re: I know it’s cliche, but our best athletes would dominate Soccer.

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This team under Poch is way more dangerous than anything Berhalter or Bradley everput together. T

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How far did we go? Did Poch get further than either Gregg or Bob/?

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Those teams could barely score.

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We had better xG against NED in 2022 than we did last night against an inferior Belgium team.

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And they would be serving up passes to motherfricking LeBron James as a finisher/scorer

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The problem with this is LeBron is a freak and a once in a generation athlete where the tradeoff on explosiveness and coordination doesn’t exist for him at his height. Kind of silly to base the premise on him.

And having a good striker wasn’t our problem last night. It was the 5’7” equivalent types, who have been very good, shitting down their leg. Athleticism wasn’t the problem.

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That old blond dude on the USMNT?

The Soccer tards will continue to pretend that Jamar Chase or prime Julio wouldn’t outpace and physically dominate random Belgians but that’s because half of them decided on soccer as their sport of choice because they call the Super Bowl “sportsball” and got bullied.

Oh they have to run for 90 minutes and would get tired? Not if you can replace your whole starting lineup at halftime with NFL corners and receivers.

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Yes I guess if they had gotten training on how to dribble a ball while running at the same time. Sorry, but you are kind of an idiot.

It’s not that simple.

Consider the following:

Here is when and where each player was recruited into their respective developmental academies:

1. Lionel Messi — Age 13
Academy: FC Barcelona’s La Masia (Spain) 
The Story: After starting his youth journey with Newell's Old Boys in Argentina, Messi was heavily scouted by European clubs. In September 2000, at the age of 13, he and his family relocated to Spain so he could join Barcelona’s famed academy, which famously agreed to pay for his growth hormone treatments.

2. Cristiano Ronaldo — Age 12
Academy: Sporting CP Academy (Portugal) 
The Story: Ronaldo grew up playing for Andorinha and Nacional in Madeira. At age 12, he went on a successful three-day trial with Sporting Clube de Portugal (Sporting Lisbon), who recruited him to move across the country to their mainland residential youth academy setup.
 
3. Kylian Mbappé — Age 12
Academy: INF Clairefontaine (France) 
The Story: Mbappé spent his earliest years playing at grassroots club AS Bondy under his father's coaching. At age 12, he was selected to attend France's ultra-elite, government-run national football academy, INF Clairefontaine. He trained at the national facility during the week and played for his local club on weekends before officially signing with AS Monaco's professional academy at age 14. 

4. Erling Haaland — Age 8
Academy: Bryne FK Youth Academy (Norway)
The Story: Haaland’s development is a unique product of the Norwegian sporting model, which prioritizes keeping young players in local, volunteer-led club structures rather than early professional scouting. He joined his hometown club, Bryne FK, at age 8 for an after-school soccer program and developed entirely within their local youth system until making his senior debut for them at age 15.

We need a combo of elite athletes that are willing to enter super elite, National Academies between the ages of 8-12.

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This argument is correct but it’s being made incorrectly.

Could we dominate soccer if our culture was focussed on it? Probably

Would it be LeBron James doing it? Probably not

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This is pretty much where I’m at. Some of these guys who are/were NBA centric to begin with keep focusing on LBJ who they grew up with and is 1 of the 2-3 best basketball players of all time. Other countries, where soccer dominates have also produced some elite athletes that have dominated in the NBA. Which begs the question why those guys did not dominate in soccer? Maybe a personal choice for some but seems like at a certain height basketball is the better sport, 1 6’5” Norwegian dude doesn’t change that

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It would be some random guy who maxed out as a small D1 receiver or SG who is 6’1” - 6’3 190lbs of muscle, we wouldn’t do well with a bunch of 6’7 dudes out there who can’t cut and change direction the way the smaller guys can.

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This is correct. Height above a certain point is a disadvantage for about 80% of soccer. Jumping also doesn’t matter that much. Even straight line sprint speed is not that important because the ball travels twice as fast as a player.

Technique and skill are way way more important. It’s nice to have athleticism obviously but that has never been USMNT’s problem. That is why focusing on LeBron or Julio Jones is beside the point.

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At least you put words into what skill for why you think it wouldn’t work.

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The footwork. The ability to use your legs in a way like dancing. Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, and other contemporary dancers like you see on Broadway and in concerts have great footwork and their legs can move like arms.

There are some people who are great dancers of all kinds like tap, ballet, modern, and so on who have the natural gift and the have put the hours into it via practice.

Soccer isn't so much about brute strength and size though it can help. Soccer takes a skill set and talent and hours and hours of training and just kicking the ball around with your friends in a field or lot that we haven't developed yet as countries like Belgium or Norway which are much smaller than the US.

I feel like we just misplayed a couple of crosses (which could happen to any athlete) and all of a sudden we are a country that has a flawed developmental program, doesn't use its best athletes, etc. Seems like overreaction, but whatever.

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These conversations always try to focus on the elite of our Tier 1 (like the Lebron Jameses), but we could dominate without touching that tier, or even tier 2, or even probably tier 3.

We have so many athletes of the typical soccer build playing college sports at relatively high levels. We see these kids every year in college football and college basketball. There are so many WRs, CBs, Ss, PGs, SGs, etc. playing for shitty football/basketball teams with no chance of going pro. Hell, even if we just limited the pool to 1AA and D2, we'd have an incredible assortment. Then add in all the amazing high school players who don't even get those shots for being 5-7 - 5-10.

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This! How many 4-5* WRs and CBs never see the field due to size or other reasons. Perfect example is Jelani Watkins. 5'10 160lbs is nothing special for football but damn near prototype for soccer. You get those type of kids with athletcism to burn in an early training program and the average caliber of players the US has goes off the charts