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Will the USA eventually dominate in every sport?
- Thread starter Lightjolly
- Start date
I forgot though, we're not that far from the US being somewhat relevant in Soccer. If not for some absolutely demonstrable bullshit, they probably beat runner-up Germany in 2002 to go to the Semis.
That handball miss might've been the worst call I've ever seen.
That handball miss might've been the worst call I've ever seen.
Not a chance.
There would need to be a huge cultural shift to get the USA in the top tier of mens soccer, which certainly isn't going to happen.
But hey, we got the women's team at least.
There would need to be a huge cultural shift to get the USA in the top tier of mens soccer, which certainly isn't going to happen.
But hey, we got the women's team at least.
the type of athletes playing in the NFL or NBA would not make good soccer players. It's not due to a shortage of athletes. The US at any given time probably has millions of kids in youth soccer.
those are two continents. You're one step away from saying "earth dominates soccer"
You can narrow it down to basically several countries. Argentina, Brazil, Italy, France and Germany.
There seems to be some parity just based on the list of countries you gave. I think that supports the idea they no one country/entity really "dominates" soccer.
Yeah but there is definitely the elite 5 or 6 that are clearly better than the rest. Uruguay is the sixth probably,.
The only reason the USMNT will even be in the 2026 World Cup is because they're letting 16 more teams in starting that year.
US soccer is going nowhere fast with Berhalter in charge, sadly.
US soccer is going nowhere fast with Berhalter in charge, sadly.
US is terrible at soccer. Hopefully Italy is getting back from being mediocre soon.
What a load of nonsense. Not just for the obvious reasons but money and size of your participating population doesn't guarantee shit especially in solo sports. Natural talent is still a thing. I imagine that the US has had a more active playing population in mens Tennis and hugely outspent Switzerland / Spain / Serbia in grassroots etc and you end up with fuck all in comparison to those countries that have absolutely dominated for 15+ years lol
''dominate'', canada wins most of the time, usa winning once in a while isnt impossible, but canada is still always going to be the team to beat.
Yes they would. Guys like Tyreek Hill and Kyrie would probably be great soccer players.
Dominate is hard for anyone, but the US could definitely big big in soccer if our best athletes played. Just look at our women's team.
We just don't care about the sport.
Absolutely not. There are a ton of sports with little interest in the US that are much bigger else ware.
I can think of a few sports (table tennis, weightlifting, mens soccer etc) where we don't lead the world.
We like winning so we tend to focus our efforts in this areas. Its why powerlifting is bigger here than Olympic weightlifting.
I can think of a few sports (table tennis, weightlifting, mens soccer etc) where we don't lead the world.
We like winning so we tend to focus our efforts in this areas. Its why powerlifting is bigger here than Olympic weightlifting.
Yeah, but that's discounting them already being funnelled into those sports in high school and college. Those school teams want the best athletes even if they are not destined to be pros. I don't know how it is these days, but basketball and football were especially prestige sports to be playing.
there is nothing to support the idea that there is a lack of interest in soccer, especially at the youth levels. Countries the size/population the fraction of America are able to put together more consistently successful national teams. Again, there are millions of kids playing soccer in America from a young age. The idea that this country can't find a dozen of them to field a competitive team isn't because of a lack of interest or a lack of players or because Kyrie Irving and Tyreek Hill aren't playing soccer, that's always been a lazy argument, it's because at an organizational level this country up until very very recently (and they've still a long way to go) has been bad at developing those kids into players that can compete on the world stage. If Tyreek Hill or Kyrie Irving took up soccer when they were 5 there is a much better chance they'd be toiling away in the USL right now than that they'd be at Barca or Bayern Munich.
The idea of America competing globally at cricket is hilarious. Most of us would give up before even learning half the rules.
Even soccer, which is the most popular sport after football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, is only the 5th most popular sport in the country.
I have no idea where cricket and rugby would fall on that list. Probably somewhere being field hockey and lacrosse. There's no way the US dominates in every sport considering most athletes are more likely to choose several other sports before those.
I have no idea where cricket and rugby would fall on that list. Probably somewhere being field hockey and lacrosse. There's no way the US dominates in every sport considering most athletes are more likely to choose several other sports before those.
Will never happen imo. No one cares enough about soccer to see it as a legit path like they do football, baseball, or basketball. It's a sport your kid can do that isn't full of contact, but very few people see it the way, say, southern high school kids do for football.
Like the pool of kids thinking how cool it would be to join the MLS has got to waaaaaay smaller than the number of kids who would kill to make it to the NFL, NBA, or MLB.
Whether that changes or not has nothing to do with whether or not people "care" about soccer, especially at the youth level, in America (spoiler: they do) and everything to do with whether the people in charge of the youth systems make fundamental changes to how they operate. The person you quoted is dead right in how there needs to be a change and we are seeing at least some semblance of it now with the MLS youth academies that will hopefully divert the most talented American players away from high school/college soccer where their skills and talent will stagnate. The idea that there is a lack of interest/talent/people being what is holding US Men's Soccer back is laughable.
This reminds me of when Jay Cutler said the US could just get a couple of NBA players and *easily* win Handball.
The American Exceptionalism is always fucking hilarious when it comes to sports. Take volleyball as an example: the US national teams haven't been great in a long time (one gold medal since 1992; women's have never won) and a pro league has never taken off. Even Brazil, that has a hard time getting even some soccer leagues off the ground, built a pretty solid pro league that has regularly attracted American and other foreign talent.
The high school/university focus on sports is pretty great, but most athletes are left out to dry when they go pro.
The American Exceptionalism is always fucking hilarious when it comes to sports. Take volleyball as an example: the US national teams haven't been great in a long time (one gold medal since 1992; women's have never won) and a pro league has never taken off. Even Brazil, that has a hard time getting even some soccer leagues off the ground, built a pretty solid pro league that has regularly attracted American and other foreign talent.
The high school/university focus on sports is pretty great, but most athletes are left out to dry when they go pro.
With respect to soccer, I think that people that are saying the US will never be competitive, much less dominant, are not aware of current trends in US sports. American Football, as much as I love it, has a problem - CTE. Then numbers of kids playing tackle football has steadily been decreasing for the last decade and the recent health concerns are only going to bring those numbers down even more. Combine this with an increase in youth soccer numbers over the last 20 years (although there was a dip in 2016-2018) and the growth of the popularity of the sport at the professional level and I think it's pretty clear that soccer is coming of age in the US. Add to all this the 2026 World Cup being here and I think we are going to see a substantial increase in the interest in and eventually quality of US soccer across all levels - youth, professional and the national team. Are we going to win the World Cup in 2026? Almost certainly not. Do I think that we will win one in the next 30ish years? I think I would be more surprised if we didn't than if we did.
and to those of you who are saying that football doesn't take elite athletes away from soccer, I disagree. RBs, DBs, WRs, heck even some Safeties have ideal body types for soccer ( with a bit less muscle perhaps). Somewhere in this country is a young kid, who, if he was born a generation ago, would have become a 5'8" 190 scat back in the NFL. Growing up over the course of the next decade, he may become a 5'8" 170 forward and bEcome America's first soccer superstar. Or perhaps it's not him. Maybe it's one of the other tens of thousand kids who are turning away from football and towards soccer.
and to those of you who are saying that football doesn't take elite athletes away from soccer, I disagree. RBs, DBs, WRs, heck even some Safeties have ideal body types for soccer ( with a bit less muscle perhaps). Somewhere in this country is a young kid, who, if he was born a generation ago, would have become a 5'8" 190 scat back in the NFL. Growing up over the course of the next decade, he may become a 5'8" 170 forward and bEcome America's first soccer superstar. Or perhaps it's not him. Maybe it's one of the other tens of thousand kids who are turning away from football and towards soccer.
Bad at developing because of a general lack of interest. I mean I went to a pretty big high school and we didn't even have a soccer team (they do now). Kids played soccer early at a boys club or whatever and then moved on to more popular sports as they got older. There was no soccer after kids leagues. I'm pretty old, but it's not THAT long ago and I don't think my experience was that uncommon.
But what I was responding to was you mentioning the "kind of athletes." That doesn't wash. There's nothing in the water in Brazil or whatever making better soccer players There's plenty of overlap in terms of speed and skill. I have little doubt that there's lots of NBA/NFL/whoever athletes that would translate well to soccer.
Again, see our women's team where there's less competition from other sports taking the best athletes.
If we were actually getting better at soccer he'd have a point...for soccer.
India and Cricket?
New Zealand and Rugby?
Skiing is very competitive with the USA, Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, etc.
Hockey? What happens when Canada plays against the USA? Canada usually wins. Many of the best players in the NHL are Canadian.
India and Cricket?
New Zealand and Rugby?
Skiing is very competitive with the USA, Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, etc.
Hockey? What happens when Canada plays against the USA? Canada usually wins. Many of the best players in the NHL are Canadian.
"bad at developing because of a general lack of interest" makes no sense. Again, there are millions of youth soccer players at any given point in America. That's not a lack of interest. The problem is that the US on an organizational level has a problem with A) identifying the actual talented players when they are from the ages of 8-12 and then B) knowing how to develop those players, and that is mostly because the people running things at an organizational level were inept. This is what countries like Brazil and Germany and France and other countries are able to do, it has nothing to do with what our "best athletes" do. The idea that the population of the US can't support being good at basketball, football, baseball AND soccer at the same time is absurd.
Again, you could have put Tyreek Hill, Allen Iverson, Kyrie Irving, whatever great American athletes of the last 20-30 years you want in the US soccer system of that same time and it would have spit out mediocre soccer players with very little exception.
MLS is small fry compared to the global stardom one could achieve playing in Europe. Now there's European soccer on every week on American cable TV, where it was hard to find before. And now there are American teenagers playing on Champions League clubs, who are much bigger globally than any NFL or MLB player. NBA is the one league where certain stars are global stars, but not to the same extent as soccer.
So yeah, the number of kids watching MLS thinking that's their dream, that's small. But it's a much bigger world than just the US domestic league.
Can you point to another country that does?
And yes lack of interest goes hand in hand with organization. Less people played soccer, certainly at a high level, so less skilled coaches. Less money/exposure so less people interested in leadership positions, etc.
Lack of interest is absolutely a huge reason why soccer struggles in the US.
Can you explain why the US women's team succeeds and the men's doesn't?
The women's team does so well because no-one else really cares about women's soccer. Ironically the high profile of the US women's team in the US has dramatically increased the profile of women's soccer in the rest of the world
Australia, since you're talking about sports only a handful of countries care about.
Rugby league, rugby union, aussie rules football, basketball, soccer, cricket. They're decent to great at all of them.
Spain is the closer in population to California and despite being soccer crazed doesn't seem to deter it from fielding a great national basketball program. Same with Argentina. And the difficulties the US has in development has been documented, and it's ineptitude and mismanagement more than it is a lack of interest. "Nobody in America cares about soccer" as a reason for why the US isn't better is lazy and it lets that ineptitude off the hook.
Don't knock it, South Central LA's Compton Cricket Club do a lot of good in the community and indeed around the world!
The main issue, especially with things like Rugby, Cricket, football etc. is the simple fact that it doesn't matter how big your population is if no one is playing it. New Zealand have a small population amongst Rugby playing nations and yet they dominate. This is because the amount of possible players is a huge percentage of the population, whereas even in the UK with a bigger population hardly anyone outside of private (public) schools really plays Rugby, the pool where players can be drawn is small in comparison to the population. There's no reason to think the US would be any different, they may have a wider spread of top level sports results but it's impossible to hold them all when some countries concentrate all their efforts on only one or two. If Australia put as much into Rugby Union as they do into League and Aussie Rules I have no doubt they would dominate too, but, the kids want to play League or Aussie Rules depending on which state they live in.
People are going to be so pissed
"Everywhere except the US dominates soccer"
Uh what, Brazil is 100% part of Latin America, maybe you are getting confused with Spanish speaking countries? Regardless, the UK hasnt won a world cup in more than 50 years and nobody is disputing their importance to the sport. Some of the strongest teams in history are in the region (Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay) Football is just that much of competitive sport, some other top teams in Europe have never won a world cup either. Nobody is saying Baseball is not popular, thats why i said a large minority of people and that large minority of people is concentrated in the Caribbean and Mexico and Central America.
I think ive had this kind of arguments before with you, what is with this incessant need you have to extrapolate what individual countries do to whole continents? Who is saying that Baseball isnt played in some countries in Latin America, but you mention those countries individually, just because you are part of Latin America doesnt mean you get to claim the whole continent does whatever some of them do, for starters the whole caribbean is a small part population wise of Latin America and is heavily influenced by American Culture, it makes complete sense that baseball would be popular there, but basically anything south of Colombia has barely touched the sport, and thats where most people live in latin america, this is not a controversial statement but a fact.
This is very off topic tho, so ima leave it there.
They don't. The other 4 major sports (hockey to a lesser extent) absolutely dwarf soccer in the US.
That's less of a problem than those same talented kids deciding that a career in baseball/basketball/football are massively more beneficial to them than one that terminates in US soccer.
Imagine a world where an athlete like Patrick Mahomes went into soccer instead. The number of people who think a top athletic kid should go the soccer route in America is much lower than the number of people who think a top athletic kid should go for the other sports.
Again, they go hand in hand. The lack of interest isn't just with athletes but with the people wanting to coach, scout, run leagues, etc. You can't dismiss the lack of interest. It's clearly there. Just go look at Wikipedia. MLS is listed with other leagues of note along with... the CFL. :/
All of this talk of US men's soccer and whether we will win the WC but not one mention of the fact that we are probably looking at a golden generation of talent forming right now. A record number of young Americans (22 and under) participated in the UCL this year. Every other transfer window some young american is ending up in a European academy or first team from MLS academies or first teams.
Come 2026, since it is on home soil, we might surprise a lot of people, including posters in this very thread. Winning a WC might be far off still but consistent performance at the international level might happen with greater frequency.
Come 2026, since it is on home soil, we might surprise a lot of people, including posters in this very thread. Winning a WC might be far off still but consistent performance at the international level might happen with greater frequency.
I like how Spain is completely glossed over.
But yeah, even with those 7, you still have England, Belgium, Portugal, Netherlands and even Croatia. USA is very far from Top10. It's probably not even in the Top15 yet, since I would also include Mexico, Colombia and even fucking Switzerland ahead of it.
Heck, even some African teams are probably better. Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Senegal come to mind.
This. I'm American, and I've always known it was bullshit, even as a kid.