Why the US is not a World Soccer Power

Joe asks the question, and Brian does a good job of answering it. The US will struggle to compete with the traditional soccer powers like Brazil, Argentina, England, Spain and others as long as soccer is (at best) the fourth most popular sport in this country. And yes, the arrogance of the American sports fan will be an issue. MLS will probably never be as popular as any of the other big 3 sports, which means that the casual fan will only care about US soccer when the World Cup takes place every 4 years. Hard to compete with other sports under those conditions. Unless of course the President makes being a soccer dad cool.

As a brief aside, let's not forget the arrogance of the European fan. When it comes to soccer, European snobbery takes the cake. American soccer is mocked almost as much as American politics. Honestly, the only reason American fans are still just that much more annoying is because of our indifference and dismissive attitude towards soccer - and really any sport other than football, basketball, baseball and occasionally hockey.

Back to the point. The US will not develop a world class soccer player until kids in this country play soccer like those everywhere else. There are two parts to this. First, kids in other parts of the world play soccer every day. While kids here play basketball or football, elsewhere they play soccer. Brian already mentioned this. To develop his point further though, what this means is that kids everywhere else develop a better understanding of the nuances of the game. You can take an American kid who is incredibly athletic and super fast, and watch him thrive in the US. Then you send him abroad, and he's lost. The reason is that soccer, more than just about any other sport, can neutralize athleticism through tactics and technical ability. Take Brazil and Spain as examples. When they start passing the ball around quickly, forming triangles all over the field, running give and gos on the wing... it doesn't matter if you are Carl Lewis. The Brazils and Spains of the world move the ball around quickly, never letting you get close enough to take it, and wait for somebody to step out of position. Then, they have the awareness and the skill to take advantage of it. On occasion, like Wednesday's defeat of Spain by the USA, a team does manage to play tactically smart for all 90 minutes and takes advantage of its opportunities on the counter-attack. But it happens infrequently. The truth is that athleticism, while important, cannot bridge the gulf in technical ability and understanding of the game.

So how does this change? Soccer academies. I'm not sure that American kids will ever be like kids in the rest of the world, playing soccer at recess and then again the instant they get out of school. But American kids have been moving towards specializing in sports at younger ages. There is no reason this cannot apply to soccer as well in the form of soccer academies (for all I know, soccer may have been one of the sports pushing specialization forward, albeit without academies). American kids play on youth teams, and it requires a lot of time and money to do so. In other parts of the world, if you have talent, you don't play on youth teams - you attend a soccer academy, and you don't pay to do it. If you're good, they sign you to a contract, and then it is in everybody's best interest to develop you into the best player possible. Sure, we like our athletes to be successful, but we also want them to get an education. That attitude has to change to some degree for soccer. Kids will have to be in these academies as early as age 12 if we want them to develop like kids elsewhere in the world (or maybe even younger - is it already too late for this kid? NBA scouts would say he's reached his full potential...)

You can go on youtube and find videos of Ronaldinho embarrassing kids from a rival soccer academy in Rio De Janeiro - he was 10 in the video. You can go to England and you'll see that kids as young as 14 are playing their butts off in hopes of getting a spot at the Newcastle Academy. The USA won't field a team that consistently competes with the world powers (that means being technically equivalent and having a similarly nuanced understanding of the way the game is played) until soccer academies are developing and pumping out hundreds of kids a year.

But there's hope. As MLS develops (even as people like Joe mock it) and becomes financially stronger, clubs will start putting lots of money into their youth systems. New York Red Bulls have an excellent youth system already. But these youth systems will have to become academies, where kids live at the academy and work on soccer every day. If and when these academies come into existence, world class American soccer players will not be far behind.

Time to Talk Football - Confederations Cup Predictions

Since Brian and I apparently write our blogs for each other, and I know he has at least a marginal interest in football, I decided it was time to write about my take on the upcoming international tournament in South Africa, the Confederations Cup.  The USMNT has taken part in WC qualifying recently, and their form has been up and down. Most recently, they lost ugly in Costa Rica 3-1, but responded by gutting out a comeback 2-1 victory over Honduras in Chicago.  Results are great.  How have they looked, and what can we expect next week when the Nats play Italy, Brazil and Egypt? Here are the results, as predicted by me, by peering into the mind of Ol' Stone Face, Bob Bradley.

The United States starts off on Monday June 15 playing Italy.  Some may remember that last time the USMNT played Italy, in the 2006 WC.  Brian McBride received a bloody face in that game thanks to Daniele de Rossi (he's smirking because he knows he's still getting laid after the game), in what would end up as a 1-1 draw.   This time around, barring any unforeseen red cards, I expect the game to be less bloody but more tactical - read that to mean boring.  Italy will defend and absorb pressure.  Against better teams, this tactic can backfire.  Against the US, which has no legitimate attacking options at the international level and must rely on set pieces for many of its goals, this approach will probably work wonders.  This is a warm up tournament, and of course the US would love to advance and do as well as possible, but I just don't see the US being dedicated enough to the sort of tactical approach that will be required to win this game - and that means not pushing forward and forcing Italy to come out of its defensive shell.  The US will probably find itself on equal terms in regards to possession, but won't generate many scoring chances while it sends men forward.  Italy will score on a counter attack, and grab another goal later as the US pushes forward to chase the game.  I hope I'm wrong, but I see this as a 2-0 victory for Italy.  With some luck, the US will get a goal early on and force Italy out of the back.  If that were to come from the run of play and not a set piece, and you actually saw it happen, consider yourself lucky. Gorillas reproduce in captivity more often than the US scores from the run of play.

Following Italy the Nats take on Brazil and its plethora of attacking options. Kaka, Robinho, and whoever else they decide to call in to make us all feel pedestrian and ordinary.  Maybe we'll be lucky and Kaka will come in lacking inspiration after his recent transfer to Real Madrid (note that he is not one of those athletes that thanks God, as you might assume from the picture.  In fact, he is mocking God because he knows that he now has more money than God). I would be shocked to see the US try and play attacking football in this one, if only because they don't have the ball enough to get their players forward.  However, Brazil has focused more on getting results under current manager Dunga.  This means that we won't see Brazil pushing 10 men forward, playing beautiful football. Instead, we'll see Brazil dedicating 3 or 4 players to the attack, and including others when the opportunities present themselves.  And with this approach, Brazil is just too individually talented to fall to the US.  The hope here is that the US plays smart and tough, denies open space and closes down quickly.  Hope for the draw.  0-0 would look good to Bob Bradley. Hopes for a win?  It will take a piece of individual brilliance by somebody (I'm thinking Clint Dempsey scoring on a long shot), or the US scoring from one of its few set pieces (Bocanegra diving header? anybody?).

Lastly, we play Egypt.  I don't know anything about Egypt except that a few of their players have had some success playing in England.  I also know that one of them (Amir Zaki who played with Wigan this year in the EPL) just pulled out of the tournament because of a pulled hamstring - probably an injury he suffered because of training while hung over (after attending a costume party, as seen in the picture).  My guess here is as good as yours. By this point, the US will either be eliminated, or in need of some points to earn their spot in the next round.  Egypt will likely be in the same position.  Expect both teams to play attacking soccer, and expect whichever team still cares about defense to win.  Personally, I don't like the idea that we would lose to Egypt.  I think we've come a long way as a footballing nation and we should start expecting to get some results in tournaments of this nature.  That means winning games against those teams that aren't named Italy and Brazil.  I don't care if Moses himself suits up for Egypt and parts Onyewu and Bocanegra on his way to scoring.  We should be able to get a result against Egypt.  So I'm going with my heart and not my brain on this one.  I say the US wins this game 2-1.

I would love to see the US advance out of the group, but in all honesty, I don't see it happening. The US will need inspired performances from some guys who haven't been playing very well lately, and they'll need some guys to step up.  If it happens, we may be pleasantly surprised.  If not, it will be a quick week in South Africa.

Remembering Why I Never Wrote Rebuttals to Henry Cotto in the First Place and Trading Jarrod Washburn

It only took two posts on the Henry Cotto before I realized why I won't be responding to it anymore - the posts are really long and tend to be boring.  So many posts about baseball... I imagine that my experience reading about baseball is akin to the uninitiated reading about soccer.  But I will take this opportunity to write about the one thing that always piques my interest when it comes to the Mariners - trades.

I don't care whether the Mariners are 2 games back or 20 games back when July rolls around. The last person I want to see wearing a Mariner uniform when the calendar tells me it's August 1st is Jarrod Washbun.  I don't like him, I don't like the way he pitches.  I don't like that he has two R's in his name.  Let's face it.  This guy is a fraud.  We know what he's about - getting paid a lot of money to deliver an ERA in the 4.50 range.  Somehow, his lifetime ERA is 4.09.  But if you take out his contract year (2005, he had to be on the juice), and his early productive years when he was 26-28... well, I'll just say that his ERA would go up significantly if I crunched the numbers.  I don't think it's unfair to remove those years and consider them aberrations, since his ERA has hovered in the 4.50 range most years in his career.  It's not like the guy had a sudden drop-off in form.  He's just not very good.

I would love to see him go.  Even if it's for Henry Cotto himself.  Maybe Henry Cotto has a son, or knows somebody that can deliver 200 lbs of steak to the team free of charge.  Both of those are better than more Washburn.

I don't feel the same way about Bedard.  If the man is performing and you can get him to come back, I am all for it.  I love good pitching (mostly because it shortens games that I find boring to begin with).  Bedard may not like to pitch more than 5 innings, but at least the guy has nasty stuff.  And I love that he hates the media.  Adds some spice to an otherwise dull 162-game stretch on the sports calendar.

And another thing.  If they can package Washburn with Beltre, I might get a Jack Zduriencik Fathead to put on my wall.  This guy knows what he's doing.  I still don't know where we got Russell Branyan.  And the outfield is much less frightening this year with Gutierrez and Chavez out there.

I say - Let JZ work his magic, and don't waste your time hoping that this could be a playoff year for the Mariners.  They are terrible on offense.  Trade Washburn, trade Beltre, get Bedard to stick around if you can.  And I will be the calling 1-877-328-8877 to order my JZ Fathead.