A sign that Americans still have a ways to go
in [World Football]
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From: Deeppe on 10 Jun 2010 20:27 On Jun 10, 3:04 pm, anders t <anthu_001(a)no_-_spam_.hotmail.com> wrote: > Quoting Manx Gunner in rec.sport.soccer: > > >On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:49:58 -0400, RED DEVIL wrote... > > >> With so many US players playing in Europe against good opposition the > >> standard of the US team has really got much better. The problem > >> remains on how to get a better quality domestic league, for me the MLS > >> isn't any better now than when it started. All things take time I > >> suppose. > > >I've explained this before but I shall be happy to do so again. > > >Let's consider a 10-year-old athlete, gifted with the talent to become > >world class at whatever sport he chooses to pursue. That athlete has > >grown up watching LeBron James (NBA, $100M+ by 21), Steven Strasburg > >(MLB, $20M+ by 21), Matthew Stafford (NFL, $50M+ by 21), and Freddy Adu > >(MLS, $3M+ by 21). Gee, which do you think he's going to pick? > Very few of the world class players would do well in these others sports, and other than basketball point guards maybe and many baseball players, visa versa too. Can you imagine an NFL noseguard playing, a typical NBA power forward, a MLB 1B or catcher? The typical MLBaseball player is 6'+. Most of the top strikers and midfielders are simply too small to play MLB, NBA and NFL. So why aren't the best smaller athletes being developed? It's not the salaries, but is it the money, or lack of it. Europe has a much richer, deeper developement program, and a lot of that has to do with the money put into it by the major leagues. Just imagine if the MLS could spend the type of money MLB does on it's minor league teams and draft where top picks demand 15M signing bonuses.
From: Manx Gunner on 10 Jun 2010 20:41 On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:06:10 -0700 (PDT), Mark V. wrote... > On Jun 10, 2:37 pm, Manx Gunner <goal(a)4thegunners!com> wrote: > > > > > I've explained this before but I shall be happy to do so again. > > > > Let's consider a 10-year-old athlete, gifted with the talent to become > > world class at whatever sport he chooses to pursue. That athlete has > > grown up watching LeBron James (NBA, $100M+ by 21), Steven Strasburg > > (MLB, $20M+ by 21), Matthew Stafford (NFL, $50M+ by 21), and Freddy Adu > > (MLS, $3M+ by 21). Gee, which do you think he's going to pick? > > Ten year olds don't pay close attention to how much athletes make, and > even those that do don't make decisions on what sport to play based on > salaries. It's that many more ten year olds see James, Strasburg, and > Stafford play than see Adu, Donovan, Howard et al. Surely you don't think that income and exposure are unrelated? (I thought that was obvious, thus didn't expound on it.)
From: Deeppe on 10 Jun 2010 20:49 On Jun 10, 4:48 pm, Dwight Beers <hdbe...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On 06/10/2010 08:37 AM, Jack Hollis wrote: > > > > > On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:45:17 -0700, Dwight Beers<hdbe...(a)gmail.com> > > wrote: > > >>> 2. In 1875, Ivy League schools, much like their upper crust > >>> counterparts in England, chose to play with Rugby rules in favor of > >>> soccer. Thus evolved American Football. Had the Ivy League choose to > >>> keep playing soccer, American Football never would have existed and > >>> soccer would have been a major sport in the US long ago. > > >> Fact #2: The first Harvard-Yale football game was in 1820. > > > I think you might want to check on that. The first Harvard - Yale > > game in 1875 was what led to the Ivy League to adopt Rugby Football > > Union rules. > > <snip> > > And, you might want to check the newspaper accounts from Boston, > Portland, New Haven, etc. from around the period 1820-1823 (I'm not 100 > per cent certain of the date).- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - It's not on him to defend an assertion, it's on the person asserting the disputed factoit. As long as it's reasonable, he's provided facts why he;s pretty certain your assertion is wrong. It's on your to prove or disprove it, not him.
From: William Clark on 10 Jun 2010 21:26 In article <6mvv06501p4865vnae364os8jci8blqhib(a)4ax.com>, Jack Hollis <xsleeper(a)aol.com> wrote: > On Thu, 6 May 2010 02:20:28 -0700 (PDT), Insane Ranter > <logwyn(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >If the US national team didn't tank it so often maybe Americans would > >care more. > > The US dominates Track & Field and your average US sports fan doesn't > care. Correction, Jack, the US colleges have dominated power-oriented track and field in the past, but that domination is diminishing rapidly. In addition, the US has no track and field competitions that come anywhere close to the European ones. The US has no presence in any track race much above 400m, and only limited penetration into the field events. > Two factors that hurt soccer in the US: > > 1. US already had a national sport when soccer was spreading around > the world in the late 19th Century. What? Rugby? It was the dominant college team sport before football. > > 2. In 1875, Ivy League schools, much like their upper crust > counterparts in England, chose to play with Rugby rules in favor of > soccer. Thus evolved American Football. Had the Ivy League choose to > keep playing soccer, American Football never would have existed and > soccer would have been a major sport in the US long ago. Wikepedia again, Jack?
From: William Clark on 10 Jun 2010 21:28
In article <7n1216do38i67n4fgkv42c8n28qh0oh65l(a)4ax.com>, Jack Hollis <xsleeper(a)aol.com> wrote: > On Wed, 9 Jun 2010 14:45:41 -0700 (PDT), Insane Ranter > <logwyn(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >3. We just arent "good". Americans want to win and support a winner. > >If we won the thing then it would be a nice boost. Another thing is > >the nation leage aka MSL isn't really that good as far as talent goes > >compared to Europe or even S. American maybe even Mexico. I feel like > >I'm watching college soccer or even high school games > > All things considered, the US does pretty well in international > soccer, but certainly not up to the standards that most Americans > expect. If the US could become one of the world elite teams it would > help. If the US could even produce one world class player who would > be a big star in Europe, that would also help. "Most Americans expect"? The national team plays way above their weight, if you consider the relative strength of the MLS against other leagues around the world. Most Americans haven't a clue how the US team should rank, and cannot get a sense of it when all the national team players play week in, week out, in Europe. |