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#31
10-16-2005, 09:47 PM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch
[ QUOTE ]
I think basketball and baseball are pretty big sports world-wide. Maybe that's why we don't dominate them like we used to, though. Maybe we wouldn't "dominate" soccer, but I am pretty sure the US would be more likely than any other country to be the best team. I think the way the WC is set up you'd have to be MUCH better than everyone else (or very lucky) to dominate. [/ QUOTE ] There's this country in South America I think it's called Brazil. As far as football is concern there is Brazil and then there's everyone else. Even if the US invested every sporting resource into its team it would never reach that level. 
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#32
10-16-2005, 11:49 PM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch
[ QUOTE ]
As far as football is concern there is Brazil and then there's everyone else. Even if the US invested every sporting resource into its team it would never reach that level. [/ QUOTE ] Disclaimer: I know nothing about "football." However, how can you say the US would never reach that level, when at best we put 3% of our "sporting resource" into soccer now, and still are competitive on the international level?
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#33
10-17-2005, 12:35 AM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch
Brazil have won 5 titles, and there hasn't been a WC final since 90 that hasn't had them in the final, sounds like domination to me.
They have also won all of their titles in the post world war era which is where many fans draw the line on being the modern era. SInce 1958 they have won all of those 5. In under 50 years they have done that, considering the level of play across the world, that is as close to utter domination that you will get
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#34
10-17-2005, 01:11 AM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] As far as football is concern there is Brazil and then there's everyone else. Even if the US invested every sporting resource into its team it would never reach that level. [/ QUOTE ] Disclaimer: I know nothing about "football." However, how can you say the US would never reach that level, when at best we put 3% of our "sporting resource" into soccer now, and still are competitive on the international level? [/ QUOTE ] It really quite easy actually. There are countries who invest gross amounts of money into the game and they are not able to replicate what occurs in Brazil. You can argue that countries like Italy, Germany, France etc whilst of a differing approach and pedigree are bottom line as good. I disagree The reason is simple, in Brazil its not about money its about the naturally gifted talent which develops in the ghetto's and on the beach. No amount of money can buy this. Brazil could field 2 maybe 3 teams in next years world cup and arguably they would all be competive. There coach phrased it best when he recently said, for all other countries its about who they are going to take to the World Cup, for Brazil it's about who we leave behind. We have three players for every position.
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#35
10-17-2005, 01:22 AM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch it?
They are currently ranked #7 in the world and playing well, so this is possible.
[/ QUOTE ] The FIFA rankings are flawed. It is very improbable that the United States will be playing in the final next year. Playing the likes of Brazil, Argentina, Italy etc is a little different to beating Trinidad & Tobago, Costa Rica, Guatemala. Beating these teams has generated the US teams FIFA ranking points thus the 7th place. I do believe that the US deserves there place in the World Cup but anyone who knows anything about football understands that 3 direct qualification spots for CONCACAF is a joke
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#37
10-17-2005, 09:01 AM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch
As I said, I know little about football/soccer.
However, I still don't see why this makes it certain that the US would not reach Brazil's level. Of the countries you mentioned, we have over 4 times the population of all of them except Germany, where we have about 3.7 times the population. From that alone, we should be able to field a far superior team. We also have a fairly diverse population (read: we're not all white guys with a 9 inch vertical). On average, we might not be as "skilled" and "athletic" as Brazil, but why the [censored] don't they whoop our asses in track and field in the Olympics? Seriously, if you don't think the US would *probably* be the best team in the world if we cared about soccer as much as Brazil, then you are dead wrong.
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#38
10-17-2005, 01:10 PM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch it?
[ QUOTE ]
anyone who knows anything about football understands that 3 direct qualification spots for CONCACAF is a joke [/ QUOTE ] well, so would be the amount of automatic spots that asia gets too. 3 automatic spots for concacaf is perfect. The World Cup is about the best competition from around the world, and promoting the game in lesser regions, which is why if concacaf had only 2 automatic spots that concacaf world cup qualification would be a farce like the oceania qualification process that the nation you live in goes through every four years
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#39
10-17-2005, 02:34 PM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch
[ QUOTE ]
Brazil have won 5 titles, and there hasn't been a WC final since 90 that hasn't had them in the final, sounds like domination to me. [/ QUOTE ] so they have won 5/12 WC's since 1958, and appeared in a few other finals. clearly, they are #1 in the world in this time, but they are not "dominating". I think you need to win at least 50% of the time to be "dominating" and probably more than that. given the state of soccer across the world, "domination", as I define it, is extremely unlikely for any 1 country.
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#40
10-17-2005, 08:24 PM
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Re: If America got to the World Cup final, how many Yanks would watch it?
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] anyone who knows anything about football understands that 3 direct qualification spots for CONCACAF is a joke [/ QUOTE ] well, so would be the amount of automatic spots that asia gets too. 3 automatic spots for concacaf is perfect. The World Cup is about the best competition from around the world, and promoting the game in lesser regions, which is why if concacaf had only 2 automatic spots that concacaf world cup qualification would be a farce like the oceania qualification process that the nation you live in goes through every four years [/ QUOTE ] Hello CONCACAF is a farce, Mexico and the US will qualify for the WC every four years with out fail, as Australia will always win Oceania. You remove the mentioned nations and both regions are about as bad as each other. Granted CONCACAF is probably of marginally higher quality. So how do you justify CONCACAF having 3.5 qualification spots and Oceania having 0.5. Furthermore Austalia have to play Uruguay for a spot in the finals whilst sitting back and watching Trinidad and Tobago duke it out with Bahrain, how is this fair?
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