. . .

...on Ryan and Ann buying a house. It comes furnished, apparently. And there's an unfinished basement, but all I need is a cot and a direct entrance.

Labels: hater

I generally root against the US national team in soccer. Why? Well, for one I'm very anti-hype. Every World Cup we get the same old stories about how the US is now a solid respectable soccer nation and we'll have a good team in 10 years, once the generation of young players that grew up playing soccer comes of age. Back in '94, that was supposed to be my generation (1978-82-ish). Add 4-5 years to that is what we got in '98, then keep going until now, which means we're going to win the World Cup in 2022 or something. I'm also offended by the notion that I should only care about a sport because there happens to be Americans who are good at it. (Tennis coverage also works like this.) The media proves it by hiring American announcers who know jack-shit about soccer to announce the world cup (see O'Brien, Dave). If Univision had an HD feed, I'd be watching the England-Ecuador game now in Spanish. Here's the thing -- we're not that good at soccer, and we probably won't ever be that good.

This post gives a list of reasons about why Americans aren't good. I responded over there, but I want to expand that some more. Here's what I think:

1. Americans don't give a shit about soccer. Brazil is so good because they have the largest population of any soccer-playing nation, giving them about a 90-million deep talent pool to draw from. It's that deep because soccer is by far the #1 sport there. You combine the interest here in baseball, football, and basketball and you have an inkling of how big soccer is. The same deal exists for other big soccer countries: Argentina, Germany, England, Italy, France (to an extent), etc. In the US soccer is what, the 5th biggest team sport? Football is obviously #1, baseball and basketball are probably equal, and then comes hockey. (Hockey isn't that popular overall, put it does have an intense cult that really likes it and will follow it anywhere.)
   
2. For that reason comes my next point: there's no money in professional soccer domestically. Salaries in the MLS are roughly equivalent to what you could make doing IT work or selling insurance or whatever. The top guys only get $100-200K a year. By comparison, the minimum salary in the main sports is at least double that. Why are salaries in those sports so high? Because there a great deal of spectator interest in those sports, allowing them to fill stadiums, sell merchandise, and get billions of dollars from TV. Until the MLS gets popular enough to start doing that, salaries are going to remain (comparatively) low. Money also creates more opportunities. There's only 10 MLS teams, compared to 32 NFL teams, 30 MLB, and 30 NBA. Plus there are more college scholarships for those sports.
   
3. Because they don't care and there's no money in it, our best athletes don't choose soccer. One of the reasons we're so good at sports is because we have a huge, racially and genetically diverse talent pool to draw from and the money to properly train those athletes. But because of the low interest level and the lack of a good financial incentive, soccer gets a lower class of athletes than the other team sports. Take for instance, Allen Iverson. Whatever his negatives as a basketball player, I think everyone can agree that he is an amazing athlete. He's incredibly fast, can control his body wonderfully while at high speeds and in heavy traffic, can control the basketball in those same situations, has an instinctive feel for scoring, and is a very tough person besides. Those are natural abilities he brings to the table as an athlete, and if he'd been born in Hampton, England instead of Hampton, VA he'd have a chance to be a brilliant soccer player instead of a brilliant basketball player. He'd have grown up playing playground soccer instead of playground basketball and developed soccer-specific skills instead of basketball skills. And in some alternate universe where soccer is as big in the US as it is as big in Brazil or England, Iverson is the US' #1 striker instead of Brian McBride, Chris Paul is playing midfield instead of Landon Donovan, and Troy Polamalu is our best defender, not Oguchi Onyewu. That universe doesn't exist, and I can't see soccer ever becoming huge in America. It's just too late.

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Labels: soccer