How many average but athletic Joes would be needed to defeat an elite soccer team?

It's 100 kids versus 3 pros. Not to really what you are asking for, but entertaining.

Haha that’s amazong

To watch those Japanese pros, who are able somehow to keep ball control almost the entire time, but never kick the ball hard because they don't want to hurt the kids, you can tell what a pro soccer team would do against regular men, kick the ball really hard and intimidate them and they'd score at will.

No matter how many novices you assemble, their complete disorganization will result in zero goals.

pele bele dele wrote:

https://youtu.be/s5f8hjzxmkA

It's 100 kids versus 3 pros. Not to really what you are asking for, but entertaining.

Funny. It's also a metaphor for the news media. They're like a bunch of little kids playing soccer.

Would need 300 hard men.

Well here's your start. This is a pro Norwegian team, but not really elite. Pro players' skill sets are so much more advanced than anyone else. If you've seen them up close, their control and technique is so good yet they're moving twice as fast as your local indoor league MVP. Heck, I went to a D3 college soccer team's ID Camp when I wanted to do that, and I couldn't believe how fast and how well the players moved. So I would go with maybe 35+.

The video soccerxc posted pretty much tells the story. They even had two goalkeepers who could both use hands and still got dominated. It's hard to tell from watching on TV just how much faster the pros are from average joes. And by fast we're not just talking about running speed. The speed at which they decide what to do with the ball and execute is devastatingly quicker than less skilled players. And the speed with which they react to close down space defensively is also significant.

The typical average joe when he receives a pass is looking down at his feet to control the incoming ball. Only after receiving the ball does he look up to assess the situation and start deciding what to do with the ball. After he decides then he starts to move the ball into position to set up what he wants to do... by that time a pro defender has already taken the ball. A pro player may very quickly glance down at the exact moment he's receiving the ball but he's already looking where he wants to go even before the ball gets to him and is already moving towards that and with the very first touch of the ball he is already setting it up. Before the casual player has even decided what to do with the ball, the pro player has already done it.

The gap is so much greater than people realize that I think an elite pro team could probably beat an infinite number of average joes if it weren't for the fact that they would eventually start to occupy so much space that it would begin to severely restrict the pro players' ability to move. Once you get enough casuals to more or less completely surround the pro players then of course they could win. But as long as there's enough open space for the pro players to move themselves and move the ball, I think they can beat any number of average joes.

This. Really simply a question of when is there not enough space for the pros to pass and move anymore!

The U.S. Women's National Team was defeated by some random group of 15 year old boys.

soccerxc wrote:

https://youtu.be/KtIb-HK7NcA

Well here's your start. This is a pro Norwegian team, but not really elite. Pro players' skill sets are so much more advanced than anyone else. If you've seen them up close, their control and technique is so good yet they're moving twice as fast as your local indoor league MVP. Heck, I went to a D3 college soccer team's ID Camp when I wanted to do that, and I couldn't believe how fast and how well the players moved. So I would go with maybe 35+.

This is cool, but I gotta say the effort level of the 22 was on level three. I’d like to the the same match with 22 guys in their 20s not in their 40s. Young guys with high energy pressing hard would look different. Not sure the result would be different but it might be.

Truth Bomber wrote:

The U.S. Women's National Team was defeated by some random group of 15 year old boys.

I mean, that was FC Dallas’ youth academy team. The same academy was rated as the top MLS academy of 2019. It would be a fair guess that these were not “random” 15-year olds but some of the top Texan youth soccer players.

I don’t have a pro account, so I can’t see the depth list but the top sophomore 800m runner from Texas ran 1:51 last year, the top 1600was 4:14, and the top 3200 was 9:06. You’d have to imagine the Texas sophomore class could put together a DMR, 4x800, or cross country team that would be very competitive (or beat) the best American women.

26 men (relay) who can run a 4:34 mile can beat Kipchoge in a marathon. I think this skill ratio holds for other sports.

canebdone wrote:

26 men (relay) who can run a 4:34 mile can beat Kipchoge in a marathon. I think this skill ratio holds for other sports.

Anyone who has run a relay knows that 4 people will very rarely all run their best on the same day, never mind 26. You'd probably need a group of 26 in 4:25 shape to have a good shot at beating Kipchoge.

It's nitpicking anyway, considering 4:34 is already vastly better than "average but athletic". That's more like 6:00 (which, now that I went back and read the first post instead of skimming, is what the OP specified).

Soccer is much more of a skill sport than running, so the one who said "any number as long as they aren't able to just completely surround the pros" may be right. The average Joes won't have any idea what to do with their feet or how to organize themselves.

canebdone wrote:

26 men (relay) who can run a 4:34 mile can beat Kipchoge in a marathon. I think this skill ratio holds for other sports.

That doesn't seem remotely accurate. 26 athletic men would easily beat one pro soccer player, and 260 athletic men would easily beat a team of 10 soccer players.

Even for running, it wouldn't be accurate. A 4:34 mile is much better than a 58 second 400, but an 8x400 relay team of 58 second guys will beat any pro in the 3200.

A much better question would be low well could average joes do if they could completely use their hands

ok so anyhow soccer is not a real sport. Look how many times the pros in that Norway video flopped over to get a free kick! If they are such pros you'd think they could handle a little tap to their shinguards. Pro actors maybe.

I think the only way would be to stack the field so full that the elites can’t effectively move the ball. If you make it indoor soccer where walls can be used to deflect the ball, this would make it even worse for the novice team.

I once played an indoor soccer game where my team was full of non-soccer playing athletes (we were all quite fit and coordinated but none of us had ever played more than high school level soccer and most of us never more than pee wee league soccer). The opposition was a bunch of non-elite but very skilled Hispanic guys who had played soccer their whole lives. The rules were such that one player on the winning team had to drop off the field (pitch?) for every five goals they were ahead. They ended up with 3 guys playing and no goalie, and they were still effectively moving the ball around and scoring. We scored some goals once their team dwindled, but it was brutal. We went home devastated.

really non elite soccer player wrote:

I once played an indoor soccer game where my team was full of non-soccer playing athletes (we were all quite fit and coordinated but none of us had ever played more than high school level soccer and most of us never more than pee wee league soccer). The opposition was a bunch of non-elite but very skilled Hispanic guys who had played soccer their whole lives. The rules were such that one player on the winning team had to drop off the field (pitch?) for every five goals they were ahead. They ended up with 3 guys playing and no goalie, and they were still effectively moving the ball around and scoring. We scored some goals once their team dwindled, but it was brutal. We went home devastated.

This is another interesting topic to explore as well. If there were only 11 athletic Joes allowed on the team, how many pros would need to be sent off the field in order for the Joes to have a reasonable chance of winning? Would having just one pro goalie and one pro midfielder be enough to hold off 11 non-soccer players?