TEAM AMERICA: World Cup
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Its not lack of athletes, it is development.
I didn't take it personal. Just saying, your loss.
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I am also not into soccer. Or hockey. I just don't like that particular game that much.
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Its not lack of athletes, it is development.
I didn't take it personal. Just saying, your loss.
I've been hearing how rapidly soccer was growing in this Country since the 1994 World Cup, that's a generation. Those ten year old kids that were choosing soccer are 30 now.Its not lack of athletes, it is development.
I didn't take it personal. Just saying, your loss.
It is admittedly a great sport for youngsters if you are a parent, they get a great workout, learn team concepts and don't risk too much injury.
So why with all these kids playing Soccer havent we developed a better National team?
I think it is because Lebron James plays basketball and Andrew Luck plays football ... but theirs sisters might play soccer. The best American athletes still want to be stars in American sports.
But we should have enough hackey sackers and hispanics by now to beat freaking Belgium.
Z
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I've been hearing how rapidly soccer was growing in this Country since the 1994 World Cup, that's a generation. Those ten year old kids that were choosing soccer are 30 now.Its not lack of athletes, it is development.
I didn't take it personal. Just saying, your loss.
It is admittedly a great sport for youngsters if you are a parent, they get a great workout, learn team concepts and don't risk too much injury.
So why with all these kids playing Soccer havent we developed a better National team?
I think it is because Lebron James plays basketball and Andrew Luck plays football ... but theirs sisters might play soccer. The best American athletes still want to be stars in American sports.
But we should have enough hackey sackers and hispanics by now to beat freaking Belgium.
Z
Zombo said:
I've been hearing how rapidly soccer was growing in this Country since the 1994 World Cup, that's a generation. Those ten year old kids that were choosing soccer are 30 now.
It is admittedly a great sport for youngsters if you are a parent, they get a great workout, learn team concepts and don't risk too much injury.
So why with all these kids playing Soccer havent we developed a better National team?
I think it is because Lebron James plays basketball and Andrew Luck plays football ... but theirs sisters might play soccer. The best American athletes still want to be stars in American sports.
But we should have enough hackey sackers and hispanics by now to beat freaking Belgium.
Z
I agree that there aren't too many american icons that play soccer. Maybe now with Tim Howard? But you don't want a generation of goal keepers. There hasn't yet been an american player that's come anywhere near being world class.
On the other hand, I disagree that you should be able to win just by sheer volume of people in the country. China has a billion people - are they going to beat Canada at football, soccer, ice hockey? No. You need the proper training and infrastructure from an early age. Those Belgians you're thinking you should be beating have been playing the game in a professional club's youth academy since a very young age. Eden Hazard - their best player - apparently joined his first pro club at the age of 4. Ridiculous, I agree. But soccer isn't a sport like football where you can just switch after college from basketball and become a superstar, it takes years, if not decades of training and dedication to get to the top.
Another factor is that USA is a bit of an outlier in terms of domestic club football. You have the teams in Europe with all the money, and the best teams from each country play each other in continental competition each season. In south america, you have a lot of players that are either not quite good enough for a move to europe, or couldn't hack it there and came back, but the general idea is the same, you have several leagues of a relatively similar standing, playing each other regularly. As soon as any idea springs up in one league, the other leagues all have to learn to deal with it, and some will copy it.
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Its not like the players on the national team aren't athletes. They've just focused on soccer their whole lives. Altidore could have played football if that was his focus. A lot of guys could have been very successful at another sport. People want to act like if Calvin (or Lebron or whomever) played soccer they'd instantly be a star. That's not necessarily true. But these players on the national team are amazing athletes, its not like that couldn't translate to another sport.
But like I said, its development. We're getting more club level experience for kids and many stay club level through highschool too. But in general this isn't near the preparation it is in other countries. College is basically looked at as wasted years as far as development goes. Belgium has a much better development system, pure volume doesn't matter
What are you considering works class Chris? I'd say Tim Horward is pretty damn good. Dempsey too.
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World Class? well, if you list the top 5 keepers in the world, Tim Howard isn't in there. There's a reason Man Utd let him go, and he's stayed at everton ever since. Top 20, maybe, but when you talk world class, I'm looking for the players that I'd take to make my ultimate team, and then the second team. Howard is a very good keeper though and probably your best player.
Dempsey? No. Pick a position you want to play him in and you'll be able to list dozens of players better than him. He's been up front for USA this world cup, so listing the strikers that would be ahead of him just off the top of my head - Suarez, Messi, Ronaldo, van Persie, Rooney, Zlatan, Aguero, Falcao, Mueller, Cavani, Higuain, Mandzukic, Costa.
He played in central midfield for Fulham; that's an even longer list.
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That's why I was asking what you considered "world class". So like top 10
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That's why I was asking what you considered "world class". So like top 10
It's basically the top tier of talent. For goalkeepers, it's probably top 5 or less. Central midfielders, there may be 20.
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France and Belgium have been playing lights out. Germany not so much. It's either gonna be France or Brazil from that side of the bracket.
And boom goes the dynamite.
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That sucks for Neymar. That was clearly a foul but it didn't look as bad as it turned out it was.
I also found out I missed the Nigerian player getting his armed snapped in half. Made sure to watch that
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KKRRRUUUUULLLLLL
Wow. That is a hell of a way to be there hero. He guessed correctly every shot.
I'm hoping they win it all
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Neymar barely got touched. I feel bad of him but that was a freak accident, nothing more, nothing less. Brazil's free kick goal (sorry I forgot which one it was) was unbelievable. Regardless of their ultimate legacy in this World Cup, that dude deserves a statue built. Amazing goal.
Kroll (sp) was a legit badass. Not only did he win that game, he was talking shit the entire time. MJ would be proud. I was already a fan of the Dutch, but after his performance, I'm all in.
Great games coming up though. 4 of the most talented nations squaring off. By far the best World Cup that I've experienced so far in my merge 26 years on this planet. Granted, it's only the 4th World Cup I've legitimately watched but still.
I was talking to my dad yesterday, a man who doesn't what to visit Europe, much less Italy, which is his ancestral home with family and the whole bit, because they (in his world view) don't like American's, and even he was curious about what he was going to do/watch after the World Cup.
That's all I need to know attitudes are a changing.
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I wouldn't say he was barely touched, but yeah it looked like a freak accident
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Brazilian voodoo priest to curse Germany
12 hours ago
.View photo
Brazil football player dolls set inside a special box to enhance power and luck on them as part of the Afro-Brazilian religious ritual in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on July 3, 2014 (AFP Photo/Yasuyoshi Chiba)
Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Germany will have to contend with black magic as well Brazil's Selecao in Tuesday's World Cup semi-final as a voodoo priest plans to curse die Mannschaft.
Brazil will be without injured superstarNeymar in Belo Horizonte, but black magic enthusiast Helio Sillman from Rio de Janeiro says his curse will hinder Joachim Loew's team in the semi-final.
"I'll take their top player and bind his legs so he can't run on the pitch," said Sillman, referring to the voodoo doll of an undisclosed German player that will be cursed in a ceremony before the game.
In his shop "World of Orixas" in the northern neighborhood of Madureira, Sillman carries out a ritual before each Selecao game.
Using a a small football pitch-shaped box as his alter, he puts inside lit candles in the colours of the opposing team and the voodoo doll of their most important player.
Sillman's curse on James Rodriguez did not stop the Colombian star from scoring in his team's 2-1 defeat to Brazil in Friday's quarter-finals.
Related StoriesAnd he was powerless to prevent Selecao star Neymar from suffering a fractured vertebrae against the Colombians that has ruled him out of the World Cup.
But Sillman points to Brazil's results against Cameroon,Chile, Croatia andMexico as testimony to the influence of his magic.
Voodoo dolls representing a player from each of the Selecao's opponents sit in a bowl.
"Those are the four teams that Brazil have overcome," he said.
Germany's Thomas Mueller, Manuel Neuer and Mats Hummels have been warned.
View Comments (118) -
Isn't religion crazy?
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So Belgium, Argentina, The Netherlands, and France are all that lies between us and the title. Hrmph.
So Belgium, Argentina, The Netherlands, and France are all that lies between us and the title. Hrmph.
I am afraid that Germany will blitzkrieg those nations, just like 1940.
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That was nerve racking and I didn't even care about the two teams lol
My uneducated thinking on the Brazil- Chile match. If you're going to play all that time, and go down to penalty kicks- at least make it like tennis- you gotta win by 2.
My uneducated thinking on the Brazil- Chile match. If you're going to play all that time, and go down to penalty kicks- at least make it like tennis- you gotta win by 2.
Just an ignorant, stupid gimmick to get a game over with. They should play until someone scores. That is how they do it in real sports. Like Hockey.
It would make teams far more aggressive at attempting to score. Right now there is too much laying back.
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Zombo said:
It's always fun to root for the USA, like Mik says, especially when we are an underdog.
The gay part is flopping and writhing in pain anytime someone touches your shoulder. C'mon Man.
I didnt sit through any games but I caught bits and pieces and rooted for the USA.
In the end, they lost two, tied one and beat a small Third World country by one goal.
Still a ways to go.
1980 Hockey Team is still The Great American Sports Story.
Soccer will continue on in the suburbs and the hispanic neighborhoods ... but it wont see my TV for another 4 years.
Z
your loss
you also will be in a shrinking group
also hard for you to make any comments, when you say you didnt sit through any games...
your loss
you also will be in a shrinking group
also hard for you to make any comments, when you say you didnt sit through any games...
Eliminate the offside rule. It promotes lazy defense, and the refs get it wrong at least 50% of the time and disallow goals that should count, or they allow goals that shouldn't. I watched enough of these game to still see absolutely no reason for that rule.
Eliminate the stupid penalty kicks......have them play the real game until someone wins. Or else just eliminate the actual way the game is played and just have each team take penalty kicks. First one to 100 wins.
Allow for more free substitution. Players will be fresher, you could use an entire roster, and the game will move faster.
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Again, your "analysis" of the offsides rule just shows you have no idea what you're talking about.
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Again, your "analysis" of the offsides rule just shows you have no idea what you're talking about.
Again, your "analysis" of the offsides rule just shows you have no idea what you're talking about.
I know what the rule is about....and I see that in fact it rewards lazy and incompetent defense in many many cases.
As for the officials getting wrong half the time....I simply need to listen to the commentators who are constantly pointing out that the officials are getting it wrong all the time.
France won't get past Germany IMO.
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