Round of 8 will be
5 or 6 from Europe
1 or 2 from South America
1 from Africa
I’d guess that for organized leagues soccer would be #1 in revenue in each of the 8 countries.
and 5: Convince America’s most athletic children to play soccer instead of more popular sports like Football, Basketball, Baseball, Wrestling, Tennis, Track, Bowling, Pickleball, Volleyball, Tetherball and Tetris.
That’s basically child abuse
Here is someone who didn’t get this published before the WC for reasons.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49298797/usmnt-failed-world-cup-players-no-coach-save-them
Ream is the unfortunate symbol for the real problem with the USMNT, the same problem it has always had: The players still aren’t good enough.
Ream himself used to be one of the players who was good enough. The best soccer coach of the 21st century, Pep Guardiola, literally told him as much. But Ream is 38 years old – he was already past his peak at the 2022 World Cup. His presence in the starting lineup four years later wasn’t a coaching error; it was an indication that there weren’t any better options.
For all of the Americans now playing in Europe, the talent pipeline still hasn’t produced a true superstar, let alone someone who is good enough to be a starter for one of the best teams in the world.
They play in Europe, sure, but in lesser leagues. I see 11 players in the top 5 Euro Leagues, none on ARS, PSG, BAY, FCB, or Inter. That is not enough. And those teams don’t just sign anyone. Those teams need to stay up. They need to win Cups and titles. They need to qualify for The Champions League. Their analysis of players is evidence.
Oh, and this:
https://www.espn.com/soccer/worldcup/story/_/id/49297263/usmnt-world-cup-loss-youth-travel-soccer-system
USWNT win, too!
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49301582/us-men-women-get-equal-split-16m-world-cup-prize
Answer: yes, they did. Exit in Round of 16 is what was expected (IMO).
equal pay for unequal work for the win!
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Time to blame the guy we (media) all put high expectations on and he didn’t come through, making us look bad.
Everything pointed toward Pulisic being America’s biggest star at this World Cup. Instead, he was – and remains – the team’s biggest mystery.
Our biggest star (Alphonso Davies) only played a few minutes and our key midfielder broke his leg in the second match. I’d like to blame our early exit on that but…
Didn’t Pulisic play through an injury too?
I still think you hit the nail on the head when saying they simply weren’t as talented as other top teams.
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Alright, the way-too-early USMNT roster for 2030, assuming they qualify:
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/49344843/projecting-usmnt-2030-world-cup-roster-30-players-rep-us-four-years
Still too many Beer League players. They are either getting ignored by Euro teams, or they’re being home-boys who cannot handle being so far away from mommy. Guessing more the former, though there have been cases of players coming home for family reasons.
This is where people have to start realizing “we have [name], he’s a starter for [club team in Europe] so obviously he must be really good,” times however many players, doesn’t equal “… and that collection of talent is just as good as teams in Europe.” Comparatively speaking, we’ve got Bill Wennington, Jud Buechler, Randy Brown, Jason Caffey and Luc Longley, and are arguing “yeah, they were on the 1996-97 Chicago Bulls, that was an all-time great roster and one of those guys was a starter much of the time, so that 5 could go play toe-to-toe with anyone in the NBA.”
Yeah, it’s got a few of the guys on that roster. You’re just missing a Dennis Rodman, or a Scottie Pippen, or a Toni Kukoc, and you have nothing remotely close to a Michael Jordan - but by god, Longley scored 21 points in a game once (the season prior, averaging 9.1 per game that season) and 19 rebounds in another game once (3 seasons and a different team prior, averaging 6.0 rebounds per game), that’s practically the same as averaging 30+ points or 15+ rebounds every game.
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Methinks it is a bit early for this?
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Yup.
Well, the key component is the “times X players,” where X is far short of other National Teams’ rosters. And we can discuss which clubs, how good is the club, how much does the player play, etc. And when you aggregate all that, even somehow objectively (because a “team” is not necessarily the sum of its parts), this USMNT is not as objectively good as BEL, and certainly nowhere near these last 4 teams by the same metric (whatever that may be).
Again, people can “believe” all they want. They will simply be considered innumerate and ignorant of facts, which, sadly, is representative of the average American Idiot (which I strive not to be).
Yes, this team by those metrics will be better than any past USMNT at a WC. Still not good enough when they have to play against WAY better teams at the WC.
They probably could have dusted off the story written after the US went out in 2022, adjusted ages, and used it and it would have read about the same.
Can probably recycle that article after 2030, again adjusting ages and maybe finally swapping out a couple names.
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I mean, it’s a less pointless article than the Heritage Foundation, made up of people who don’t care about soccer, blaming the US loss on Title IX. But perhaps that’s a low bar
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I could use a little political humor. You got a link?