond to some comments that appeared in the last Blaze is Burning.
Let's get right to the chase. The reason that Americans don't care that much about soccer is because, for the most part, our best athletes don't play it. In almost every other country they do.
What do you think would happen if a 4 year old LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Randy Moss, Deion Sanders, Bo jackson, Michael Jordan, ect decided to dedicate themselves completely to soccer? We would kill everyone. Instead, for the most part, the guys in this country that play soccer are usually the ones who are not good enough to make the football or basketball teams, so they settle. We are essentially playing our 10th rate athletes against everybody else's 1st rate athletes. That's why nobody here cares.
I actually watch (and bet) a lot of soccer and besides the goals, there is very little excitement and the majority of the match is spent 30-50 yards away from the goal. At least in baseball (another sport that some people call boring) every pitch could provide a home run or great play.
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27 comments:
That's true or best athletes do play other sports, but then couldn't the rest of the world use that same defense when it comes to the sports we dominate?
Or do we really even dominate anything?
Lately we can definitely claim that we're back on top of the basketball world. But any kid that grows into a pro baskeball body, really doesn't fit the soccer criteria anyway.
So what's left? We don't dominate baseball by any means, even with all the great latino athletes that choose to play soccer, an all-star latino team can go head to head with an american team any day of the week.
Perhaps if some of our hockey players, which is probably the closest to soccer in terms of conditioning, choose to put on cleats instead of skates, then we'd have a good soccer team. But we're not the best at that sport either.
And no other country plays American Football at all, so there's no precedence to claim any dominance.
The point is yes, our soccer talent is watered down but so is the rest of the world in everything other than soccer, and they're still very good at that stuff too.
I think the whole thing is a wash.
Well, well, well, Koko, your comments deceive you. As of last year, there were 0 major League baseball players in history from Brazil, argentina, or Costa Rica, the 3 most well known Latin soccer countries. So it is not latin America that provides baseball players, just the places who aren't any good at soccer.
Another thing to note, my brother just returned from a vacation to Europe and one of the things he found strange was the fact that on the news, there is no mention whatsoever of American football or baseball. The sports pretty much started and ended with soccer with a few mentions of cricket and Rugby. On Espn, every single day, there is European soccer highlights, not MLS.
And give me a break, you can't tell me that an athlete like Lebron, Wade, Randy Moss or Chris Johnson couldn't kick ass at soccer if they wanted to. Can you imagine them on a corner kick or a cross jumping up for a header, or streaking down the side on a run? We have little pussies like Landon Donovon as our best player.
Ok, I'm not sure how my comments deceived me there.
I was just proving the point from the other side. Latin countries that focus on baseball are better at that than soccer and vice versa.
Isn't that the point you're making? Becasue of the focus on one sport, the other sport suffers. So if all the latin countries that are baseball oriented suddenly started playing soccer 24/7, you're saying they would still suck at it? That's being very presumptuous and even contradicts your own point of athletes who are good at one sport would also dominate at another if they practiced it from a young age.
And also following your logic, would then not all of the great European soccer players be just as good at baseball and basketball if they chose that as their focus?
If your answer is no, then why would LeBron be this great soccer player?
What about swimming? Are you saying that Phelps would dominate a soccer field if he just practiced that instead of jumping in the pool?
I can't believe that just b/c the guys on the American soccer team play soccer, they were not good at any other sports. That's bogus. You mean to tell me that someone doesn't grow up liking soccer? It takes balls to like and play a sport that so many people like yourself Regs, thinks is a cop out sport. Kudos to those guys who care more about the sport and their health than the all mighty dollar. Soccer players deserve respect for their commitment to their bodies and to a sport that is dominated by the rest of the world. They go out and play in hopes that one day the Americans wont be the laughing stock of the soccer world. They go out their to prove the resilience of the American Spirit. We did it with Hockey, now let's do it with soccer....sometime before I die..
I'm talking about sports that utilize the same skill sets as soccer players. Running, jumping, quickness, agility. That's why I chose those specific athletes and not Michael Phelps. His skills don't relate.
I think most people will acknowledge that America has the best athletes in the World overall. When you look at the best soccer players, they are mostly wimps with a lot of stamina and good (not elite) speed. When I look at those guys I don't say "wow, that guy looks like an elite athlete". I do say that when I watch Lebron drive down the court. Lebron is a better athlete than the soccer players so would therefore be a better soccer player than some pussy Euro soccer player would be at basketball.
I would guarantee that if suddenly we banned football and basketball from grade schools and only offered soccer, we would win every World cup starting in 15 years
Johnny,
My post for the most part was not a judgement, but rather an observation and a reason.
I played soccer for 8 years because my city did not offer football until High School (I know, hard to imagine after living in Florida, but its true). By no coincidence, our high school soccer team was dominant and won state championships 2-4 years I was in high school. Almost everyone played growing up and anyone who didn't was considered weird.
I'd like to make a comment about Reg's comment on American athletes. Regs said "America has the best athletes in the World overall" This may be true but it is also true that America is the richest country in the world and is able to participate in all types of sports and have many resources to train.
Did you watch the winter Olympics? Some countries had one or two athlete's representing and it was sad. The athletes who were from thoes countries trained in America.
just think it's too easy to say an athlete that's elite at one sport would have been just as great in another.
Look at Michael Jordan, his first love was baseball. And if he forgot about basketball all together when growing up I'm about 99% sure he would have made it to the majors. But what would he have been? Probably a decent hitter. Would he have been the no brainer first ballot hall of famer he is in basketball? 99% sure he would absolutely not. That's why he went into basketball even though he liked baseball more. He knew he was just naturally better at it and had a better shot at going farther in the sport.
I just think your highly underestimating natural ability here. LeBron's a great athlete no doubt about it, but would he have been better than any of the other pro soccer players around the world if that's what he chose? That's a big leap.
You can equate it to Usain Bolt. If Usain Bolt spent his whole life training how to be a wide receiver and running routes would he have been the greatest wide receiver ever? Probably not, because there's a lot more that goes on in the brain that makes a superior athlete, it's not all physical. Even with all that speed, there's a good chance Bolt would never have been even half of a Jerry Rice or Chris Carter.
Koko, While I usually agree with you on most items...this one I must diagree with you on.
First, There is no way Lebron, Reggie Bush, and the likes wouldn't be far superior soccer players than Landon Donovan and other Team USA guys if they chose Soccer as their sport instead of their chosen fields.
Rob, is 100% right that the best athletes play Football and Basketball first......then they fall into baseball. Soccer is merely an aftertought. I thought this was pretty well know knowledge and we may have discussed this before but it is not anything new here.
I Think Rob is not bashing Soccer players....but simply stating that all the best US resources are not used on this sport because of a lack of interest.
Also, While other countries can field teams to compete with us in baseball and Basketball we still are ONE of if not THE best at each of those. Team USA Soccer is not even considered in the top 15......I'm guessing it might be worse.
And Scott....to your point the Olympics in general don't have much to do with athletic ability as much as th wherewithal to train at something for your whole life that most people dont.
If you look at Winter Olympic athlethes they all come from Money. How else can you explain some kid spending 6 hours a day training to figure skate or ski???? That Takes Money......for coaches, facilities, etc.....
Keith,
That was my point. The athletes in the US have lots more money to spend on training and coaches, etc.. far more than some countries like Azerbaijan who had one athlete in the Winter Oylmpics. Hence them being beter and more of them.
How can you say the US has better athlets than so and so country if they only have one athlete vs. 100. The odds of the US is greater.
It's so ridiculous, not to mention extremely pompous to just say Reggie Bush or LeBron would be better soccer players than the best in the world today.
You cannot equivocate athleticism with skill sets.
Hitting a baseball is a specific skill, dribbling a basketball is a specific skill, having amazing footwork is a specific skill. And the biggest of them all is the mindset for the game you are playing. The mindset alone can turn an average athletic body into one of the best players.
Like I said, it's just way too easy to throw it out there that any of our football or basketall players would dominate in soccer. You don't and can't know that. You are just equaling the skills they possess now with skills they have never displayed. And that's not even close to fair.
There's a reason soccer players look the way they look. Same with swimmers, basketball players and every other sport. The sport shapes the body, not the other way around.
You guys are way off on this one.
If Landon Donovan or David Beckham took steroids, they would be able to hit the ball out of the park.
Great athletes are great athletes. The athletes that Keith and I mentioned are bigger, faster, stronger, quicker than ANY of the world's elite soccer players. The skill sets relate. The 2 best tight ends maybe in history, were both college basketball players (Gates and Gonzales) Nfl teams saw skills in them that would translate favorably from the basketball court to the field. If you look at the skills required to be an elite soccer player, I don't think it is a stretch at all to say the players mentioned could adapt if they learned the skills at an early age.
The Michael Jordan baseball arguement doesn't hold up because the act of hitting a baseball is an entirely different skill from playing basketball. Jordan had a lot of the skills to play baseball, but he fell short at hitting. If you want to make a better arguement, you should say that a person like Roger Federer could have been a great baseball player because the skills are similar. I would buy that.
Absurd Rob, absolutely absurd. I would never make the argument that a pro tennis player would be good at baseball. It's ridiculous.
Hitting a tennis ball with a raquet does not translate to hitting a baseball with a bat by any means. To say so, shows incredible ignorance. The only thing they have in common is hand/eye coordination. Which by the way is also used by video game players and a million other people who could never hit a major league fastball if their life depended on it.
And no, great athletes are not just great athletes. Was Babe Ruth a great physical specimen? Could he compete with an olympian in anything? No, but he was still a great athlete. Also tennis players have similar body types to soccer players, does that mean Federer could go out and lead a team to a world cup if that was the sport he chose?
Athletes pick the sports they pick because they can be more dominate in them.
Sure pleanty of athletes grow up playing more than one sport, but to be the best of the best, and that's what were talking about here, an athlete will figure out which one will give him or her the better chance to make pro.
Bigger, stronger, faster are attributes that do not translate through everything. You're simply not taking into account the nuances of individaul sports. You can't be a big hulking guy to run around that soccer field all damn day. The endurance soccer requires would not allow LeBron to be in the shape he is currently in now. I'm not saying he couldn't do it, but his body type would more resemble the sport of soccer.
LeBron is bigger, sronger, and faster than Michael Phelps right? But in the water is anyone betting on LeBron? Fuck no! Because Phelps' body is tailored around his sport. That's the point I'm still trying to make, the sport shapes the body.
So there is no way of knowing at all if any athlete currently playing any sport would have been just as good, better or worse in another.
And thanks for furthur proving my point about the Jordan thing. Yes, hitting a baseball is a different skill. I think I was the one who made that point. Different skills do not translate just because you're a good athlete. Last time I checked dribbling a basketball is pretty different from the fancy footwork required on the soccer field. How are those 2 things related at all?
I'm not saying every single great athlete could pick any sport and excel. No, Babe Ruth probably wouldn't have been elite at another sport.
What I am saying is that if our best natural athletes went into soccer instead of other sports at a young age (trust me, it is not hard to spot the best athletes in youth sports)like they do in Brazil, Argentina, Europe we would dominate the World scene.
Because this does not happen, people don't care about soccer in this country. The MLS is a joke in world circles.
But why would we just be the best?
The other countries best athletes do go into soccer. Why would our best taking a soccer track from an early age be better than them automatically?
Remember now if they take that track, they are not lifting the same weights, participating in the same kind of training and would not be in the same kind of shape.
So when you look at LeBron an imagine him in on a soccer field, it's a total illusion. LeBron would not look like that if he played soccer his whole life. There's no way he has the footwork of the great soccer players in the world. It's much harder for tall guys to have that kind of footwork. A low center of gravity is an advantage in soccer. Maybe he would make a good goalie.
It's the same argument people make about why don't hockey teams just put a really really fat guy in front of the goal? Because he would get scored on about a 100 times that's why. Why didn't all the 7'7" basketball players just rule the league? Becasue their body type makes them awkward. They're good shot blockers but that's about it. Yao Ming is the only guy ever at that height who has any sort of real offensive ability.
A master at his craft is not like a skeleton key, it does not automatically open all doors to other crafts. Would they be good? Maybe. would they be dominant, probably not but there's still a chance. Is it automatic? Not even close.
In many ways you all have good points.
There is no way to say for sure that if Lebron for example took on soccer he would be dominant. Thats absurd. You,me or anybody cant know for sure.
I do believe that if soccer wasnt the 4th or 5th option in youth sports we obviously would field a better team and be more competitive.
NEWS FLASH , America aint the best at everything .
Yeah I agree with that. Of course we would be better if soccer was a more prominant sport but not automatically the best.
And the same goes for all the European countries that have our most popular sports as their 4th or 5th options.
Look what happened when basketball became more prominant across the world. All of the sudden our dream teams were getting bronze medels. Even the gold medal team from the last Olypmics had a hard time in the last match. Look at all the European players in the NBA and latin and asian players in the MLB.
If the rest of the world suddenly started to play NFL football we would dominate for a while but they would eventually catch up just like the other sports.
If all of our best basketball players played in the olympics we would still win every year. Look at what happened in the last Olympics, we cruised to the gold and we still didn't have all of our best players.
Let's veer away from just lebron. Let's take Allen Iverson, Chris Johnson, Steve Smith, and Reggie Bush and breed them into soccer. Their size would be fairly similar to the elite soccer players, except our guys would still be quicker, faster, and more agile. That's at least a good start to developing into a top player.
Regs I watched all those Olympic games last time around and that team couldn't have been much better.
And yeah they cruised but not in the gold medal game. That last game was a little scary.
Still I don't understand how you can be so confident in a bunch of players just because they are good in their respective sports.
You're really insulting soccer by saying any great athlete from another field could be the best if they just practiced it from a young age. That's quite a far fetched theory.
I give soccer a lot more respect as a sport than that. I can't stand watching the shit, but I can respect it.
Wow.....I really don't get where this argument is going. Koko, just agreed with the entire post when he stated "When the rest of the world started focusing on basketball we didn't dominate "As Much".
Why are you so upset at the fact Rob said if the US focused on Soccer then we wouldn't be dominated "As Much". It's the exact same statement just in reverse.
And, I think the point that Gates and Gonzalez could transition from Basketball to Football so easily is a great argument on the how pure athletes can play and dominate based upon pure physical abilities.
While alot of this post is based on pure speculation.........would you rather have Me on your softball team Friday night or Adrian Peterson?
While, AP may have never played Softball in his life....I'm willing to bet he would be quite an asset out on the field after a season purely based on his physical skill set.
And, while you dog Jordan for not being good at baseball...the fact he could still compet in the Minors with guys whom played it nearly every day of their life for the past 20 years when he hadn't picked up a bat for the past 10 years....is quite impressive.
So, Yes....I believe pure athletic ability means a lot in sports. And, if you don't believe the US has some of the elite athletes living here...than your on crack.
Keith as usual you don't read. You just skim and then write something completely ridiculous and off topic.
I didn't agree with the post. I made the point that other countries could be just as dominant if they focused on our sports as well.
Robs entire point is a USA bias. For some reason if our top athletes just focused on soccer we would dominate. He did NOT say we would be dominated as much, as you claim. His point was that we "kill everyone." And I just think that's pure bias.
Of course this country has some of the greatest athletes in the world. But there are thousands of great athletes in other countries as well who play very different sports. And soccer is one of those sports.
I'll say it one last time, your vision of all these big football and baskeball players running around a soccer field in the exact same shape they're in now is completely ludicrous. You guys are enphatuated with strength and speed and completely ignoring skill.
And no Keith I'd rather have you on the team, Peterson drops the ball too much.
I don't even know where this post is going anymore. The original point was that soccer player are some of the best athletes in the world, period. This entire off-shoot of a post is simply showing the bull-headediness of anyone of us sticking to our guns even when we are proven wrong. Some of us change the point, some of us instigate others and some simply don't want to except a sound retort. Sometimes I like to hear on the dojo, "Well played Mauer, well played". Maybe Rob's post should have been titled semantics. And for the record, Bo Jackson awesome athlete, Deion Sanders awesome athlete. The silly correlation with Gates and Gonzalez is just that, silly. They went from a more athletic sport requiring more skill and stamina into a burst sport which their size was the main factor. Sure they can catch now, but they were meant to be mainly blockers for the rb's. It is far easier to learn a tight ends job then it is to learn any basketball skill-set.
Until the day comes when American sports aren't dominated by steroids and ped's, the rest of the world can take solace in the fact that the global sport of soccer is played, watched and dominated by some of the best athletes in the world.
I agree with Keith that AP out on the field would be better than any of us, or most. Not only is he very athletic but he has that competitivnes and drive to make him a professional athlete.
I watch soccer from time to time and those guys are big, strong, and fast.
Also Koko did you mean infatuated?
Why is everyone saying they can't see where the post is going?
Blaze, the orginal point was not that soccer players are some of the best athletes in the world.
Rob posted that if the top American athletes would simply take a soccer track from a young age that we would dominate the sport worldwide.
That's the main point here and the focus of my rebuttal.
I think we've beat it to death now anyway.
I think that if, when I watch soccer, I saw more amazing athletic plays, I might have a different view. What I see is a bunch of wussies flopping around every time anyone gets close to them, hoping for a foul. For once, I will admit that I couldn't have been a great soccer player. I don't have the ball skills.
I don't see amazing speed or quickness. I don't see blazing fast shots on goal. I guess my take is that I would expect the best players in the world to be "better" for lack of a better word. When I watch the best players in the World play other sports, I get amazed by the things that they do. Every once in awhile, you will see something cool by a soccer player, but not often.
Its not American bias, it is athletic bias. If those guys (soccer players) are the best athletes that these countries can find, they obviously don't have many great athletes.
No ball skills Reger? I know a great website that can help you with that.
Bazinga!
But seriously, you know what I think it is . . .
I've tried to get into soccer on more than one occasion. Since I've had an affinity for, let's say a certain orientation of the female persuasion, I've been around a ton a people who truly love the futbol and have tried to explain the intricacies of the game that us "dumb," Americans can't seem to grasp.
To be honest I did notice a lot more going on in the game when I had someone who was a big fan point out certain things. The same way when I hear that, "baseball is boring," I immediately think they are watching it all wrong.
But even with that knowledge and concentrating on the subtleties, I'd think I'd still rather watch bowling.
IT'S THE FUCKING FIELD!!! That thing is wayyyyy too big.
We've all been on airlplanes, and when it's getting ready to land and you can start to make out things on the ground, how slow do cars look? How slow does everything look? The same from the ground looking up at the plane. Yeah you know it's going like 500 or 600 miles an hour but it doesn't look like it because of the vantage point.
I bet the players in indoor soccer look like they're going a hundred times faster than the outdoor ones. So I do not think it's a problem of bad athletes at all, you have to be an amazing athlete to be considered one of the world's top soccer players. I just think the entertainment value does not translate very well
The sport is hard, it's athletic, it involves tons of strategy, incredible endurance, and to top it off you have to be talented with your feet. But the thing it's not, at least in this country, is entertaining to watch.
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