Fantastic column by John Nicholson

[TX Bill]

Football365.com - Ignore The Euro Snobs - GO USA! - John Nicholson - Football365 News

Just read this on the F365 website and have to say it was one of the best written articles I've seen on Americans and "football."

 

[Bundy]

Man gets angry at negative stereotyping. Attacks others using negative stereotypes. Ignores hypocrisy

LOL... anyway get that in to ya Eurosnobs.

 

[Jamo Martinez]

Great stuff
what he says about the language differences reminds me of the the time some wooly minded theatre critic made some scathing comments about Mel Gibson's Hamlet. Pointing out that his accent didn't convince.
Probably thinks they spoke like John Gielgud or Lawrence Olivier in Elizabethan England or more to the point in medieval Denmark. Fekwits

 

[sotnas]

Sadly, I don't share all that enthusiasm about the quality of the column... It has some points pretty snobs towards Englishmen (any colonial grieve leftover?).. now they breed stupid Dj's wannabe, hey?

USA have all the conditions to be a power in football. Great recruitment potential, great mentality and arrogance, great team commitment tradition, very good facilities...

You guys have it all. But still, you are no power in this business, just yet. There's no need to go around and say "wow, you're the greatest!", cause you are not.

I wonder if it is so hard for you guys over there to suffer the flaws of being human...sometimes, there are people better than us in some particular areas.

About the CC, great performance, absolutely. But remember that success is measured upon consistency. Can you guys reproduce what you just did, next WC? Or this was just a lucky shot?

We'll have to wait and see.

 

[manxtoffee]

Lol, the poor folks of U.S.A. thought the CC was a "Big One"... Someone better tell them the proper tournement starts next year...

 

[TX Bill]

You ask any American who follows the national team set up and they'll be the first to tell you that "No, we are not the greatest." Not by a long shot.

We have a ways to go before we can be a consistent force on the world football scene but I believe we are making progress.

 

[TX Bill]

Lol, the poor folks of U.S.A. thought the CC was a "Big One"... Someone better tell them the proper tournement starts next year...

Anyone want to give me a shot on how England would have done in that tournament?

If we're being honest here, I'd say semi-finals at best.

As it stands, we'll see how the "proper" tournament turns out next year.

 

[sotnas]

You ask any American who follows the national team set up and they'll be the first to tell you that "No, we are not the greatest." Not by a long shot.

We have a ways to go before we can be a consistent force on the world football scene but I believe we are making progress.

Yeah, but the article somehow tried to mock on European view of football.

It's like "you're not giving us enough credit". And that part of "DJ's wannabes vs college boys... FFS can you get more snob than that?

Of course you still have some work to do, but theoreticallly speaking, you have it all.

Let's compare you guys with Portugal. We only have 10 million people. How big can we be in football? Well, we can provide some pretty good teams, but we won't be number one. Or at least, even if we could be number one, that would only last one footballers generation.

You have the same potential as the brazilians or argentines to search for players. Even with all the interest on other national sports, football still has a huge recruitment camp.

I have to take my hat off to the mentality of your athletes. They all think they are the best. Even when they aren't that belief can prove vital. That's what makes the germans so strong. You only lack the same quality but you're getting there.

However, you tend to exagerate things, like you did with Adu and like you're doing right now with the CC.

Looking at both matches, you were competente with the finishing. You were average at defending, but still, how many great saves did Howard do against the spaniards? How much could you produce when you had the ball? How many chances did they have? How many times do you think you can get away with it?

In my view the investment should be done on coaching staff. Get some good dutch coaches or some italians. Not only on second rate european footballers.

 

[Dixie Dean]

I'm proud of our accomplishments, but I'll be the first to say we need to hire a European coach to teach us fundamentals. At times our guys have been running around with no direction at all. We've looked at time like guys that are just athletes put on the field in the hopes we can kick a ball in the right direction. However, we have made great strides. I turn 50 in a couple of months. Even with these last efforts, I do not think at this point I will live to see the US go too far in a World Cup. I hope I'm wrong, but if we don't get some European coaches we're still going to be lacking.

And Ill continue to support the Toffees via the tube over here in the US. Maybe someday I'll get to travel to see them at home in person.

Oh, and the only sport I follow is soccer, or football if you'd rather. I do not follow or like any of the other sports here in the US.

But I watch the Premiership, La Liga, Ligue 1, Bundesliga, Serie A, Russian Premier League, Brazilian, Uruguayan, Argentine, Columbian, MLS, any real football I can get to watch.

 

[AdamTheGreatOneB]

I certainly think USA are making great strides forward, but I also think they shouldn't get too exicited about their achievements in the Conferations Cup which isn't taken too seriously. I do think they'll do alright in the World Cup though.

One of the things that hurts the USA is that they don't play competitive matches against decent teams very often. You just have to look at the kind of teams they have to play in qualifying to see that. Mind you, the Bahamas would probably crush Andorra.

 

[Fordprefect]

There is some truth in that article, but most of it is taken way over the top. A lot of it is sweeping generalization and some of it is just plain untrue.
We are making some strides in the US towards a strong national team, but we are decades from challenging for the world cup. No informed football fan in the US believes that the Confed Cup was all that important, but it was nice to see our team put on a good show for a few games after basically nothing but disappointment since 2002. Its going to take some time to build a strong national team, our best athletes don't play football. It is at best the 4th most popular sport in the country, and in my region, 5th or 6th.

 

[McBain]

Anyone want to give me a shot on how England would have done in that tournament?

If we're being honest here, I'd say semi-finals at best.

As it stands, we'll see how the "proper" tournament turns out next year.

Says it all mate!

 

[TX Bill]

There is some truth in that article, but most of it is taken way over the top. A lot of it is sweeping generalization and some of it is just plain untrue.
We are making some strides in the US towards a strong national team, but we are decades from challenging for the world cup. No informed football fan in the US believes that the Confed Cup was all that important, but it was nice to see our team put on a good show for a few games after basically nothing but disappointment since 2002. Its going to take some time to build a strong national team, our best athletes don't play football. It is at best the 4th most popular sport in the country, and in my region, 5th or 6th.

I'd seriously disagree with that point. Most informed football supporters in this country would say that the results and how we rebounded from the start in the competition was very important.

From playing poorly against two very good sides to beating a strong Egyptian team when we had to and then winning against a top ranked team away from home for the first time in ages.

Taking a team like Brazil down to the wire and "woulda, coulda, shoulda" won it.

I'd say on the order of things it was very important from a standpont of the US National Team knowing that they can compete at the highest level.

When we don't compete against the top nations year after year, I'd say that the results were fantastic.

 

[TX Bill]

Yeah, but the article somehow tried to mock on European view of football.

It's like "you're not giving us enough credit". And that part of "DJ's wannabes vs college boys... FFS can you get more snob than that?

Of course you still have some work to do, but theoreticallly speaking, you have it all.

Let's compare you guys with Portugal. We only have 10 million people. How big can we be in football? Well, we can provide some pretty good teams, but we won't be number one. Or at least, even if we could be number one, that would only last one footballers generation.

You have the same potential as the brazilians or argentines to search for players. Even with all the interest on other national sports, football still has a huge recruitment camp.

I have to take my hat off to the mentality of your athletes. They all think they are the best. Even when they aren't that belief can prove vital. That's what makes the germans so strong. You only lack the same quality but you're getting there.

However, you tend to exagerate things, like you did with Adu and like you're doing right now with the CC.

Looking at both matches, you were competente with the finishing. You were average at defending, but still, how many great saves did Howard do against the spaniards? How much could you produce when you had the ball? How many chances did they have? How many times do you think you can get away with it?

In my view the investment should be done on coaching staff. Get some good dutch coaches or some italians. Not only on second rate european footballers.

It wasn't mocking the European view of football. It was mocking the European view of how Americans view their football. And rightly so. Hence, the "fantastic article."

Unless of course you felt the author had no basis in fact regarding what he wrote. It hit home with me though as I've seen the very thing he mocked on this very forum.

Not all Europeans think that way naturally. But quite a few do. Those were the ones he was addressing in the article.

As for Adu, our media was the one who bigged up Fredy, not the the US soccer supporters. Ours was mainly a "wait and see" attitude. Another one of our problems here that you touch on is the base is where we get players from. You'd think that a country of 270 million would produce at least a few world class football players. However our soccer infrastructure is fractured at best. Many get overlooked due to the politics of football in this country. The geographical size of the country doesn't help either so that our top youth teams have a hard time playing the other top youth teams on a regular basis.

But it does come down to the point that you made about the coaching. We need to teach the technical aspects of the game to our children at an early age while still allowing them to have fun and enjoy the sport. The Europeans have been able to do this for years with great success. I don't see why we shouldn't start from the top down at US Soccer and get some top European/South American coaches to come in, clean house, and get things started at the youth levels of football in this country.

 

[lordyefc]

I'd seriously disagree with that point. Most informed football supporters in this country would say that the results and how we rebounded from the start in the competition was very important.

I think he's saying that the tournament itself wasn't important in it's own right, and it wasn't. It might have been vitally important to the USA, but that doesn't make it a major competition.

I've seen a couple of American ESPN shows where they talk about the USA soccer team this week, and they don't talk about it like it's a proper US sport. In fact, knowing nothing about soccer seems to be a badge of honour among sports journalists. That's where the first battle needs to be fought, because until that changes kids won't spend 100% of their free time playing football. And that's what the USA needs to suceed - you can't expect failed athletes in other sports to turn to soccer age 16-17 and become world class footballers, because football is something you basically need to dedicate your life to if you want to be world class. 11-15 year olds will stop playing the game if, culturally, football is considered to be a lesser sport, and the US media gives that impression constantly.

Incidently, I think the reason that the USA soccer team is intelligent and well spoken (which is actually a very incisive observation in that article) - it's self selected that way. The USA doesn't have many naturally talented footballers, tailored from youth. They have converts, and who will convert best? Players smart enough to learn quickly. Would, say, David Beckham have been able to learn the positional side of football in a year or two if he had played rugby for all of his childhood? No chance.

(That, and the fact that it's traditionally a white middle class sport in the USA, obviously)