Teams to potentially win a World Cup first time in the future

Scaring Europe to Death said:
Actually football in the USA has always been strong at grass roots level. The main problem has always been the attraction of the scholarships for the traditional US sports once students are approaching University age.
Once the MLS kicks-in, and kids begin to see a career pathway, it will take off

Also, and this can't be ignored, the USA national team will always be above and beyond any club loyalties. In England we merely flirt with the idea whenever there's a big tournament.

Ironically, if there was a World Baseball Cup, the USA probably wouldn't take it seriously for the same club obsession that riddles English football.
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Indeed, there is a World Baseball Cup of sorts . . . and the U.S. have never finished better than 4th. During the last one, it was so close to the opening of the MLB season that many players (and their clubs) didn't want to risk injury, and for the pitchers, overwork. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Baseball_Classic

While soccer is strong at a grass roots level, those "grass roots" are loosely organized local leagues that are often nothing more than massive play dates for young kids with moms and dads as coaches (who don't know thing one about the sport). While "select" leagues and teams are becoming more popular, the massive percentage of American kids that play play rec soccer. Rec soccer has become popular because (a) soccer is exercise, and the rules are easy to understand; (b) the former youth sport of historic choice -- Little League baseball -- takes a lot of physical coordination to play well (baseball is HARD for kids); (c) baseball puts a ton of emphasis on individual match-ups and individual play while soccer is more team-oriented, which a lot of parents like; and (d) girls have more opportunity to play a team sport (there are far fewer organized softball or other sports available to young girls). More cynically, you can hide an untalented kid on a soccer field better than on a baseball diamond.

Having said all of this . . . the "pick-up" game culture among kids still remains baseball (or sometimes basketball) more than soccer. Playing in the street with a broom-handle as a bat and a beat-up tennis ball with manhole covers as the bases is a time-honored American kid tradition even to this day.

I maintain athletic kids have more choices in America than in any other country for an organized sport to excel in and make a career out of. Soccer's just another choice, not necessarily one that supersedes the others. Hence why it will take a very, very long time for the U.S. men to compete with nations where footy is an overriding obsession.
 
CSKAFan said:
Ok Mr Perfect.

Well Czech Republic are slavic. We all know Slavic = Eastern Europe. What I was trying to get at here is that, Czech Republic have not produced any players recently. They've not got the stars they used to have, such as Nedved, Poborsky, Smicer, Baros, etc. If you asked me to name me a Czech player that plays now, I probably couldn't name you. Obviously, there's Rosicky and Cech, but those players are old now, they are the same players from 2004. My point is, Czech Republic have not been able to replace Nedved, Poborsky, Smicer, Baros, Berger, etc. They have not been relevant in World football since 2004. So yeah.....Now you may try telling me about their success this qualifying campaign, which admittedly, I haven't been following them much but are there new Czech players coming through now?

Czech Republic are a great footballing nation, as you so clearly list their achievements in world football, no doubt. It's just that they're not consistent enough. I'm not talking about consistency in tournaments but actually qualifying. I don't think Czech managed to qualify for the past 2 World cups. Their inconsistency is down to their small population, they're not able to replace their stars all the time.
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Not claiming to be perfect but when the post was so full of factual errors, I thought it should be pointed out. Although after the next round of fixtures, your post may become more accurate if Iceland beat them ;-)

They might not currently have the stars but they have shown that despite their size, they have been able to produce pretty good teams on a reasonably consistent basis.

Romanians aren't Slavic but are in Eastern Europe. Czechs are Slavic but not in Eastern Europe.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
Indeed, there is a World Baseball Cup of sorts . . . and the U.S. have never finished better than 4th. During the last one, it was so close to the opening of the MLB season that many players (and their clubs) didn't want to risk injury, and for the pitchers, overwork. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Baseball_Classic

While soccer is strong at a grass roots level, those "grass roots" are loosely organized local leagues that are often nothing more than massive play dates for young kids with moms and dads as coaches (who don't know thing one about the sport). While "select" leagues and teams are becoming more popular, the massive percentage of American kids that play play rec soccer. Rec soccer has become popular because (a) soccer is exercise, and the rules are easy to understand; (b) the former youth sport of historic choice -- Little League baseball -- takes a lot of physical coordination to play well (baseball is HARD for kids); (c) baseball puts a ton of emphasis on individual match-ups and individual play while soccer is more team-oriented, which a lot of parents like; and (d) girls have more opportunity to play a team sport (there are far fewer organized softball or other sports available to young girls). More cynically, you can hide an untalented kid on a soccer field better than on a baseball diamond.

Having said all of this . . . the "pick-up" game culture among kids still remains baseball (or sometimes basketball) more than soccer. Playing in the street with a broom-handle as a bat and a beat-up tennis ball with manhole covers as the bases is a time-honored American kid tradition even to this day.

I maintain athletic kids have more choices in America than in any other country for an organized sport to excel in and make a career out of. Soccer's just another choice, not necessarily one that supersedes the others. Hence why it will take a very, very long time for the U.S. men to compete with nations where footy is an overriding obsession.
Click to expand...
You make some excellent points. I don't think it's a bad thing that kids in the US have more choices to play both team and individual sports, including the lacrosse explosion you mentioned that has come from seemingly out of nowhere. We have an obesity pandemic in this country and the more we can do to get more kids outside and getting some exercise, the better no matter what the sport.

So, my point is that if a greater percentage of kids play organized team sports, as I believe to be the case, then by sheer numbers we will have more kids playing and sticking with soccer than ever before. The enrollment at our local U8/9/10 academy is up about 50% from just last year--the Director looked quite shocked at the tryouts and was trying to figure out what to do about training schedules, etc.

The exposure to world football on TV, the Internet, and video games is exponentially greater than it was just 20 years ago and (along with the MLS which is still a second-rate league compared to top leagues in Europe) means that this generation of kids is growing up thinking of soccer as a viable option to compete alongside (gridiron) football, basketball, and baseball. Even if it is a distant third place (it will surpass baseball), we should still turn out a ton of fantastic young footballers if they stick with it.

I think the USA is approaching the point where we should expect to make the KO round of the WC every four years. If that happens, we should eventually break through.
 
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