re: Why Can't the United States Assemble a Championship Soccer Team?

quote:

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Correct, I don't think anyone would argue with you on that. But let's clear a few things up:

1. Being Lebron James or Chris Paul doesn't mean you will succeed in any sport.

2. With our current developmental system, those players would only marginally, if any, improve our current player pool.

3. Soccer will NEVER, at least in the near future (20+ years), attract the thousands of top athletes that your "dream" requires in the US.

4. If soccer is ever to get to that point, it will:

a. Need to drastically improve its academies, and pump millions upon millions of dollars into the domestic league.
b. More than likely target the Harvin's, Welker's and Sproles' of the country.

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Bingo.

Also, 6'7-8 seems to be the upper limit for professional soccer.

And for someone like Chris Paul to improve our pool we would need him to pick up a soccer ball at age 3 and never let it leave his feet. Good luck getting an inner city kid (without immigrant parents) to do that. We would also need coaches who could adequately develop his skills, and I'm not convinced we have that already.