Non-American here (Brazilian) and I voted yes, though I’d like to make it a qualified yes. I think that in 12 World Cups the US certainly has a good chance of winning but that’s no sure thing and the team would need to improve quite a bit still.
The truth is that with a pool of 300 million people to furnish soccer players, money to spend developing the level of the sport and increasing popularity I think it’s a safe bet to say that the US will become a soccer power well within the time-frame mentioned in the OP. After that luck is certainly a huge factor.
Let’s see, off the top of my head (by the way, I interpret “qualify regularly” not to mean that they have qualified for every WC ever, but that they have qualified for a good number of them, especially in the later years – The only country that has been in every WC so far has been Brazil)… Some of the countries that have qualified regularly but never “made it” would be:
Spain, Mexico, Portugal, Sweden, Chile, Yugoslavia (well, I am including its “descendent countries”, like Croatia and Slovenia, in the historical record), Czechoslovakia (same caveat as Yugoslavia), and I am sure I am forgetting a few.
Scotland has been in 8 world cups so far, but it never advanced past the first round.
The Netherlands has qualified very often as well, but has never won, although it reached the final twice (1974 and 1978) – I don’t know if the “never make the final game” thing means that the team in question has not reached the final, or that it has never won a final.
The most egregious “offender” is my country’s team (Spain) … Until the Euro championship of 2008, we were (in)famous for being great at qualifying and then going down during the tournament itself. Until 2008, the closest we ever got to winning anything important since 1964 was the final game of the Euro Cup in 1984 against France (which we lost, 2-0 — Ironically, that was the Euro Cup Spain qualified for in an amazing final classification game against Malta; we needed an outrageous goal average to get past the Netherlands, and we ended up scoring 12-1).
I’m not sure that US soccer does draw fully from its 300 million population. I was struck by how white the men’s team is, compared to other US sports teams, or even to some European teams. I have read in various places that soccer in the US still draws mainly from white middle-class areas.
What’s more, having a large, soccer-mad population and good resources does not guarantee success. Just look at England…
I agree. Other added benefits are our changing demographics, and the real opportunity for American-born players to play overseas. As our Hispanic population rises, there will more prestige, and a bigger audience for soccer in this country. That will translate to more kids of every stripe seeing soccer as a viable option. Furthermore, you have a generation of people, who grew up playing soccer in high school and college, teaching their kids the game in a more competent way. The coaching is there now to nurture the next generation. There are also elite camps and more sponsorship money to give kids opportunities to learn and play the game.
While it’s always a crap shoot whether a country will win the cup, the US is likely to almost always qualify due to a relatively weak qualifying group, so slightly better play, and a little luck will generally have us within striking distance. Along those lines, the seeding in the actual cup will often be to our benefit if we can just improve our world ranking slightly. If we had improved our world ranking from 11 (our current ranking) to 7 (or 8), we would be the seeded team in our group, making it much easier to advance form group play. Does anyone really see that as such an uphill battle? I would bet a lot of money that I will live to see the US win at some point during my life.
I concede to not having an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the World Cup (and I’m not invested enough to read the Wiki) but I’ve watched enough and read enough coverage over the last few decades to feel somewhat confident in my opinion. Certainly much debate could be had over the language and how one defines “regularly” and “power”. The gist of what I was saying is that there simply aren’t very many countries who qualify as a virtual lock to qualify for every World Cup. Teams like Mexico, Sweden, Chile and Scotland have played well and appeared in several WCs but it doesn’t really qualify as a shock when one fails to make a Cup. If Brazil or Argentina don’t make it in, it’s a huge story. When Mexico misses it’s barely a story. Spain does seem to be the exception to my argument though.
There are probably 8 teams in the World who qualify as Super Powers and they are about as safe a bet as can be to make the final 32. Teams like Brazil, Argentina, Germany, England, France, Spain, Italy and maybe a couple others I’m over looking. Of those 8 teams it seems that they all have a nearly equal chance of winning the whole thing once they get there. The World Cup, more than just about any tournament I know of, seems impossible to predict. You can usually narrow it down to 8 or so teams and beyond that you might as well be throwing darts. The ability of one fluke goal to totally change the course of a match and a entire tournament is just too pronounced to try and make any precise analysis.
If the US can enter that realm of those elite 8 teams. Teams who you can pencil into the field without pause then that means they’ve reached a level to which they are about even money to win the whole thing. Whether the US can enter that realm is up for debate, I think they are close and will, but the question isn’t so much if they can win the cup but if they can get consistently good enough to contend for the cup every 4 years. Assuming that answer is yes then I think it’s a foregone conclusion that they’ll win the thing.
Because of those 32 teams about 20 of them have absolutely no shot. I’m looking at you North Korea.
This is just flat out wrong. The US has a pretty ethnically diverse team. Of the 23 people on the squad, there are 8 Black players (Howard, Onyewu, Beasley, Clark, Buddle, Altidore, Edu, and Findley), and several other foreign-born and/or Hispanic players (Torres, Bocanegra, Feilhaber, Gomez, etc.). Please point out more than maybe one or two teams with as much diversity. In fact, there are very few “White” people all things considered.
I think people are being over-enthusiastic about the US’s prospects. Yes, the national side has gone from fourth-rank to second-rank in 20 years. That doesn’t mean it will be first-rank in another 20. 20 years ago, everyone was talking about the rise of the Africans, how the best African teams would soon be (at least) the equals of the best Europeans and South Americans. Since then, we’ve had any number of great African players, but no great African teams. And the US hasn’t produced any great players yet.
People are also putting too much on the development of the national league. The Premier League is the richest in the world, and English pundits complain endlessly that it’s stuffed with foreigners while the national side struggles to find good prospects. Half the German squad at this World Cup is made up of Poles, Turks and Brazilians. On the other hand, the Brazilian and Argentinian domestic leagues are notoriously badly-off compared to the Europeans.
For the forseeable future, “playing at the top level” will mean “playing in Europe”. To win the World Cup, you need 15-20 Champions League-quality players, not 200 journeymen. Does anyone think that American teenagers in 2020 or 2030 will go to bed dreaming of playing in the Premiership or La Liga? More likely, it’ll be the NFL or the NBA, and MLS will remain a second-tier league, or one where the main stars are African or South American imports.
(Of course, all this assumes that the World Cup survives another 50 years. By 2040, we could all be watching the World Champions League and national football will be regarded as an anachronism.)
England has 8 Black players (James, Johnson, Cole, Lennon, Wright-Williams, Defoe, King, Heskey), and few players of other ethnicity as far as I can tell in my admitted cursory search. Not quite as diverse as the US.
Germany has 3 Black players (Aogo, Cacau, Boateng), 2 Turkish players, a Tunisia player, and a half-Spanish player. Again, not as diverse.
France has 13 Black players (Sagna, Abidal, Gallas, Cisse, Govou, Henry, Evra, Malouda, Mandanda, Diarra, Diaby, Anelka, Clichy?). Seemingly few players of other ethnicities. That’s the only other team of the 3 you mention that might be considered more diverse.
But, fair enough, there are 3 teams with nearly as much. Doesn’t undercut the point I was making that the US teams is hardly lily white as was suggested.
It doesn’t absolutely follow that this will be the case, but it’s very likely based on the way the cup usually goes, and the qualifying process. The US competes primarily in the CONCACAF confederation, which they and Mexico have dominated for a long time. They will, barring anything crazy, always finish high enough to always make the WC finals. Their toughest competition (aside from Mexico) is Trinidad, Honduras, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. Do you think any of those teams will improve relative to the US over time?
So we can pretty much guarantee we will make it to the tournament. The next, integral piece is achieving a top 7 or 8 ranking (or hosting the cup) in order to make it into the first seeded group (pot 1). Since the format changed in 1970, all finalists have come from pot 1. Right now, the US qualifying schedule is rife with tomato cans and deadbeats. All we need to do is win those games, and step up against the teams outside our confederation to achieve a respectable ranking. We do that consistently now, having been ranked as high as #4 in the world.
If we can be the seeded team in our group, we’d give ourselves an inside track to win the group, and advance. We’d also ensure that we would not play one of the heavy hitters in our first knockout game. Just doing that would give us a 1/8 chance of winning.
I think so. First, I think all but 4 of our current players play overseas. Many can and will play in Europe, and more will play in the top leagues there. Second, kids do dream of playing soccer now. Especially since companies realize there is money to be made there, and because you can watch world soccer on tv in most places. Fox Soccer channel, Univision, etc. broadcast games all the time. Nike is now the #1 soccer brand in the world. An American company is now the biggest soccer company on Earth.
That’s not just jerseys being sold, it’s soccer equipment being sold to actual soccer players.
I doubt that will happen. Constant international travel makes that very hard to accomplish.
Indeed-they just got their asses handed to them by the Germans.
I’ll point out that comparing attendance at indoor arenas (hoops, hockey) vs. outdoor venues can be misleading.
Actually, I have no real objection to Omni’s hypothesis-in principle he’s correct, luck does play a bigger part in who wins and loses than most people suspect (or are willing to acknowledge). But the US is just one of dozens of national teams: if we take a look at a century’s sampling of WC soccer (25 tournaments), and apply it to the Big 4 North American sports, and see what percentage of teams won their sport’s championship over 25 seasons (1985 to 2009), I get:
MLB: 17 out of 30 current teams (4 expansion teams added)
NHL: 13 out of 30 teams (9 teams added)
NFL: 14 out of 32 teams (4 teams added)
NBA: 7 out of 30 teams (7 teams added)
[Expansion muddies up things a bit of course]
So, your odds of winning it all in a 25 season/tournament sample would appear to be 50:50 based on this analysis.
Note that even if true quality were to be evenly distributed in all these sports (which of course it’s not-<cough>Yankees<ahem>), it’s far from a given than more than half of all teams will win in a 25 year span-several teams will undoubtedly win multiple championships. And in this topic we are pretty much assuming “a lifetime”=50 years or so (12-13 World Cups). And the World Cup seems more akin to the NBA than to MLB in terms of talent distributions, despite the larger field. Pretty long odds indeed even if the US team continues to improve, tho if polled about a 100 year time span I’d probably be tempted to change my vote to “yes”.
Those other teams qualify regularly because they’re very good. The USA qualify regularly because their opposition is very bad. If they were European they’d be an Ireland or a Greece, qualify sometimes, not other times.
Given that only one nation has broken through to win its first World Cup in the past 7 tournaments, an alternative way of phrasing the question is, “How many other countries are favored to win their first World Cup before the U.S. does?” Clear favorites right now seem to be Spain, Netherlands, and Portugal–are there any others?
Also, it’s interesting to note that the last three first-time winners (France, Argentina, England) won their first at World Cups they hosted.
With these two facts in mind, I’m guessing that (A) the over-under on number of tournaments until the US wins will be about 13 and that (B) it will happen when the US hosts.
Kicking over tomato cans does not a great team make. To get a World Cup seeding, you have to convince FIFA that you deserve a slot at the expense of one of Brazil/Argentina/Germany/France/Italy/Spain/Netherlands/England (not to mention Portugal, and whatever contenders may come out of Africa or Asia). I’d say that was harder to pull off when all you have to show is a bunch of one-sided wins over weak teams, and a few friendlies no-one takes seriously.
Besides, so what? There’s no royal road through the group stages, as France, Italy and England can tell you. If your “Top Ten” team isn’t actually top ten material, the Slovakias and Uruguays will find you out. The US, note, won their group, were rewarded with a second-round game against lower-ranked opposition - and lost.
Maybe I’m over-estimating American parochialism, but I find it hard to believe that European soccer will ever be more than a niche sport on US TV. What percentage of American teenagers know who Messi is? Torres? Drogba? I’ll bet they all know who Kobe Bryant is, though. And as long as the stars of the US sports media are Americans playing American sports, soccer will remain a second choice.
No, you’re underestimating the current and future number of immigrants in America. Not one soccer-hater in America has to be converted for soccer to become a major sport here - just let the immigrants keep pouring in. And for the future of MLS and the US National Team, we just need to get the millions upon millions of 1st and 2nd generation Americans who already live and die soccer to start caring about American soccer. Not easy, perhaps, but a whole lot easier than convincing the haters to stop hating.
The US will host at least one more World Cup and possibly two. When that happens I think they would have a decent chance. I do not see them sever being favored to win, but I certainoy can see it happening. I voted yes, although I guess in a purely statistical POV it would be no.
No, what you need is for them (or their kids) to put the remote control down and play soccer, not just cheer at the TV. Otherwise, even if MLS succeeds, it’ll end up like the Premiership - most of the stars are imports, and the national team manager complains about a lack of local talent at the top level. Then you need the talented ones to stick with soccer through their teens, instead of shooting hoops, slugging baseballs or dreaming of Friday Night Lights. In a world with no American superstar soccer players - and how do you get to be a star in the American sports media when you play in Spain? - that’s a big ask.
Oh, and to all those people saying the US will host another World Cup - or two - in the relatively near future - why? Under the current rotation, 6 of the next 12 hosts will be in Europe. South America is a football powerhouse, and badly overdue. FIFA is looking for hosts in Africa and Asia, where football is already popular. I’d expect to see a World Cup in China before I see another one in the US, and China’s not being seriously talked about yet.
