Isn’t soccer the game where male players show incredibly poor sportsmanship by pretending to be hurt?
Our women’s soccer team is pretty good and in the USA its mostly been a girl’s game hasn’t it? like field hockey?
Edited to make post less inflammatory.
That describes basketball as well.
True, however, the USWNT competes in an international field that has less parity and isn’t as cutthroat. The men’s side of the World Cup is vastly populated with national contenders and the USA Men are going up against dozens of countries with an entrenched legacy of many decades of great soccer.
In the less-developed women’s World Cup, it’s easier for a few big fish to dominate the minnows.
Agree. It really is an embarrassingly low standard, even at international level.
Saw this today - goalposts, working class version:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/e046758f-5e89-47e4-be1b-3bc48d764d00
Huh…
I remember back in '98, there was so much hope and confidence that we’d make it to the first knockout round despite this being a huge longshot due to being put in a group with Germany and another powerhouse, and oh, how teeth were gnashed and hair was rent when Germany very predictably beat us 2-0 in the opener, and OH the terrible, terrible lamentations when Iran beat us 1-0 in a super-fluky game where about fifteen of our shots hit the damn goalpost, and we limped out of there without a single point and there were tears and fingers pointed and screams and torment and tribulation…and all I could think was, “Eh…would’ve gotten clobbered in the first knockout round anyway.”
And then '02 rolled around, a corrupt mess that reminded me of the darkest days of the Cold War-ear Olympics, where both Japan and Korea got like 75 bad calls go their way, and everyone…EVERY. FREAKING. ONE…laughed and danced and prattled about the “home field advantage”, something I’ve never head of before or since, and at least two teams, Italy and Spain, get outright robbed, and everyone keeps laughing and dancing and prattling, but who cares because France screwed the pooch while we made it to the quarterfinals, and we’re celebrating and like ha ha ha ha, your World Cup was just a fluke, you always suck, cheese eating surrender monkeys ha ha ha ha…and all I could think was, “What the hell are we celebrating? France won a World Cup; we didn’t!” (Oh, also: “This ‘home field advantage’ crap better be a one-off.”)
So now Team USA is out of the big dance entirely after losing to a cellar-dweller (due to, judging from the highlights, roughly thirty of our shots hitting the damn goalpost), and apparently some people are extremely upset over this.
My question to you all: Have you considered the possibility that maybe…just maybe…we just can’t do any better?
Seriously. Look at our record. We qualify, we get a few points, we quietly bow out to the real contenders. Every time we have a tiny, tiny modicum of success, i.e. making to the round of 16, there’s this huge celebration and all kinds of chest thumping and some windbag proudly declaring that we’ve turned the corner…and then we fail utterly to make the quarters next time. Well, now we’ve turned so many corners that we’re right back where we started. And I don’t doubt for a second that the next trip will turn out exactly the same.
“We spent millions! MILLIONS!” Yeah, because spending lots of money always guarantees success in sports, right? What are we getting for our money? Who are we getting? What do the books even look like?
“We have 300 million people!” How many of them are taught proper fitness from childhood? How many are taught to eat properly? How many develop the intense cardio and lower-body strength this game demands? How many of them enjoy the prospect of running around and around and around for one tiny, golden chance of putting a point on the board?
“Major League Soccer was supposed to propel us to success!” Oh, lovely, high expectations, that sure as hell never backfires. :rolleyes: Listen, you create a closed system where you get to set all the rules, then turn these players out into the real world, there’s a good chance they’re going to struggle. The fact is, as long as the big money is in sports that require upper-body strength and/or hand work, our soccer squads will never have the elite athletes needed to get over the hump.
Look, this isn’t like women’s gymnastics. For decades our squads were deliberately and brazenly shafted by a Communist-dominated Olympics system that wanted to make us suffer and had all the power to do so. 1984 showed the heights our women could reach free of the Reds’ corruption, and once the USSR fell, all we had to do was add one friendly Romanian coach to our ranks, and now they’re absolutely blowing the doors off of everyone. The potential was always there; all we needed was a fair shake. This isn’t like tennis, either. I mean, when you really look at it, every one of our stars was a once-in-a-lifetime miracle who had just the right combination of talent, athleticism, drive, and attitude and came along at just the right time. I have no doubt for a second that the next Arthur Ashe, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Michael Chang, Andre Agassi, Lindsey Davenport, or Serena Williams is out there, preparing for the day when he or she will set the world on fire. Soccer is a thing we are not that good at and never was that good at. The reasons have already been well-documented (the biggest being that culture thing), so I needn’t hash them again here. But the idea that we always had the potential to go far in the World Cup, or that we will have the potential, or that someday we’re just going to get lucky. No. Not gonna happen. I guarantee you that if we ever make it to the quarters again, there’s going to be days of celebration and ESPN is going to absolutely blow up and the true believers are going to proclaim that this is it, we’re arrived, it’s upward and onward to the championship from here…and then we’ll sink right back into the status quo for the next twenty years.
Interesting post. How does the USA do generally at international team sports?
I only really see a USA team at the Ryder Cup and for all their posturing I’ve never felt it’s a team as I understand it.
Here are the thoughts of Brian McBride on the game the other day. I respect him; rooted for him when he played for Columbus and thought he represented us fairly well abroad.
http://www.espnfc.us/video/espn-fc-tv/86/video/3235675/watch-brian-mcbrides-thoughts-on-us-failure
More from Brian McBride (set up by some pointed commentary from Jermaine Jones about playing abroad):
[url=http://www.espnfc.us/video/espn-fc-tv/86/video/3235680/mcbride-us-players-must-go-to-europe
I agree that we need to have our players be more willing to be abroad. One of the reasons often cited for the relative under-performace of the Mexican national team is the unwillingness of their players to go abroad. I think we may be suffering from that problem, too. It’s worse in our case, because MLS is not as good as La Liga quality wise. But note that McBride’s comments aren’t focused on the relative quality of play so much as the relative culture of practice.
And today, news comes that one of our best young MLS keepers is headed to Europe.
D.C. United’s Bill Hamid heads to Denmark to play for Midtjylland
He had the chance to be a #2 keeper in Germany, but chose to go to Denmark where he’ll start for sure.