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

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Then you understand that the whole point is that we wouldn't be having a full team of lebrons running out there but instead leveraging the one or two that we hit on in the positions that it clearly is benefitical in like the one this norwegian dude plays right

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What good would it do if we cant even get them the ball like yesterday?

Balogun is pretty damn athletic.

We would have lost even if we had Haaland yesterday.

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What good would it do if we cant even get them the ball like yesterday?

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for the one trillionth time. It's almost like we'd develop these players organically due to having a complete different sport culture that prioritizes winning at soccer and the world cup

TECHNICAL

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is arguing we would dominate if our best athletes trained soccer.

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yes

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Now he is saying just at a few key positions we would put a tall athletic freak like haaland.

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please explain the break in logic

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I was responding to your comment about a 14 year old Bo Jackson. That's way too late to start.

Perfect example is Alex Freeman, son of Antonio Freeman (NFL WR). The son obviously received the genetics but he started playing soccer when he was four years old. You need a lot of these physically gifted guys playing from a very young age to play at the highest level.

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On the women's side, you can also point at Trinity Rodman (arguably our best player when healthy) daughter of Dennis Rodman. She's fantastic and inherited her athletic genes sans the crazy from her Dad.

The problem with our development is that unlike every other sport -- especially for the men -- there is no fall back plan. We have no men's D1 soccer teams. We only have women's because of Title IX. Instead, you get scouted by an academy at 14, go into their development program, move away from home, live and breathe soccer, and then the cuts start.

Only the 1% of the 1% are going to make it to the end to earn a living, but you sacrifice education, social life, your family, everything. You can't just be very good, get a scholarship and earn a degree in Soccer. You either make it or you don't, and the ones that don't have very little else that they are good at.

Now, if you are exceptionally, you're getting upper hundreds to million dollar contracts at 16 or 17.

Our athletics systems are just not designed to funnel players into the sport. It is the oddball.

And that's not to take away from the talent and skill of our team. The majority of our players play for top flight teams around the world. They are the best of the best. But, I would be lying if I said we don't miss out on the players that have the ideal body type and athletic skillset because the risk is too high.

I have personal experience with this because my nephew was invited to join Atlanta United developmental program at 14 or 15. He opted to play basketball. Now he's a 6'3 shooting guard at good junior college and is quitting competitive sports altogether after this year. I'm not saying he would have made it in professional soccer, but 6'3 on a soccer pitch is a whole lot bigger than 6'3 on a basketball court.

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You see elite players pop up in the NFL after having never played a down of football.

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This is how I feel about goalie. Too many freaks out there are developed at high level in football/baseball/basketball, and probably played all 3 as a kid, with skills that translate. Tracking a ball in the air, highpointing, reacting to balls off a bat, defensive angles, ball distribution, punting a football, etc.

Since goalie is the Right Field of youth soccer, there’s not a large pool of guys with ability that started early. US soccer should have their eye on every SEC TE/WR/DE/LB/DB that gets cut before NFL training camp. I bet there’s 1 a year with the right mental toughness & instincts ready for technical development. We should always be elite at goalie.

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Anyone that watched the game knows we would have lost even with haaland because we are still lacking in technical skills due to training.

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I'm not so sure this is true. The teams that do well in international competition tend to have, for lack of a better word, "National Style". Spain has Tik a Tak, the Scandinavians are always big and very precise, Brazil has the beautiful game, the UK nations are in your face and rough and tumble with a dominant back line. That is how they play. US has been searching for a style for my entire life. Bunker and blast and hope is not a style.

I like what Pochetinno has done with the Octagon shape and a midfield that moves up to attack as much as hold. Yeah, if they get in behind, we are fricked. But that's the style we all enjoyed for the first four games. That felt...American.

Risk it and if we get caught, risk it again. I hope we keep that style and filter it down to the developmental. It fits our strengths and masks our weaknesses.

The US is so big though. California plays different than the East Coast. East Coast plays different than Texas. And so on. It's hard to bring everyone together and have them just...know how to play together. Smaller nations don't have that problem.

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It's just insane to see how much gaslighting is going on when it comes to this Norwegian dude. He literally is the point and it's still "nah"

Like what

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Norway plays a 6-5 CDM

Belgium plays a 6-5 CDM (he got hurt last night)

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IN theory, within this alternative reality, why couldn't Lebron play DLP or CAM?

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He is significantly slower than players like Mbappe for example. Different body types are more suited to different sports. At some point, it should click for the once every 4 years nerds that athleticism is not the reason we don't have success.