OT: Copa America Third Place Match - USA vs. Colombia

Submitted by M-Dog on

Chance for a podium finish for the USMNT.  

On Fox FX @ 8:00 PM EST.

TrueBlue2003

June 26th, 2016 at 2:39 AM ^

for making these statements is, but soccer has a wider variation of time of possession compared to football and basketball by a substantial margin.

You regularly see games where a superior team controls the ball for 60-70%+ of the game because teams are allowed to simply play keepaway if they can. It's a good tactic to essentially do just that. There is no shot clock or game clock arbitrarily forcing a change of possession at regular intervals if one hasn't already occured.

Couldn't find data on hockey but I suspect turnovers are far more frequent in hockey such that it's not as variable as soccer (and I suspect that why it's hard to find the data, hard to track in hockey).

superstringer

June 25th, 2016 at 8:41 PM ^

Some moron on this blog a month ago said the US was "a couple players away from being really good.". I retorted we were more like 11 players away from being really good.

Might be more like 15 players away.




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Saint_in_Blue

June 25th, 2016 at 8:47 PM ^

USA soccer is so bad. It's nobody's fault. All of USA's best athletes play other sports. Soccer may be gaining popularity here but our best athletes will continue to play basketball, football, baseball, or basically any other sport that makes more money.

drzoidburg

June 25th, 2016 at 10:42 PM ^

you think there are many south american leagues worth a damn? Yet some of the best national teams are there. An american can just as easily go to europe for a lucrative pro career. The problem is no one encourages this, their talent goes unnoticed until it's too late to churn out a messi, or they get steered to other sports. The US will never compete with the top teams on a consistent basis unless soccer becomes the #1 sport in this country or damn close to it

JBE

June 25th, 2016 at 10:56 PM ^

Just look at this Colombia team, where you have players playing at Real Madrid, Arsenal, AC Milan, Juventes, etc. All these players know to hone your game and get paid you have to leave the country and go overseas to the major European leagues. To compete on a world scale 70% of US players need to be playing in one of these leagues, even if it's for smaller clubs like Cameron and Brooks do.

Soccer doesn't need to be the number one sport. We just need players who are encouraged and willing to play in strong leagues in order to be ready on the world stage. But first we need a youth soccer system that produces players skilled enough to be coveted by these clubs. That's where the real problem lies.

MichiganTeacher

June 25th, 2016 at 10:09 PM ^

Yeah, I think you're trolling in a soccer thread. I mean, you're claiming soccer athletes can't get paid. You're claiming that because we play a couple of extra sports, we don't have enough talent to compete with a country 18 times smaller than we are.

/shrug

Saint_in_Blue

June 25th, 2016 at 10:39 PM ^

For 95% of the world, soccer is the #1 sport. In the USA, soccer might be 5th at best. So when you have 4 to 5 other sports taking athletes away, that's a huge deal. And in most of these smaller countries, soccer is the ONLY main sport they have.
And MLS is a joke compared to the clubs in Europe. That's where soccer players go to get paid.

brax

June 26th, 2016 at 12:06 AM ^

Terrible argument. Take a country like Uruguay that produces players at the highest levels, e.g., Godin, Suarez, Cavanni and regularly (but not always) goes deep in tournaments has 5 million people. That's a population base the size of metropolitan St. Louis. That's what they have to work with. Pretend people from St. Louis were only allowed to play soccer and the USA team had to be made up of those players. Would you take that team or USA?

Saint_in_Blue

June 26th, 2016 at 12:25 AM ^

My argument is valid because this has been the case for decades. The best players in the world have been playing soccer their entire lives. And the same with their fathers and grandfathers. They have been developing great players over generations. That is why they are so good.
So to answer your question...yes. Maybe after 50-60 years of them playing nothing but soccer.

7words

June 25th, 2016 at 8:49 PM ^

And that is why americans hate soccer.  Not even close to getting hit in the head and goes down holding it like he got hit with a bat.