7 min in. Colombia dominating possesion, but not really doing anything with it.
Possession is rarely dominated in soccer. There is too much change of possession.
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Did you watch the US - Argentina game?!
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nope
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This isn't true. There are often large possession disparities in soccer.
Sometimes, but not often.
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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).
WTF was that? It just seems like other teams move the ball much more smoothly than we do.
Every US player - save Dempsey - should attend the Zidane School for Passing, Trapping, and Kicking. It would pay dividends.
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I hear the head-butting school is amazing.
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That's for extra credit
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Dammit
The US has really lost its skill in winning balls in the air. We rarely win 50-50 balls.
Which is doubly bad because we play long ball.
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Tim Howard is such a baller.
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I like giving Howard a shot tonight. Guzan had a poor game against Argentina. Why not give Howard a shot?
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He's doing well.
Dumb question...why was Guzan starting over Howard for the rest of the tourney? Is he simply better? I don't follow soccer much and thought Howard was as good as they get. Is he over the hill?
Well fuck. Our stellar defense strikes again
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It was excellent play from Colombia, but yeah, Bedoya and Yedlin both let people behind them. I also thought Bradley looked late breaking out of the backline.
Close there from Yedlin and Jones.
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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It baffles me.
Still giving the ball up too easily. This time it's in their end instead of our end.
That's progress, I guess.
Bedoya got in Wood's way - sweet
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Starting to mount an attack. Thought Clint should have fired from the 18 yard box there.
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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.
Well the problem is no leagues that are wiry a damn. MLS is not very good. Europe has a ton of them and a great us player could get paid well out there. Problem is that it's not domestic.
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*worth not wiry.
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Haha. Nice.
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You had it right the first time.
Even tennis has a better youth system than soccer.
As a tennis player, I'm not entirely sure what your point is.
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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
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.
This is right on. Klinsmann has said as much but gets criticized for it.
Not sure if serious...
Oh I'm sorry. Do you honestly think USA matches up athletically with countries like Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Germany, etc?
Its not athleticism. Zardes seems to be a pretty good athlete, but he handles the ball poorly. It's footwork, ball control, and vision. With proper skills you do not have to be tall or particularly fast to be an elite player.
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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
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.
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?
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.
Exactly. It's player development that is the problem. It is not a failure of having the athletic talent to develop.
No, it's not. The three largest countries in the world - China, India, and US - do not view soccer as their favorite, primary sport.
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The problem isn't a lack of athleticism. It's a lack of skill.
This^
There are 10,000 guys in this country that are better athletes than Lionel Messi. But it does not matter. That's not why he's the best player in the world.
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.
This is the stupidest argument ever. This is the lazy argument of someone who wants to hate on soccer but doesn't have a really reason. Have you seen the NBA? That's one of the most popular sports in America with more flops and flails than you'll ever see in a soccer match.
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Definitely agree that the NBA is garbage and they flop, but to say there are more flops in an NBA game is ridiculous