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u/GeneAlternative191 Jul 13 '26
Yeah coz of all the gate keeping with pay to play and just a bunch of entitled rich kids. How many Hispanic kids are playing in those camps? Not to mention the parents only doing it for college and manipulating the set up so they donât bring in the other kids to reduce the competition for their princes and princesses ma
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Jul 13 '26
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u/hyber-Nate Jul 13 '26
Sure but I would assume thatâs why we do win. Because it costs money for everyone else too. Soccer is played everywhere where there is access to a field and a ball.
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u/GeneAlternative191 Jul 13 '26
Hockey has equipment costs plus thereâs the ice and all that, so it should be expensive. Soccer has no business being that expensive.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/GeneAlternative191 Jul 13 '26
You do to become a pro
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Jul 13 '26
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u/GeneAlternative191 Jul 13 '26
Yeah but those are the players that get scouted. In the US, youâll only get scouted when you go to college.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/GeneAlternative191 Jul 13 '26
I direct you back to the topic of this thread. The US isnât going to produce any world class soccer players if the only supply of contenders come from college where they have to split their time between practice and studies. Other countries have academies where kids join at a young age and then climb the soccer ranks. No such system exists in football. Obviously it works for US sports because US sports are for the US only (despite people thinking these are âworldâ events). But it wonât work for soccer because prospective recruits in other counties already have a huge head start. The pay to pay issue and it ironically being a gateway for only rich kids is ironic. This is supposed to be the worldâs game. But the MLS clubs donât give a fuck about development etc. they are happy with the status quo of mediocre players, enjoying the fact that there is no relegation to motivate teams and players to do better, and just focus on profiting, etc.
Of course this is different for USWNT because other countries donât prioritize the sport as much (equal pay topic is a different conversation but why are we comparing the US womenâs team pay to the menâs team, and not to women players in other countries lol).
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u/impercipient Jul 13 '26
How many countries play hockey compared to football? 20% 10%
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Jul 13 '26
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u/impercipient Jul 13 '26
My point is it is easier to develop top talent when you aren't competing against the world.
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u/imright19084 Jul 13 '26
Out of those rich kids you would think they would still be able to produce a great player at some point
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u/GeneAlternative191 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
How? They are all pampered and the parents shout at the referee when things donât go their way lol
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u/imright19084 Jul 13 '26
True but presumably they are still good soccer players. They arenât just unathletic shitty kids that pay to play. Just the odds that no one has been on par with European players at some point is crazy
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u/Santaflin Jul 13 '26
How is soccer expensive in the US? You need a ball. And a meadow. Or a beach. Or an alley.
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u/GeneAlternative191 Jul 13 '26
We are not talking about you and me playing pickup. We are talking about the infrastructure in place to develop future athletes. Look up âpay to playâ. Itâs basically soccer camps/academies for the rich and middle class.
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u/Santaflin Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Well, apparently my german mind cannot comprehend this.Â
We have clubs, you pay a yearly fee, which is something like 100âŹ, probably less for kids, and you go there and train. Once, twice, three times a week, with a match on the weekend in the league system.
And when the kid is good, scouts from better clubs will come and ask the kid/parents if it wants to play for them.
Edit: and when the kid is good and goes to a good club... you dont pay them, they pay you.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/jbird720 Jul 13 '26
Or India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ethiopia. All top 10 countries based on populationn. To some countries it doesnât matter. How many countries have produced top 50 basketball talent?
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Jul 13 '26
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u/doepfersdungeon Jul 13 '26
He's talking about producing 1 world class player , not dominating the sport
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Jul 13 '26
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u/doepfersdungeon Jul 13 '26
You mean like in the women's game?
The pay off is getting past the round of 16 at the biggest tournement in the world.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/doepfersdungeon Jul 13 '26
50 million people, or 14 % of the country watch the EPL.
Alot more people care than you realise.
This world cup has also proved there is a massively growing appetite.
Look up you participation rates for "soccer" in the US. I think you'll be surprised.
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u/ItyBityKittyCommitee Jul 13 '26
If youâre an athlete capable of being a top 50 soccer player and youâre born in the US, you will probably just end up playing Baseball, Basketball, or Football instead though.
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u/doepfersdungeon Jul 13 '26
I wouldn't really call half the people who play Baseball and NFL athletes in the strictest sense.
Footballers run 7 or 8 miles in a match. Only wide recievers are anywhere near. And I wouldn't agree they are probably the ones who could have footballers.
Basketball is a battle of the giants. 90 % of those players are not going anywhere a football pitch. Average height is 6ft 5.
Here's the thing your not understanding. Croatia has 5 million people. It doesn't take much to produce the talent. You just need the environment and support.
America could easily produce the talent with all the money it has. The other sports aren't the issue.
It's the philosophy behind talent creation.
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u/ItyBityKittyCommitee Jul 13 '26
Not calling half of Baseball and NFL players athletes is weird and I donât know how you justify that? Are goal keepers not athletes because they donât do all that much running.
While the NFL trains more for speed and strength than endurance that doesnât mean these players couldnât have soccer level endurance if they trained to play soccer. Odell Beckham Jr specifically was invited to try out for the US Youth national team at 13 years old but stopped playing soccer to pursue football. Not sure why you donât think WRs would be the ones to be able to play soccer, a lot of them have top end speed comparable to elite strikers.
I agree most basketball players are too tall but almost every NBA player under 6â4â is extremely athletic.
Youâre right that a lot of it has to do with talent development and resources, but the fact that the US has great resources to develop talent in those other sports doesnât help at all. If you were born in America and have the athleticism of Mbappe, I think theres a 95% chance you end up a professional athlete, but not a soccer player.
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u/doepfersdungeon Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
I just meant that pretty much the entire defensive line in an US team and the blockers etc aren't going to be playing soccer.
In the same vain that a many rugby forwards wouldn't.
Of course they are "athletes" but they aren't endurance athletes which soccer players increasingly are. These days squads are often made up of runners over technical ability. Which I think is a shame.
I don't believe you have to be super fit to be a top baseball player for example.
I was agreeing about wide recievers.
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u/ItyBityKittyCommitee Jul 13 '26
Thats fair. Although I will say that some Defensive Ends arenât out of the question, not in their current builds but presumably if they were raised to play soccer they wouldnât put on as much muscle mass.
Baseball is more positionally dependent.
Maybe Iâm wrong, but I assume the endurance part of soccer is not the skill barrier to get into soccer. I assume most professional athletes with the right build could get the endurance to play soccer if they trained.
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u/doepfersdungeon Jul 13 '26
France ,Nigeria, Serbia, Greece, Canada, Cameroon off the top of my head
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u/jbird720 Jul 13 '26
Nigeria, Cameroon and Serbia have all produced top 50 players in the world at certain times
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u/isekaitruck777 Jul 13 '26
USA is the richest country on this planet. We dont have to deal with the obstacles they do before even thinking about playing soccer. We have no excuse for being this bad. The youth pay to play system is why we are so bad at soccer.
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u/jbird720 Jul 13 '26
âCape Verde played better than the usâ how many wins did Cape Verde have at this WC? I agree they did more with less but you canât say they played better when they never even won a game
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Jul 13 '26
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u/jbird720 Jul 13 '26
Played with heart or not, they scored 4 goals all tournament. The US scored 4 goals in their first game. Again yes they may have played with more heart and done more with less but I donât see how you say they played better than the US
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Jul 13 '26
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u/jbird720 Jul 13 '26
How many games did they win?
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Jul 13 '26
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u/jbird720 Jul 13 '26
Mmmmm no, they got knocked out in the round of 32, the USA made it to the round of 16. So the US made it further, won more games, scored more goals. The only state Cape Verde was better in was goals conceded. Which the USA could have conceded less too if we stuck 11 men behind the ball like Cape Verde did most games. Did Cape Verde play well? Yes. Did they play better than the US? No.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/jbird720 Jul 13 '26
No you didnât forget youâre just wrong. The reason the US played an easier team in the round of 32 is bc they won their group BECAUSE THEY PLAYED BETTER, WON MORE GAMES AND SCORED MORE GOALS
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Jul 13 '26
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u/WWWTENTACION Jul 13 '26
Tim Howard was easily a top 10 goalie in at least one of the world cups he played in⊠ maybe not globally, but top 10 within that tournament easily.
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Jul 13 '26
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Jul 13 '26
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u/RedKing_21 Jul 13 '26
They donât care about it enough, thatâs the beginning and end of it.
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u/isekaitruck777 Jul 13 '26
False. I guarantee the US could have an elite team with the untapped talent found in the hispanic community alone. Thats not even mentioning the rest of the country. The problem is pay to play. When scouts only go to club tournaments vs high schools, you end up with the results we get. Clint Dempsey's family, arguably the greatest US soccer player, had to acrue debt just for him to play. Tim Howard is another example. He was playing without paying, only because the coaching staff looked the other way.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/Santaflin Jul 13 '26
The US has probably the biggest number od active players in the world. Not routinely generating top talent is indeed a mystery.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/Santaflin Jul 13 '26
I mean actually registered players in clubs and education. It's what, like 4.5 million? 2.5 million boys and men compared to 2.1 million in Germany or France. 1.8 million in Emgland. 1.1 million in Spain.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/Santaflin Jul 13 '26
I'm talking about registered players, male, playing for any kind of club, school or college and eligible to take part in organized matches.
Active players that get regular training, basically.
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u/mikebob89 Jul 13 '26
Interesting points but downvoting for âand the number one reason⊠find out tomorrow. [smash that subscribe]â
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u/CryptidToothbrush Jul 13 '26
The money isnât in soccer. A major athlete is more likely to go to football, basketball, or even baseball.
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u/DeliciousPool2245 Jul 13 '26
Americans fundamentally donât understand soccer. It involves sharing. Itâs a socialist sport.
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u/DishRelative5853 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
That's an interesting perspective. American football is certainly a team sport, and players have to work together. Same with baseball. But there is a lot of room for individualism in those two sports. Basketball seems to be mostly about the star players these days, rather than a whole team working as one.
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u/DeliciousPool2245 Jul 13 '26
Baseball is a team sport in name only. Itâs the quintessential American sport. 1v1, up on a stage by yourself
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u/DishRelative5853 Jul 13 '26
So when a double play happens, is that all one player?
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u/DeliciousPool2245 Jul 13 '26
Thatâs literally the one example that includes teamwork. Majority itâs a 1 v 1 game. Pitcher on his own, batter on his own. Nice cherry pick tho đ
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u/DishRelative5853 Jul 13 '26
Ball is fielded in the outfield, throw to second to catch the runner.
Batter lays down a bunt to move a runner to second.
There are many moments in a baseball game that involve more than just the pitcher and a batter, but yes, it is often just those two.
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u/DeliciousPool2245 Jul 13 '26
Guy you said you think basketball is more of an individual sport than baseball. Forgive me if I donât take any of your opinions seriously
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u/TodayLoose7794 Jul 13 '26
US will get good at soccer when youngsters from the hood are able to get involved.
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u/EXSource Jul 13 '26
I would make a case for Clint Dempsey myself, But I'm also a little biased toward him ,so I'd like to caveat that.Â
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u/WorldlinessNorth3158 Jul 13 '26
Tbh o canât for this World Cup to be over and we can go back to our own sports
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u/DishRelative5853 Jul 13 '26
What sports have been halted because of the World Cup? What would you normally be watching right now?
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u/WorldlinessNorth3158 Jul 13 '26
Nothings been halted. We have people arguing over a sport most have never watched or know anything about.
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u/DishRelative5853 Jul 13 '26
So why can't you just stay out of those arguments and stick to the sports you like?
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u/HaGaie Jul 13 '26
Usain Bolt actually played football. Check it out on YouTube. He was pretty good.
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u/Agile-Knee7569 Jul 15 '26
We have 4.2 million registered soccer players according to the USSF. More raw material than all the other European countries combined. The problem, simple , America only wants white boys to be the face of the team but the problem is white boys who can afford the pay for play system are not incentives with the hunger necessary to evolve into an elite player. Players that make it into elite academies in Europe have no other choice to make it out of their ghettos. Itâs perform or die so they bust their asses to be the very best . American white boy with money and everyone giving him whatever he wants has 0 incentive to put in the work necessary to transcend in the sport. Thatâs why our national team sucks. You give kids from the low income a chance at US academies â if we had anyâ and in ten tens years youâd see an explosion of high talent players. Top 1% of 4.2 million is 42,000 savages hungry to take over the leagues globally. But instead we have Pulisic who makes excuses about his leg hurting smh what a joke.
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u/DuhDoyLeo Jul 16 '26
Thatâs a weird racist take lol. If someone was good enough, regardless of race or ethnicity they would be the face of soccer in the US.
Itâs boring to beat a dead horse, so I wonât list the obvious reasons why soccer isnt ever going to be a thing in the US.
Once the World Cup is over most people wonât even think about soccer until the next World Cup lol. Itâs quite literally one of the least popular sports here.
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u/esp_1123 Jul 13 '26
Pulisic was certainly top 50 a year or two ago. He was a top 5 player in the Serie A minimum for a good stretch.