In the US soccer is a sport for the suburban rich, but it's a sport for the poor in all other countries.

aoxomoxoa wrote:

qaoaoqa wrote:

-Its televised enough. For some reason not promoted well here. Intentionally or non-intentionally. Well, if they want to become a $500 million world superstars then those little poor kids better start expanding their horizons.

When is the last time you saw a non-World Cup soccer match on primetime on a major network? Saturday showings of Chelsea vs. Man U at 10a on NBC Sports doesn't really count.

If/when NBC/CBS/Fox/ABC start showing soccer in prime time on Fri to Sun nights, then we can talk about it be televised enough. Until then, it doesn't even compare to MLB, NBA, or NFL.

This may have been brought up later in the thread but I think what you are getting more at is the America does not have a highly successful profitable soccer league. The EPL, La Liga, Bundasliega, Series A, etc... are all 5-6 hours ahead of EST so you are never going to get those matches in American prime time slots. Unfortunately the only time you really see the Friday/Saturday night matches are right around now when the European teams come over to play in the states and they do get prime time coverage on ESPN. It is their off-season though so who really cares, even when the destroy the MLS All-Star team.

With respect to (2), there are many places in Central / South America where urban dwellers play soccer on cement courts. It's called fulbito. As someone else mentioned, it's a great way to build skills because it is a fast paced, high touch game.

More generally, there are plenty of Euro stars who did not come from poor backgrounds. I thought about this for about 5 seconds and Antoine Griezmann, Thomas Mueller, Frenkie de Jong, Matthijs de Ligt come to mind.

I think the gringo men suck at futbol because:

(1) the US has many other sports competing for their attention

(2) US culture / TV favors slow sports where you can fit in lots of commercials (football, baseball). Even a beautiful, fast sport like basketball Americans turned into a TV sport by building TV timeouts into the fabric of the game. The only comparable sport to futbol in the US is hockey, and hardly anyone cares about it there.

(3) population density in the US is low compared to most countries that are good at futbol. transaction costs make it tough to put together an on-the-spot game.

(4) a combination of (1) and (4) that aoxomoxoa mentioned above

NotPC wrote:

I watch sports I know sports wrote:

Football and basketball most definitely don't have the best athletes. If I am an athlete in the US I am going for MLB.

Overall, I believe NHL has the best overall athletes in the US. Any one of those guys can be a top decathlete, boxer, and wrestler all in one.

LOL the NHL??????????????? A bunch of slow white dudes?????? Seriously??????? In overall athletic ability I'll take any NBA team , heck I'd take a college basketball team vs any pro hockey team. That is one baaaaaad take.

Yes, you can see that he is a watcher of sports more than a player of sports. Anyone that has done anything athletic with a D1 basketball player and a D1 soccer player or hockey player knows first hand the enormous athletic differential. D1 hockey and soccer players are very athletic. D1 basketball players are a whole level above that.

There are many divergent opinions in this thread but unlike the NHL comment, 80% understand the basic notion of the funnel. Few people play hockey in the US, thus it takes less talent to make it to the top compared to a widely played sport like basketball. It's simple math. You don't need to be as much of an outlier to succeed in US hockey than to succeed in US basketball. Same with running versus swimming, football vs. lacrosse, etc.

On the world level it switches. In the US, basketball players are better athletes than US soccer players, but in Britain soccer players are better athletes than basketball players.

The reason why some sports are more popular, why some ethnicities excel at some versus others, etc. can be debated. But not the math. Sports with fewer participants generally have less athletic talent at the top than sports with much greater participants.

In short, it's the culture. I used to live in Brazil. Soccer (football) is kind of a big deal there. When there's a game on TV, the whole country is glued to it. You could walk down the street and hear your neighbors cursing or cheering, to the extent that my (Brazilian) ex warned me not to even go outside after a Corinthians game because the fans will be rampaging. Soccer players are THE idols. The neighbors' 5-year-old son can run circles around an average American adult athlete on a pitch, because it has been the "cool" thing to do all his life.

It's not (primarily) that there are barriers to poor people playing it in the US, it's that the sport isn't popular here, so fewer are interested, in a vicious cycle. In Brazil, it's the #1 show in town, far and away, so EVERYONE plays it, and it feeds itself as the best of the best become pros.

The sport is very popular here. The local soccer academy in my county has 4000 academy and rec players from ages U5 to U19. In contrast the local american football league here has only about 500 players 5-14 years old. And this is in the South where football is king. People like to watch one sport and play the other.

The issue seems to be developing these kids and competition from other sports. If we took 20% of players off other country's teams, they may look like the USMNT.

I grew up watching football and basketball and never soccer. Once my kids got involved in soccer and I understood the game to a small degree and went to some pro games, I can't watch football and basketball anymore. There is no flow to the games with all the stoppages and time outs. It's boring and lasts forever.

Frmke wrote:

I don’t think that’s necessarily true. A lot of the USWNT came from poor backgrounds eg Hope Solo, Megan Rapinoe

That's true, but scoccer in the U.S. is primarilty the domain and Suburban upper middle class white kids. I use to run a speed development program geared towards all sports, no poor kid could afford the program and I might get one Black kid for ever 20 white kids. There is a little bit of a negative stigma towards soccer in the Black community, there are Black families who had not so pleasant experiences on some of the elite travel teams. With that said, there are some suburban Black kids who do play soccer, but soccer is usually not their main sport and they usually quit playing around 11 or 12.

In terms of why the U.S. don't excel at soccer, there many contributing factors which point to one thing only. By the time kid reach their early teens in most countries, they have played 3 times as much soccer as the average U.S. kid. The skills at the youth level is much higher in most countries than the U.S. Even a U.S. kid on multiple teams plays less soccer than a European kid on no team. When I lived in Europe, I watched kids play soccer practically everyday all day long which was very remenanmece of how basketball is in the U.S. Most kids in the U.S. only play soccer when adults orgainze it.

Hahaha. Is this a joke? I would say the exact opposite. Don't know about hockey players but I do know for a fact that soccer player are on whole other level of athletic ability vs basketball players. We've had hot shot basketball players try out for clubs and things would clear up right away. They were slower, less quick, less agile, and tired more quickly. Not sure why anyone would think basketballers would be more athletic...unless athletic ability is determined by having your shorts and underwear pulled down enough so the buttcrack is showing?

Soccer is for people who can't make it in football, track, baseball or basketball.

LOL the NHL??????????????? A bunch of slow white dudes?????? Seriously??????? In overall athletic ability I'll take any NBA team , heck I'd take a college basketball team vs any pro hockey team. That is one baaaaaad take.[/quote]

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Hockey players are highly skilled warriors.

Basketball players are are black guys who can't play football.

[quote]ExExPatriate wrote:

In short, it's the culture. I used to live in Brazil. Soccer (football) is kind of a big deal there. When there's a game on TV, the whole country is glued to it. You could walk down the street and hear your neighbors cursing or cheering, to the extent that my (Brazilian)

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If, and only if, you got rid of the offsides rule and allowed the players to use their hands you would have a great sport.

Irish Football is better, but nothing beat American Football.

Clint Dempsey was very poor.

Expense is a problem, but not structured play. All leading soccer countries start grooming talent young and teach the pro game from early teen years. The difference in these countries is a pro team in every town (pack all US pro soccer into Maryland and you approximate current world number one Belgium) and every one of these teams sponsor youth programs at minimal cost, so poor kids aren’t priced out. Popularity of the game assures the best talent goes into it rather than other sports, and there’s no connection to school (college soccer is essentially low level pro paid with scholarships, played part time and disconnected from high level pro play).

245Y5H wrote:

Soccer is for people who can't make it in football, track, baseball or basketball.

Yes, football is for people who couldn't make it into curling.

Geraldnev wrote:

Football is not a sport for the poor, it is an accessible one. The fact that a lot of people from poor countries are playing football, doesn't mean that it is a sport for the poor, it is easier to play than, for example other sports like golf ( where you need the golf stuff, and a special hill where to play) You can play football on the streets, on a hill, on a stadium, and even on betting platforms.

https://linkw88moinhat.com/

You're right my friend, everyone can become a football star.

This is generally true, but my kids are into soccer and play on high level travel teams. I am seeing an increasing number of Latino players across the spectrum. This is good. You are correct about the African-American players. That is unfortunate. I wish we could have kept some of the better African-American players over the years.

As you get older, expense becomes a major factor. Major. It is so expensive and time consuming, and as has been stated, no one ever just pulls a game together. Coaches at the clubs are weird about allowing players to do other sports or play on school teams. I find that obnoxious and silly.

I know my kids have a 0.01% chance of playing D1 soccer, but they love the game. They also run XC and track and my son plays basketball. My wife is always on me to pull out of the league, but I look at some of my kids' non-athlete friends and they all seem to be obsessed with social media, pop music, and video games. My kids don't seem care about those things and I think it's because they have sports and sports-minded friends.

There is a bifurcation around 12-14 where your kids either decide to be athletes or to go a different route. In today's world, it is easy to choose the non-athletic life because sports seem to demand so much more of your time and money. I still think it is worth it. A bunch of my son's friends decided to switch over to Rec when their travel team got to be too much. That lasted one season and now none of them play anything. It sucks paying and carpooling to practice, but in the long run I think it is a great thing for the kids.

You see, soccer or how do I prefer to call it, the real football, is considered to be a game for the people, in general. Mostly, there is not such a delimitation as a sport for the poor regarding soccer. I do consider that it is the most accessible game for almost anyone. It might be considered more of a sport for the rich in the U.S because it is not that popular in here. Honestly, I am a great fan of soccer actually. I am trying to watch all the games that I am interested in, however in case I got no time to watch the whole game, I am just looking for the live scores on , as they also show you the odds for the game, mostly on sites like.

https://www.scoreaxis.com/live-football-streaming/

Hi folks! Let's leave the hate aside. Soccer was never cataloged as the sport of the poor, more like the people's sport as mentioned above. The whole idea that this sport is so popular is that it requires minimal conditions to be played. Kids in the favelas of Brazil learned to do magic with an old ball and improvised small stadium. As for watching from the US, maybe try - scoreaxis.com if you are interested. Countries with big poor populations have made themselves famous for outstanding players who rose from sheer poverty.

Where did you get the idea only poor people play football?

And, why would anyone rather play soccer if you can hit somebody in football?

hockey players too small to play football, too slow to play football, and too big to play soccer.

Guess they could really go third tier and play ruby.