I grew up here in the States playing football ( American ) and baseball. We had never even heard of soccer and I don’t think my high school had a soccer team.
My kids, OTOH, have only ever played soccer. All of their friends only play soccer. At their school, soccer game attendance is second only to football (this is still Texas afterall). There are still youth baseball and football leagues around here but games are only played at club fields. Every weekend, vastly outnumbering these baseball and football games, are soccer games which are held at damn near every school yard, vacant lot and cow pasture. The soccer games go one year round, the football and baseball leagues are seasonal. My point is that soccer here in the US is one of those “awaken a sleeping bear” type scenarios. The rest of the world my not be ready for, nor appreciate when this new generation wades into the fray and has it’s way.
True, but the larger point is that they are closer and closer to deserving that ranking as well. We have come a long way. We have been ranked as high as #4 in the world, and currently ranked #14. We don’t have that far to go. I don’t think it’s inconceivable that we could be in that zone on a regular basis in the very near future for a few important reasons:
Money. We are a rich country with nearly unlimited resources, a desire to always be the best, and a culture of sports. As I said before, Nike, the American marketing juggernaut that made Jordan a global star, is now the biggest soccer company on Earth. They, among others, have a vested interest seeing soccer do well. Finally, it’s more than just hype. People are putting their money where their mouths are. They buy the cable soccer packages, the equipment, and invest in camps to train the next generation.
Changing demographics. As more Hispanics move to this country, soccer will become a much bigger sport. Not only with recent immigrants but with the kids who now see an opportunity there. Hands down, America has the most, and best athletes in the world. More and more, kids today see soccer as a worthwhile sport, which means you will see the next generation of Kobe Bryant’s, and Chris Johnson’s playing soccer. Along those same lines, America has always accepted more immigrants than many other countries. Even now, you see stars like Onyewu, whose Nigerian parents came here for school. Or Giuseppe Rossi, whose parents immigrated as well, but who decided to play for Italy last time around. We will always have an edge in attracting outside talent. As the internal talent improves, more of those people will stay and play here. Basically the same thing we do in the Olympics.
Opportunity. We will, barring something unforeseen, always be within striking distance. We can easily make each world cup, and will probably host at least 2 more on home soil during my lifetime (giving us a seeding in pot 1). That inside track will eventually lead to a championship. In a knockout tournament, you don’t have to be the best team, you just have to string together a few great performances at the right time. Being great obviously helps a lot (see Brazil), but being in good form at the right time helps as well (see France).
To a good team. Listen, we are not in a place now to win the world cup unless something crazy happened. I think we can all appreciate that. However, our performance in this cup would have been unthinkable just 20 years or so ago. Our expectations and play have changed a lot in such a short period of time. I have little doubt they will be higher 20 years from now. Given a roughly 50 year window, I think we have a greater than 50% chance of winning it all.
Well, I know Kobe Bryant knows who Lionel Messi is. Either way, I think more kids probably know Landon Donovan, David Beckham, or Ronaldo, but that’s not that important. Soccer doesn’t need to be that popular in a country this big to allow for a great US team. Hockey, track & field, swimming, volleyball, and baseball are second choices, but we are still great at all of those sports.
FIFA stopped the rotation policy, and banned joint applications (eg. Japan and S. Korea) This limited the number of potential hosts with the infrastructure, desire, and money.
I fully expect the US to host either the 2018 or 2022. Bill Clinton is now behind the effort (hence the trip to S. Africa), and he generally gets shit done. Hosting one more time in the next ~40 years after that seems doable as well.
South Korea’s performance in 2002 (semi-finals, and they showed it wasn’t a complete fluke by reaching the second round this time) would have been unthinkable in 1982, at which point their record was five failures to qualify out of five attempts. Cameroon’s performance in 1990 would have been unthinkable in 1970. No-one expects either of them to mount a serious challenge for the title in the next 20 years. It’s much easier to catch up with the pack than to catch up with the leaders, and another thing again to pass the leaders.
As far as I know, none of those sports - except baseball in Japan - has large professional leagues with tens of millions of fans in any country outside the US. This isn’t the Olympics, where American numbers, money and facilities give them a huge edge over smaller (and often cash-strapped) rivals. Soccer is the sport for a sizable chunk of the world’s population, including several large, wealthy countries. (Brazil, for example, has 190 million people - if soccer is Brazil’s first sport and the US’s third, they probably have you outnumbered).
Maybe I’m being cynical because I come from a large, wealthy country where football is a religion, the professional league is immensely successful and the national side has spent the last 20 years sliding from serious contenders to national embarassments. If building a strong league, cracking the top ten and rolling the dice a dozen times is all it takes, why have neither England nor Spain reached a final in the last 40 years?
That I did not know. Consider ignorance successfully fought and my objection withdrawn. (Still think 2018 is too soon for the US to get it again, though).
Come on. There needs to be a little intellectual honesty here. The US is NOT South Korea or Cameroon. We were ranked #14 in the world before the cup. To be an “elite” team, we would need to move up roughly 6 spots. We have been ranked in the top 5 in the world relatively recently. You can argue that we don’t deserve that spot, but we have consistently proven we do over the last decade or so. Furthermore, Italy (#4), England (#8), and France (#9), all had a worse showing than we did. Playing head to head, we held our own against England, and won the group with them in it. There is no logical reason their program, which I would still say has a greater than 50% chance of winning during my lifetime, should be more likely to win than we are.
Culture matters, but so do resources. We have not put any significant resources into soccer until recently. Once we do, we will start churning out stars.
Because they have a far tougher road, and just have been unlucky. Spain, who btw, lost to the US in 2009, ending their record-tying winning streak, have often had difficult groups, and a harder road to the WC finals. If you still doubt the US team, maybe you should listen to Fernando Torres:
England, who didn’t even qualify in '94, have often lost to an eventual finalist ('86, '02). The important question to you is, do you think either of those teams are likely to win a world cup in your lifetime (~50 years)?
The goal is either 2018, or 2022. I will bet you we will get it on one of those dates. They announce the 2018 winner at the end of 2010. We can revisit this then.
It is definately not impossible, but highly inlikely. If you look at the last 40-ish years, there have been a lot of teams that have been better (relatively) than the US have been this year. The Netherlands have been a semi-major force since the seventies (with a dry spell in the early eighties) and yet have never won. We are talking abou a team that was probably mentioned as one of the top 8 probable winners throughout this period. the same goes for countries like Spain and Portugal, not to mention England. In that same time, there have been exactly zero surprise acts that have unexpectedly come out of nothing and won. It is always one of the big countries (Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Germany) or sometimes the home team.
This is just to show how difficult it is to win a world cup. add to that that football teams from all over the world are improving and it becomes even more difficult. You need to be good and have bit of luk to get through 7 games without a loss these days.
I have recently been listening to Why England Lose an explanation of football by economists Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski. At the end of the book they use their theories to predict the future of world football. Their conclusion is that the dominant nations will be China, Japan and the USA.
The most surprising revelations in the book are how quickly a nation’s fortunes can rise and how recent the advent of football is in most of the non- Europe/Latin American parts of the world. For instance former Australian captain Johnny Warren called his autobiography Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters and only a few years ago the body governing Soccer in Australia was filming matches and giving the film to TV networks free. Yet Australia has made the last 2 World Cup finals and attracts huge crowds for major games in Sydney and Melbourne now.
The authors’ steps to England losing in the World Cup proved spot on, even the step that required them to lose to a former wartime enemy if they made it out of the group stage.
I see people still using the fact that the USA is ranked 14th in the world, as if it is some relevant indicator of quality.
Teams are ranked according to points accrued. The USA accrues points due to playing the majority of its competitive games in CONCACAF. I have no doubt that if the USA had to qualify from the European or South American groups, they would not win so many matches, would not accrue so many points, and so have a more realistic world ranking.
I have no beef with the US team. They are certainly one of the best 32 teams in the world. I just find it funny that people can say, “we are 14th, we just need to push on 4/5 places and get into that elite group…”.
You are 14th because of a quirk in how FIFA determines rankings. You are not even close to the Brazils, Spains, Germans, etc etc. Be realistic.
Here is the most recent world rankings. Which teams ranked below us would you say are better?
Perhaps, but you ignore the fact that the ranking consider regional and oppositional strength in the calculations. Yes, the US would like lose more games, but the ones they’d win would count for more.
Yet, we beat Spain in '09, the same Spain that didn’t even make the WC in '70 & '74. In 40 years, they went from not making the finals, to being the favorite pick this time around. Why can’t the US accomplish something similar?
The reality is you don’t need to be the best day in day out. You just need to put yourself in a position to win, and string together a few great games during the cup. The point I was making before was that achieving a top 8 ranking (even if you feel it’s undeserved) will put us in pot 1, where all the recent finalist have come from. It gives you an inside track to win your group and advance to the round of 16. Once there, you get the easier game, and if you can avoid Brazil or Germany for a game or two, you can get a clear shot to final.
I voted “yes”, based on the way the question was phrased, but I’m thinking closer to a 55% than an 80% chance.
Soccer doesn’t NEED to be a first-rank sport for the US to be competitive at the highest level; if you split off 1/5 of the population, you’d have a country with a population as big as France or Italy, bigger than Argentina or Spain, and almost as big as Germany. (Not close to Brazil, but winning one World Cup out of 12 isn’t the kind of result Brazil expects).
It needs to be higher ranked than it is now. Splitting off 1/5th of the population is meaningless, because it’s not as though athletes are evenly drawn to each of the top five sports. Football, basketball and baseball draw the top 90%, with the rest parceled out among soccer, ice hockey, golf, tennis, skiing and so on.
Knowledge of football and looking at the crappy international US record which is playing meaningless home friendlies against touring teams and competing in Micky Mouse qualifying groups and getting stuffed by decent teams.
The USA just lost to Ghana.
The USA is not a top 20 footballing nation. Neither is England - who are ranked way too high for their abilities.
Anything more specific than that? Has Ireland beat Spain anytime recently? What about Turkey? In your opinion, are Italy and France top 20 teams? What about Croatia, Russia, Egypt, and Greece?
While the win over Spain was notable, also don’t forget the Confederations Cup final, when the US team (with Onyewu and Davies still healthy) held a 2-goal lead at the half over a Brazil squad that was pretty much identical to the current version. Not many sides can claim to have ever led Brazil 2-0 in a competitive match.