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re: How the hell can we be good at basically all other sports
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:22 pm to okietiger
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:22 pm to okietiger
quote:
hey have ball control
Like it's that easy. Ball control is a skill, and a skill that takes coaching and practice to master, and even then there are players who have a massive amount of technical ability but do not have the right mentality to succeed. Soccer is a skill based game, and if you aren't skilled enough you will be shown for who you are extremely quickly.
There are plenty of good athletes that play the sport, players who can run, jump, etc, but the best players of the last generation, which was the height of the possession based game, were the players who had the most ability with the ball.
And being able to run forever might be the only intangible you need, as players with fast-twitch muscle profiles tend to get injured a lot. There was a study done on a Danish professional team where they found that players on the team had more slow-twitch muscle fibers than the average Danish man of the same age, which could have multiple meanings. It could mean that the sport self-selects for players with that profile, or it could mean that training techniques select for them.
Regardless, athleticism cannot make up for a lack of skill, and as long as we insist that we should be the best at soccer because we have the best athletes misunderstands what type of athletes the sport needs.
1
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:23 pm to crazy4lsu
Paul Scholes is one of the greatest midfielders the world has ever seen and United coaches used to talk about how he didn't look like an athlete at all.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:24 pm to WarSlamEagle
At Leeds height, our best players were drunk all the time or riding dirtbikes (looking at you smudge)
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:24 pm to BleedPurpleGold
quote:
All I'm really wondering is who wins the Big Cat Drill between Phil Coutinho and Alexis Sanchez.
Alexis rolls up those shorts, and it's OVER.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:25 pm to Riseupfromtherubble
quote:
An elite athlete with technical ability and a soccer IQ is going to boss Toni Kroos 10/10 times though.
You act like no one in history has thought of this before. It is literally the argument people have had for African players playing in European youth leagues. It describes some of the headlines for Balotelli when he was just breaking through.
Again, the elite athlete that soccer selects for is one who has elite stamina. US sports tend to select for fast-twitch muscle profiles.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:28 pm to WarSlamEagle
quote:
Paul Scholes is one of the greatest midfielders the world has ever seen and United coaches used to talk about how he didn't look like an athlete at all.
Being a skill based game, baseball is the best corollary for development to soccer, but we tend to focus on unreal athletes like Calvin Johnson, who would most probably be a goaltender at best, even if he had superb technical training.
The goldmine for US soccer is actually that group of men between 5'7 and 6'0 who would never fit the profile of a football or basketball player, but could be excellent soccer players if they had the chance to get technical training.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:29 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
US sports tend to select for fast-twitch muscle profiles.
Stamina can be acquired through training bruh. That is not a skill.
And balotelli is a horrible argument considering his skill is world class and his mentality is what caused his demise
This post was edited on 10/10/17 at 11:31 pm
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:29 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
Regardless, athleticism cannot make up for a lack of skill, and as long as we insist that we should be the best at soccer because we have the best athletes misunderstands what type of athletes the sport needs.
It's like arguing that American golfers would be better if more weightlifters played golf. It just doesn't make sense.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:36 pm to BleedPurpleGold
You can't coach speed. Sprinkle in some technical ability and we have thousands of Sadio Mane's in our country. I'm not disagreeing which is more important, but casting aside athleticism like it's irrelevant is just as ignorant. That is what we have in spades. For every Fabregas and Kroos and Rakitic there is an Aubamayeng and Bale and Mane putting the ball into the back of the net. To ignore it as a non factor is delusional. shite, Yedlin is a better athlete than Mane and we have thousands of those guys. Look how dangerous of a player you have when you teach an elite athlete how to play the game the right way.
This post was edited on 10/10/17 at 11:38 pm
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:36 pm to Riseupfromtherubble
It can be, but that isn't a sufficient enough explanation for that study I cited earlier, which was in the book The Sportsgene by David Epstein.
Regardless, I don't believe Leonard Fournette could be a world-class distance runner if he chose to. I tend to think that players select for and are selected for the sports that suit them best.
And we've done an absolutely terrible job developing the athletes we do have, who are usually bigger, stronger, and faster than our opponents, especially in CONCACAF.
The premise relies on the idea that we could have as good a youth program as Germany or Brazil, two countries with vastly different approaches to the sport. Brazil is often touted as producing the next athletic superstar, but their best players are a 5'9 inside forward, a 5'7 attacking midfielder, and a 5'9 left back with insane technique. Germany's best players are a somewhat slow 6'0 central midfielder, a 6'2 awkward forward who is best at finding space, and a 5'11 attacking midfielder who excels at giving space to other players. None of these players rely on athleticism all that much, though they do use what they have to their advantage.
Regardless, I don't believe Leonard Fournette could be a world-class distance runner if he chose to. I tend to think that players select for and are selected for the sports that suit them best.
And we've done an absolutely terrible job developing the athletes we do have, who are usually bigger, stronger, and faster than our opponents, especially in CONCACAF.
The premise relies on the idea that we could have as good a youth program as Germany or Brazil, two countries with vastly different approaches to the sport. Brazil is often touted as producing the next athletic superstar, but their best players are a 5'9 inside forward, a 5'7 attacking midfielder, and a 5'9 left back with insane technique. Germany's best players are a somewhat slow 6'0 central midfielder, a 6'2 awkward forward who is best at finding space, and a 5'11 attacking midfielder who excels at giving space to other players. None of these players rely on athleticism all that much, though they do use what they have to their advantage.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:38 pm to Riseupfromtherubble
quote:
And balotelli is a horrible argument considering his skill is world class and his mentality is what caused his demise
You missed my point. Your argument is the same one that European coaches used with young African players who entered their youth academies as kids. It's literally the same exact one. I remember one headline from 2008 or so which stated that Balotelli had Italian technique and African power. It's nonsense. Balotelli isn't particularly fast, but is strong, but he refuses to play with his back towards goal, which is one of the main points about strength.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:39 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
I don't believe Leonard Fournette could be a world-class distance runner if he chose t
He hasn't trained to be a distance runner since he was 6
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:43 pm to Riseupfromtherubble
quote:
Sprinkle in some technical ability and we have thousands of Sadio Mane's in our country.
You are doing a disservice to how unbelievably hard this is to organize and do on a large scale. It's not some magic dust we can sprinkle on a black kid. It requires teaching the coaches, the coaches teaching the technique and reinforcing the technique, and the player to have the correct mentality needed to succeed. In that one player is thousands of man hours. Where is that going to come from? You think athleticism has anything to do with whether that player makes it? It might give him a chance, but if his technical ability isn't perfect, he's not going to get a chance.
quote:
For every Fabregas and Kroos and Rakitic there is an Aubamayeng and Bale and Mane putting the ball into the back of the net.
Fabregas, Kroos, and Rakitic are arguably as good if not better than Aubamayeng, Bale, and Mane. At least Fabregas use to be. Regardless, what you are suggesting won't lead to another Auba, Bale, or Mane. It will lead to 200 Shaun Wright-Phillips dribbling the ball to the end line and then letting it go out of play. In fact, most of them won't be as good as Shaun Wright-Phillips. They will be significantly worse. Look at Marvel Wynne.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:44 pm to Riseupfromtherubble
quote:
He hasn't trained to be a distance runner since he was 6
So you're saying that any famous American athlete can magically obtain any skill he wishes if he simply wants to?
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:46 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
and no African team to date has ever made a semi-final.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:46 pm to crazy4lsu
If you want this team to be as good as the other nations you need to kiss football, basketball, baseball and hockey goodbye. You have generations of youth world wide that want to be the next Ronaldo, Messi, Zidane, Neymar etc. Kids here want to be the next LeBron, Steph, Durant, Julio etc. It is what it is.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:46 pm to crazy4lsu
quote:
It's not some magic dust we can sprinkle on a black kid. It requires teaching the coaches, the coaches teaching the technique and reinforcing the technique, and the player to have the correct mentality needed to succeed. In that one player is thousands of man hours. Where is that going to come from? You think athleticism has anything to do with whether that player makes it? It might give him a chance, but if his technical ability isn't perfect, he's not going to get a chance.
This. It's not a switch to flip for every successful NFL/NBA player that ever existed.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:47 pm to jrtplaya21
quote:
If you want this team to be as good as the other nations you need to kiss football, basketball, baseball and hockey goodbye. You have generations of youth world wide that want to be the next Ronaldo, Messi, Zidane, Neymar etc. Kids here want to be the next LeBron, Steph, Durant, Julio etc. It is what it is.
Have you read a single post in this thread? Apparently not.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:48 pm to BleedPurpleGold
That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying if the millions of amazing athletes we had played soccer instead of peewee/middle school/high school/ college/ NFL football, I think the odds are pretty good that we'd find 11 that can compete on the global level.
Posted on 10/10/17 at 11:48 pm to Riseupfromtherubble
What I said was a fact. I didn't say that one didn't deserve to make it to the semis. 
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