The problem with soccer in the USA

Discussion in 'Soccer in the USA' started by NewDadaCoach, Jun 9, 2024.

  1. ChicagoVT

    ChicagoVT Member

    United States
    Jun 26, 2019
    This is very well said. Youth baseball in my area is run by volunteers which keeps the cost significantly down. Participation from the community to support local little league is head and shoulders above soccer, even though more kids probably play soccer in the area. It's a cultural thing. Baseball has a stronger foundation in the US than soccer and that makes a big difference.

    It all comes down to the fact that soccer is (and was) not popular enough in the US and is not tied to our national identity like other countries. Youth soccer culture has organically grown into the expensive pay-to-play travel ball that will be very difficult to unwind and fix.

    To another poster's point about the common misconception that people point to "What if our best athletes played soccer." I truly think there is something to this. I'm not talking about 6'9" Lebron James but I am talking about the millions upon millions of other great athletes who are 5'8" to 6'4" and play football, basketball, baseball, etc. at a high level. We are missing out on the competition of a massive pool of high-level athletes that would only make the few that make it through to the top level of soccer in this country even better. We have a lot of great athletes that play soccer but we could have millions more. I'll put it this way... no other country has as many non soccer playing athletes than the US does. I think that has an impact.
     
    NewDadaCoach repped this.
  2. samuel_clemens

    Dec 20, 2005
    Los Angeles CA
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    Basically if your height starts with a 5 you are suboptimal for the big 3 but you're adequate for Soccer so the talent pools barely overlap. The Spanish team that just won the Euro is 5'10ish on average iirc, so rather than NFL and the NBA taking all the best athletes, it's more like there are tons of unrealized talent in the US.
     
    bigredfutbol repped this.
  3. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member+

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Sep 28, 2019
    Ohio
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    I'm not exactly sure what you're saying, but I think i have an idea.

    Let's look at each sport as they are different:

    NFL. I don't follow it but just off the top of my head I can think of many players who are under 6'0" tall.
    Kyler Murray 5'10
    Russell Wilson 5'11
    Julian Edelman 5'10
    Emmit Smith 5'9
    Barry Sanders 5'8
    Christian McCaffrey 5'11

    There are many many others. These are just some of the more well known players past and present. These are QBs, wide receivers, and running backs.
    Would any of these have made great soccer players? I have no idea. Probably if they had played a lot of soccer since age 5, for 15 years straight, I don't see how they would be not good at soccer. Maybe not pro level, but probably at least college level good.
    And don't say they are too stocky. They are stocky because they have to put on weight to play their sport. They have to eat a lot and weight train the upper body. If they had played soccer they would not have done much upper body resistance training and not be as stocky.

    NBA - I agree that this one you can pretty much throw out the window. Maybe just 10-ish players in the whole league are under 6'0" at any given time?
    Probably the best short player ever was Allen Iverson who is listed at 6'0" but was probably 5'11" without shoes on, or maybe even 5'10".
    But some of those players do very well. Like Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry. In fact at times they were on the court together as PG and SG for Toronto and did quite well.

    Baseball - There are many baseball players under 6'0". Probably well over 100 currently if I had to guess. Yes the average is like 6'1"... but many are under the average, as many are over, hence why its an average.
    Some notable current players doing well:
    Yoshinobu Yamamoto 5'10"
    Shota Imanaga 5'10"
    Steven Kwan 5'9"
    Jose Ramirez 5'9"

    These are mostly all star level players. The first 2 are Japanese though. And Jose I think is Dominican.
    But would they have been good soccer players? Who knows. Probably not bad at least.
     
  4. samuel_clemens

    Dec 20, 2005
    Los Angeles CA
    Nat'l Team:
    Brazil
    My guess is that these under 6" tall players are in the 20 percentile shrotest players for MLB and NFL, and are an extreme outlier for the NBA, whereas in soccer they are just about average. THat's why I said the talent pools barely intersect. The other leagues may be stealing some talent that could go to soccer, but not most of them in my opinion due to height and other physical constraints.
     
  5. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member+

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Sep 28, 2019
    Ohio
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    There's probably not much difference in the height distribution between baseball and soccer.
    There are many soccer players 6'0" or over, so I'm unsure of why you seem to think different. Just off the top of my head I can name many like Erling Haaland, Van Dijk, Cavani, Harry Kane, Benzema, Ronaldo, Luis Suarez, Darwin Nunez, Busquets, Lukaku, Bellingham, Musiala, Kevin De Bruyne... and on and on... I could sit here and type out hundreds, but you get the point.

    And that's not even including goalies which are almost all 6'0" +. Maybe there is just one or two under in the top leagues.

    So I'm not really sure what you are getting at here.

    Though I will say I do agree that it is no due to a lack of athletes that is the problem here in the US. It is moreso due to culture and coaching that holds us back.

    Height in soccer will also vary by country. Germany has the tallest overall, followed by England Premier league. Spain (La Liga) has the shortest overall. I looked this up a while back.
     
  6. 6 foot isnot tall.
    How does Germany manage to have the tallest footy players, while the Dutch are the tallest people?
     
  7. NewDadaCoach

    NewDadaCoach Member+

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Sep 28, 2019
    Ohio
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    I never said it was tall. The other user came up with the cutoff.

    Idk, I just googled and couldn't find Dutch footballer height. Maybe do the research and post it here if it concerns you.
     
  8. ChicagoVT

    ChicagoVT Member

    United States
    Jun 26, 2019
    Let's not get lost in the height of the typical NBA and NFL players. That is not what we are saying here. No one thinks a 6'6" 310lbs left guard would be a good soccer player. I even said we aren't talking about someone like 6'9" Lebron James. Not every position overlaps... clearly. But I am talking about the players that do overlap. Plenty of high-level NFL, college football, basketball, baseball players, etc. are in the appropriate size range. A 5'11" free safety that is a freak athlete for some D1 college football program but is too small for the NFL. That is a very high-level athlete (there are tons of examples of people like this). The point is there are millions of amazing athletes not playing soccer like they would have if from another country but, if they did play soccer and competed with the already high-level athletes playing soccer we would have better players at the top. But these guys don't play soccer because we lack the soccer culture and these other sports are held in higher regard (for the most part). If these other sports were magically taken away or never existed, the US would absolutely be better at soccer. No question.
     
  9. BOSNAINTER

    BOSNAINTER Member

    krajina
    Bosnia and Herzegovina
    Feb 17, 2006
    Nat'l Team:
    Bosnia-Herzegovina
    Soccer is about skill not athleticism nobody needs a freak athlete who can not hit a barn to save his life or run with ball or trap the ball.athleticisam is import most athletic players are soccer players in all sports but that gets you nowhere
     
  10. jmplautz

    jmplautz Member

    Jul 28, 2007
    Madison
    As I have a child getting into the higher levels of soccer in my area, how much a child's parent can pay for is definitely taken into consideration in tryouts/making a team. It's obvious when you see the final team makeup. Once in a while a coach will admit as much in private.

    This a mostly driven by greed, obviously. But, there is also another component. Getting kids into college. Look at any high level youth soccer club's website and front and center will be the number of kids playing in college. Wealthy parents eat that shit up and will throw ridiculous amounts of money to be associated with it. On the other end, college coaches need kids whose parents can foot the bill for at least some if not most of college because of scholarship limitations or no scholarships at all. This is also where academics come in. I once had a national title winning college coach tell me this on why he didn't recruit very many local kids, "I could put together a team that plays beautiful soccer with local kids. Highly skilled and very diverse. But, I can't get many of them admitted into school."

    This is the problem in a nutshell.
     
    Chesco United repped this.

Share This Page