We call it football wrote:
Lots of good points about best athletes in other sports. And the US does have world class keepers and other players. But we don't have any world class strikers. And really only have 1 striker on the USMNT. You can't win if you can't score.
Also the club coaching is awful in the US. The country is too big to truly develop talent or implement a cohesive system or develop coaches. If we picked a single state and focused all US soccer efforts on developing players and coaches there we might have a chance. But that would never happen. For example, Imagine if all the US soccer players and top coaches were all from North Carolina. It would never fly. Yet that's why tiny countries such as Belgium can be among the top 5 in the world. Do you think they have the best athletes?
Yes they have better athletes. Kompany and Everton striker Romelu Lukaku are of Congolese heritage. Fellaini, Tottenham Hotspur’s Nacer Chadli and teen sensation Zakaria Bakkali are from Morocco. The father of Tottenham’s Moussa Dembele is from Mali.
The family of Liverpool striker Divock Origi is from Kenya. The father of Zenit St Petersburg midfielder Axel Witsel is from Martinique. Thomas Vermaelen speaks to the media in Flemish. Chelsea’s Eden Hazard speaks in French. Man City’s Kevin De Bruyne speaks Dutch, French and English. Fellaini can speak Arabic, French and English.
They have better athletes with better development training and competition. How can they not be better ?
Imagine if the US had the following American athletes playing soccer as their chosen sport if passion and $:
Keepers: Lebron James
Backline: Eric Berry. Laron Landry. Rob gronkowski. Revis.
Mid: Wes welker. Chris Paul. Steph curry. John Wall. Marques colston
Forward: Desean Jackson. Reggie Bush. Chris Johnson
The athleticism of American soccer is diluted and weak comparatively and relatively to other American sports and to Belgium.
Show me a single instance of an American player of elite athleticism who relieves elite coaching and development from youth level on up and loves the sport with an obsessive passion. They do not exist. We have Bryce Harper in MLB, we have Kobe and Durant et al in NBA, football has its players. soccer simply does not in the USA. We develop great athletes in all major sports by end of high school and they can go pro. We develop nothing pro ready for soccer.
It is what it is. Klinsmann has forced America to take its blinders off and he goes after the best players eligible to be USAMNT just like Belgium does.
Someday it may be different but not now.