What if America's Best Athletes Played Soccer?

"finyank13 wrote:

Oguchi Onyewu is a very very good athlete....the kid is 6'4'' 210....and plays on a premiere international club, and is good....

hell I'd take him as our FS right now......lol...

"alen1 wrote:

IMO he's not very good. Some will disagree with me but I just don't see it.

Well, he is a class act though.

He got injured before this past season with AC Milan and was out all year. He just extended his contract from 2012 to 2013 for FREE! Although Milan advised against it, and didn't want to do that, Onyewu insisted and Milan took it as a nice gesture.

"finyank13 wrote:

Oguchi Onyewu is a very very good athlete....the kid is 6'4'' 210....and plays on a premiere international club, and is good....

hell I'd take him as our FS right now......lol...

He looked horrible last night though. Yikes.

"HardKoreXXX wrote:

He looked horrible last night though. Yikes.

He's been out a year and is still getting into match shape. Maybe that's why?

"Tone_E wrote:

He's been out a year and is still getting into match shape. Maybe that's why?

Could be. I saw him get out-jumped by a white guy from the Czech Republic. So I seriously hope that's the reason.

"HardKoreXXX wrote:

So you would not agree that the US has the best athletes in the world? I mean PURE athletes. Or are our results in the Olympic Games over the last 100 years not satisfying enough?

Now obviously my argument is contingent on the fact that playing Soccer requires one to be a great athlete, or that great athleticism does not always equate to one being a great Soccer player. That's fair, but I think it would also be splitting hairs to an extent.

i have no doubt that if every US kid's athletic dream was to play soccer, our national teams would be stacked with ridiculous talent

soccer only requires average size, so some great athletes in the NBA and NFL would just be too big, but its also a boom to great athletes that toil in their other chosen sport but are limited by their size to advance

not only would we be pulling from MLB, NFL and some NBA talent, but also all the great athletes that devoted all their time to those sports in college

the NCAA is part of the reason our sports are played at such a high level. now imagine college soccer and MLS or whatever being the biggest sports. there would be great american players all over the world and our college teams would rival professional clubs

"maynard wrote:

i have no doubt that if every US kid's athletic dream was to play soccer, our national teams would be stacked with ridiculous talent

soccer only requires average size, so some great athletes in the NBA and NFL would just be too big, but its also a boom to great athletes that toil in their other chosen sport but are limited by their size to advance

not only would we be pulling from MLB, NFL and some NBA talent, but also all the great athletes that devoted all their time to those sports in college

the NCAA is part of the reason our sports are played at such a high level. now imagine college soccer and MLS or whatever being the biggest sports. there would be great american players all over the world and our college teams would rival professional clubs

Now, now, lets not get ahead of ourselves here. A lot of European Under 21 teams will smoke the MLS teams, so. . .

"Tone_E wrote:

Now, now, lets not get ahead of ourselves here. A lot of European Under 21 teams will smoke the MLS teams, so. . .

No.

"Section126 wrote:

No.

You seriously believe that? I tend to disagree.

"Tone_E wrote:

Now, now, lets not get ahead of ourselves here. A lot of European Under 21 teams will smoke the MLS teams, so. . .

why? our college basketball teams beat other national teams. basketball is pretty big around the world now and teams have gotten a lot better

basketball isnt even our most popular sport

this is also a world where soccer reigns supreme here

"maynard wrote:

why? our college basketball teams beat other national teams

basketball isnt even our most popular sport

But soccer is nowhere near your most popular sport. Under the assumption that soccer becomes the main sport in the US, then yes, your college teams will beat the MLS teams of TODAY, but if that is the case, the MLS teams under that same assumption will be a much higher caliber, even attracting world stars like the EPL, Serie A, and La Liga. But again, only under that main assumption that soccer becomes the main sport. And if so, today's MLS is irrelevant.

My point is, top European and top S.American Under 21 teams (GER, ITA, BRS, ENG, SPN, etc) can beat MLS teams 6 times out of 10 games, today. Would you agree with that?

"Tone_E wrote:

Now, now, lets not get ahead of ourselves here. A lot of European Under 21 teams will smoke the MLS teams, so. . .

I'm with you here.

"Tone_E wrote:

You seriously believe that? I tend to disagree.

You can disagree all you want..but Junior teams can't beat MLS teams.

MLS teams have performed well against talented european teams before.

"Tone_E wrote:

But soccer is nowhere near your most popular sport. Under the assumption that soccer becomes the main sport in the US, then yes, your college teams will beat the MLS teams of TODAY, but if that is the case, the MLS teams under that same assumption will be a much higher caliber, even attracting world stars like the EPL, Serie A, and La Liga. But again, only under that main assumption that soccer becomes the main sport. And if so, today's MLS is irrelevant.

My point is, top European and top S.American Under 21 teams (GER, ITA, BRS, ENG, SPN, etc) can beat MLS teams 6 times out of 10 games, today. Would you agree with that?

exactly. this whole thread is on that impossible assumption lol.

MLS would truly be major league and nothing like it is now. heck only either 3 or 4 guys from MLS have been picked on our squad lol.

its never going to happen. plus, us americans cant take everything :tongue2: the rest of the world can have soccer, though its nice to dream. its a little frustrating to have holes on our team like we do, but thats just the way it is. our depth looks really bad

i might agree on under 21, i guess it depends on who played. bottom feeders for sure

"maynard wrote:

exactly. this whole thread is on that impossible assumption lol.

MLS would truly be major league and nothing like it is now. heck only either 3 or 4 guys from MLS have been picked on our squad lol.

its never going to happen. plus, us americans cant take everything :tongue2: the rest of the world can have soccer, though its nice to dream. its a little frustrating to have holes on our team like we do, but thats just the way it is. our depth looks really bad

i might agree on under 21, i guess it depends on who played. bottom feeders for sure

I remember when we took Bronze in Athens in basketball. One of my friends at that time said "****, if we're gonna take Bronze in basketball, we may as well start kicking ass in Soccer."

I agree though, we can't dominate everything. We'll concede soccer, as long as the other countries concede that we could kick their ass if we wanted to :shifty:

imagine the outrage if we took the world cup lol

"maynard wrote:

imagine the outrage if we took the world cup lol

Armageddon.

"HardKoreXXX wrote:

I remember when we took Bronze in Athens in basketball. One of my friends at that time said "****, if we're gonna take Bronze in basketball, we may as well start kicking ass in Soccer."

I agree though, we can't dominate everything. We'll concede soccer, as long as the other countries concede that we could kick their ass if we wanted to :shifty:

The thing is us N. Americans don't realize is the rest of the world only cares about soccer. So from their perspective, you Americans can have football, and basketball, us Canadians can have hockey, anything else....nope, and the cubans can have baseball, etc.

EDIT: Us Canadians can have curling too I guess. Begin your jelous rants. :tongue2:

"Tone_E wrote:

The thing is us N. Americans don't realize is the rest of the world only cares about soccer. So from their perspective, you Americans can have football, and basketball, us Canadians can have hockey, anything else....nope, and the cubans can have baseball, etc.

EDIT: Us Canadians can have curling too I guess. Begin your jelous rants. :tongue2:

We're coming for Hockey. Enjoy that while you still can.

EDITED TO ADD: We're better than Cuba in Baseball. The World Baseball Classic is a bull**** format.

"finyank13 wrote:

not this year....he isnt that good this year for some reason....

he got too big and lost his agility and lateral quickness. I think injuries and age have caught up to him.

"maynard wrote:

imagine the outrage if we took the world cup lol

And still like 3% of the u.s. population would be all that cared. Aside from the thread being purely hypothetical it assumes soccer could ever become as ingrained in our culture as it is in the rest of the world. Americans will never care about soccer for that same reason we don't care about hockey ( even tho I like hockey)..... we like scoring. Baseball is popular primarily because of the home run, football because of the touchdown, and basketball because of the dunk. Offense is what wins fans here it seems.

if the percentage of people that play soccer in soccer dominated countries, if we had that same percentage of people obsessed with soccer playing their entire childhood. we would be in the elite no doubt in my mind.