2018 World Cup

[clenz]

The US hosted the World Cup in 1994. They said it would change soccer forever in this country.

We still aren't that close to competing against the world's best 20 years later. The best athletes in this country don't even consider playing soccer. 2018...more of the same.

We are MUCH closer than we were in 94.

It takes a generation or three for that type of change to happen, especially in a culture where the sport didn't really exist at that time.

The 2014 Team USA crushes the 1994 Team USA 9 times out of 10.

I was 5-6 years old when that WC happened. I don't remember it. However, because of that WC and the change that has happened since I will *make* my kids try the sport. Where the change from that WC happened was in the kids that were 15-25 at that point who are now 35-40 and have kids between 8-16ish. Those kids are getting more into soccer. The growth is getting more younger kids involved. It isn't an overnight deal. Give it a little bit to grow yet. It's like a tree rather than a flower for growth. It takes time but the pay off is much larger and grander.

As Americans we are trained to not want to wait for results, we need them now. It's why NFL, NCAA, MLB and NBA coaches get 3, maybe 4 if they are lucky, years to win. Short attention spans and extremely high base expectations (Even on the low side) make Americans see their teams as worse off than they really are.

[tribe_pride]

The US hosted the World Cup in 1994. They said it would change soccer forever in this country.

We still aren't that close to competing against the world's best 20 years later. The best athletes in this country don't even consider playing soccer. 2018...more of the same.

Agreed the best athletes are not considering playing soccer above a young level but more and more are playing and you only need to poach some.

If you compare US soccer in 1994 to 20 years later, you will see a huge difference and it did lead to a dramatic change. It led to the beginning of Major League Soccer which has helped even though it's not as good as the European leagues. European leagues are now being shown on tv here with ok but increasing viewership. The game will only continue to grow at this point

Our players are still not as great as Europe or South America where soccer is the number 1 sport but we have moved consistently on top of the rest at this point and ahead of some Europeans.

What we need to do is get the 2022 World Cup that Qatar bought. If you thought this year was big, if we bring it to the US, it will be insane then. By the way, this is a possibility. Wait for a month or so after the WC ends to see where things go.

[GannonFan]

The US hosted the World Cup in 1994. They said it would change soccer forever in this country.

We still aren't that close to competing against the world's best 20 years later. The best athletes in this country don't even consider playing soccer. 2018...more of the same.

Agreed the best athletes are not considering playing soccer above a young level but more and more are playing and you only need to poach some.

If you compare US soccer in 1994 to 20 years later, you will see a huge difference and it did lead to a dramatic change. It led to the beginning of Major League Soccer which has helped even though it's not as good as the European leagues. European leagues are now being shown on tv here with ok but increasing viewership. The game will only continue to grow at this point

Our players are still not as great as Europe or South America where soccer is the number 1 sport but we have moved consistently on top of the rest at this point and ahead of some Europeans.

What we need to do is get the 2022 World Cup that Qatar bought. If you thought this year was big, if we bring it to the US, it will be insane then. By the way, this is a possibility. Wait for a month or so after the WC ends to see where things go.

Agreed. To say that not much has changed from 1994 to 2014 is just being blind to reality. The US team is heads and shoulders better than it was then and is a legitimate top 15 team in the world. Granted, we're not good enough yet to be a top 10 team in the world, but we've already taken a huge leap in the 20 years since hosting the last World Cup. Heck, we're better than England now.

I agree, I'm waiting to see them reopen the voting on the 2022 World Cup location. What a coup it would be to get the World Cup here then. Should be an eventful next 6 months on that and no country in the world has better sports infrastructure than we do.

[JMU DJ]

Can't we all just laugh about how China won't be in this or (from the looks of their U-20 team) in the 2022 World Cup either.

[Ibanez]

Have we won it yet?

[GannonFan]

Can't we all just laugh about how China won't be in this or (from the looks of their U-20 team) in the 2022 World Cup either.

And it's not like they don't have enough people playing soccer (apparently they are the country with the largest number of people actively playing soccer, with the US second) and it's not like it's that hard to qualify coming out of Asia either. I mean, Iran makes it almost every time.

[CAA Flagship]

The US hosted the World Cup in 1994. They said it would change soccer forever in this country.

We still aren't that close to competing against the world's best 20 years later. The best athletes in this country don't even consider playing soccer. 2018...more of the same.

We are MUCH closer than we were in 94.

It takes a generation or three for that type of change to happen, especially in a culture where the sport didn't really exist at that time.

The 2014 Team USA crushes the 1994 Team USA 9 times out of 10.

I was 5-6 years old when that WC happened. I don't remember it. However, because of that WC and the change that has happened since I will *make* my kids try the sport. Where the change from that WC happened was in the kids that were 15-25 at that point who are now 35-40 and have kids between 8-16ish. Those kids are getting more into soccer. The growth is getting more younger kids involved. It isn't an overnight deal. Give it a little bit to grow yet. It's like a tree rather than a flower for growth. It takes time but the pay off is much larger and grander.

As Americans we are trained to not want to wait for results, we need them now. It's why NFL, NCAA, MLB and NBA coaches get 3, maybe 4 if they are lucky, years to win. Short attention spans and extremely high base expectations (Even on the low side) make Americans see their teams as worse off than they really are.

Of course you will. It is a natural part of the sports experience. My kids did soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the spring. That lasted from age 5 through age 7, when they wanted to play baseball in the fall also. Baseball and basketball at age 5 & 6 is unwatchable. There is very little talent on display except for maybe 5% of the players. At age 7, the middle of the pack begins to show signs of development and strength. At age 8, their motor skills are in full view. You can tell what kids have hand-eye ability and what kids that don't. The kids that don't are forced to give up baseball and basketball by the time they are 13, but many give it up at 8 or 9. Soccer is the safe haven. While many good athletes get hooked on soccer vs. the other sports, it is the home for the less athletic kids. My kids returned to soccer at age 11 because they wanted to play sports for their school (6th-8th grade and it was either that or cross country). They like playing the sport but have no interest in working on their skills like they do with baseball and basketball. They are not bad at the sport because success is mostly hustle-related at that age.

But one thing that is hurting the sport is the spectator aspect. When my youngest was 6, a basketball referee tracked me down at halftime and asked how old my son was. I said 6 and he was shocked. He said that he has never seen a 6 year old with THAT much court awareness. He asked me if he plays a lot of basketball. I said not really. But we WATCH a lot of basketball by going to many ODU and W&M games and watching a lot of college basketball on TV. What he was getting at was the setting of picks, getting to a spot to bail a teammate out who was trapped with the ball, and directing players to certain spots on the floor. Spectating is an important part of the development of an athlete. Interestingly enough, video games are now considered a good source of development also, especially with rules. Kids need the visual of how the experts do it in order to understand what they are supposed to do. It also help motivate them to work on their skills. If soccer can gain traction with viewership, it will help in the development of young soccer players.

[dbackjon]

How about 2015? Or does the women's team not count?

Only for SuperHornet and for pictures.

[dbackjon]

The US hosted the World Cup in 1994. They said it would change soccer forever in this country.

We still aren't that close to competing against the world's best 20 years later. The best athletes in this country don't even consider playing soccer. 2018...more of the same.

US Soccer is light-years ahead of where it was in 1994.

How is not making the Final 16 in consecutive years being close to competitive?

[bandl]

The US hosted the World Cup in 1994. They said it would change soccer forever in this country.

We still aren't that close to competing against the world's best 20 years later. The best athletes in this country don't even consider playing soccer. 2018...more of the same.

US Soccer is light-years ahead of where it was in 1994.

How is not making the Final 16 in consecutive years being close to competitive?

What he really meant to say is that soccer is not going to penetrate (hehe) the crotchety old man market. Which is fine. They are a soggy bunch of biscuits anyways.

[BDKJMU]

Didn't you get the message? There are no separate World Cup threads allowed here...

Only from dipshits

Ok. So that's why you didn't start a thread?

[89Hen]

US Soccer is light-years ahead of where it was in 1994.

We need to combine threads. I just asked this question in the other one. Why do you think US soccer is light-years ahead from 1994? There are no results that back up that claim.

[bluehenbillk]

The US hosted the World Cup in 1994. They said it would change soccer forever in this country.

We still aren't that close to competing against the world's best 20 years later. The best athletes in this country don't even consider playing soccer. 2018...more of the same.

US Soccer is light-years ahead of where it was in 1994.

How is not making the Final 16 in consecutive years being close to competitive?

Cmon guys, "competitive"...really?

If you guys are saying we're competitive what's the use of debating it. We were DOMINATED in both the Germany & the Belgium games, completely dominated. But yep, we're close & much better....maybe those other countries are better too....

[CAA Flagship]

US Soccer is light-years ahead of where it was in 1994.

How is not making the Final 16 in consecutive years being close to competitive?

Cmon guys, "competitive"...really?

If you guys are saying we're competitive what's the use of debating it. We were DOMINATED in both the Germany & the Belgium games, completely dominated. But yep, we're close & much better....maybe those other countries are better too....

This is the problem with the sport. We were "completely dominated" but only lost by 1 goal in each game. You hardly see that in other sports.

[tribe_pride]

US Soccer is light-years ahead of where it was in 1994.

We need to combine threads. I just asked this question in the other one. Why do you think US soccer is light-years ahead from 1994? There are no results that back up that claim.

In 1994, we hosted so that can be an aberration if you just looked that we only qualified out of the group stage. Host countries have a huge advantage. In 2010, South Africa was the first home squad not to advance out of the group stage. Even 40th ranked Korea and 32nd ranked Japan qualified out of the group stage by winning their groups when they hosted in 2006.

In the 1994 WC, there were only 24 teams in the tournament and 16 of the 24 advanced to the round of 16 as opposed to 16 of 32. We advanced by being 3rd place in our group which is not possible now without having to go against the top world teams that we did this year since we were considered one of the 8 seeds.

More recently, we have gone against and beaten some of the top squads in the world even if some of those were friendlies against not full squads - we were not close back then to doing so. We were the first country to beat Spain in years when we did in SA and for the first time ever, advanced to the Round of 16 in 2 straight World Cups. We now dominate CONCACAF (which is only now proving to be a good region - was not at all outside Mexico before 2000) whereas we were lucky to be in the top few teams in the region back then and we are competitive in other smaller tournaments when we were not back then.

[GannonFan]

Cmon guys, "competitive"...really?

If you guys are saying we're competitive what's the use of debating it. We were DOMINATED in both the Germany & the Belgium games, completely dominated. But yep, we're close & much better....maybe those other countries are better too....

This is the problem with the sport. We were "completely dominated" but only lost by 1 goal in each game. You hardly see that in other sports.

Greece won the 2004 Euro final playing very much like what you saw from the US last night. Plenty of teams win by playing defense and getting offense from countering. But is this really that much different from other sports? Don't we talk about parity in the NFL all the time?

[GannonFan]

We need to combine threads. I just asked this question in the other one. Why do you think US soccer is light-years ahead from 1994? There are no results that back up that claim.

In 1994, we hosted so that can be an aberration if you just looked that we only qualified out of the group stage. Host countries have a huge advantage. In 2010, South Africa was the first home squad not to advance out of the group stage. Even 40th ranked Korea and 32nd ranked Japan qualified out of the group stage by winning their groups when they hosted in 2006.

In the 1994 WC, there were only 24 teams in the tournament and 16 of the 24 advanced to the round of 16 as opposed to 16 of 32. We advanced by being 3rd place in our group which is not possible now without having to go against the top world teams that we did this year since we were considered one of the 8 seeds.

More recently, we have gone against and beaten some of the top squads in the world even if some of those were friendlies against not full squads - we were not close back then to doing so. We were the first country to beat Spain in years when we did in SA and for the first time ever, advanced to the Round of 16 in 2 straight World Cups. We now dominate CONCACAF (which is only now proving to be a good region - was not at all outside Mexico before 2000) whereas we were lucky to be in the top few teams in the region back then and we are competitive in other smaller tournaments when we were not back then.

Agreed. It's night and day versus 1994. Now we even have the issue of getting all the players we have playing in the top leagues in Europe back to train. We never had that problem in '94 because we didn't have guys over there because they couldn't make those teams.

[clenz]

This is the problem with the sport. We were "completely dominated" but only lost by 1 goal in each game. You hardly see that in other sports.

Greece won the 2004 Euro final playing very much like what you saw from the US last night. Plenty of teams win by playing defense and getting offense from countering. But is this really that much different from other sports? Don't we talk about parity in the NFL all the time?

Had that final shot gone in very few would be questioning it.

The story would read "US takes the punches, buys time and delivers late KO"

[Seahawks08]

Greece won the 2004 Euro final playing very much like what you saw from the US last night. Plenty of teams win by playing defense and getting offense from countering. But is this really that much different from other sports? Don't we talk about parity in the NFL all the time?

Had that final shot gone in very few would be questioning it.

The story would read "US takes the punches, buys time and delivers late KO"

[89Hen]

In 1994, we hosted so that can be an aberration if you just looked that we only qualified out of the group stage. Host countries have a huge advantage. In 2010, South Africa was the first home squad not to advance out of the group stage. Even 40th ranked Korea and 32nd ranked Japan qualified out of the group stage by winning their groups when they hosted in 2006.

In the 1994 WC, there were only 24 teams in the tournament and 16 of the 24 advanced to the round of 16 as opposed to 16 of 32. We advanced by being 3rd place in our group which is not possible now without having to go against the top world teams that we did this year since we were considered one of the 8 seeds.

More recently, we have gone against and beaten some of the top squads in the world even if some of those were friendlies against not full squads - we were not close back then to doing so. We were the first country to beat Spain in years when we did in SA and for the first time ever, advanced to the Round of 16 in 2 straight World Cups. We now dominate CONCACAF (which is only now proving to be a good region - was not at all outside Mexico before 2000) whereas we were lucky to be in the top few teams in the region back then and we are competitive in other smaller tournaments when we were not back then.

Agreed. It's night and day versus 1994. Now we even have the issue of getting all the players we have playing in the top leagues in Europe back to train. We never had that problem in '94 because we didn't have guys over there because they couldn't make those teams.

In 1994 they did finish "third" in the group (at 1-1-1 just like this year) because of a goal differential of 1 and lost to Brazil (the eventual champ) 1-0 in the round of 16.

The US has two wins in the last 8 WC games played. TWO. TWO. GMAFB.

Yeah, light years.

[GannonFan]

Agreed. It's night and day versus 1994. Now we even have the issue of getting all the players we have playing in the top leagues in Europe back to train. We never had that problem in '94 because we didn't have guys over there because they couldn't make those teams.

In 1994 they did finish "third" in the group (at 1-1-1 just like this year) because of a goal differential of 1 and lost to Brazil (the eventual champ) 1-0 in the round of 16.

The US has two wins in the last 8 WC games played. TWO. TWO. GMAFB.

Yeah, light years.

Hey, just because you don't know or care to know that the 2014 version would throttle the 1994 version doesn't mean you should deride those who do. You're venturing dangerously into crotchety old man territory here. I think we get it, you don't like soccer and never will. That's cool. A lot of old people feel that way. It happens.

[89Hen]

In 1994 they did finish "third" in the group (at 1-1-1 just like this year) because of a goal differential of 1 and lost to Brazil (the eventual champ) 1-0 in the round of 16.

The US has two wins in the last 8 WC games played. TWO. TWO. GMAFB.

Yeah, light years.

Hey, just because you don't know or care to know that the 2014 version would throttle the 1994 version doesn't mean you should deride those who do. You're venturing dangerously into crotchety old man territory here. I think we get it, you don't like soccer and never will. That's cool. A lot of old people feel that way. It happens.

Oh, stupid me. I thought we gauged the USMNT team success by actual international play. Didn't realize we just needed to ficticiously beat historic USMNT to be making light year type progress. I'll pipe down now.

BTW, a lot of young people hate soccer too jackass.

[Skjellyfetti]

In 1994 they did finish "third" in the group (at 1-1-1 just like this year) because of a goal differential of 1 and lost to Brazil (the eventual champ) 1-0 in the round of 16.

The US has two wins in the last 8 WC games played. TWO. TWO. GMAFB.

Yeah, light years.

We were also the host country in 1994. That has HUGE benefits.

The host country is placed in the same pot as the best teams in the world. Not the mention the home field advantage of playing your games in your host country.

Our group was much easier in 1994 and we would not made it out of the group if it were this year as we finished 3rd instead of 2nd.

[GannonFan]

Hey, just because you don't know or care to know that the 2014 version would throttle the 1994 version doesn't mean you should deride those who do. You're venturing dangerously into crotchety old man territory here. I think we get it, you don't like soccer and never will. That's cool. A lot of old people feel that way. It happens.

Oh, stupid me. I thought we gauged the USMNT team success by actual international play. Didn't realize we just needed to ficticiously beat historic USMNT to be making light year type progress. I'll pipe down now.

BTW, a lot of young people hate soccer too jackass.

You're the one that asked if we were any better now versus 1994. If you didn't care, why ask?

Hey, here's the numbers:

USMNT record in 90's: 72 wins, 75 losses, 52 draws - winning percentage 0.362
USMNT record since 2000: 138 wins, 64 losses, 47 draws - winning percentage 0.554

And to add to the info that tribe gave that you also skipped or dismissed regarding our ascendency in our own region (a region we couldn't qualify out of for 40 straight years)

Record versus Mexico through the '90's: 5 wins, 28 losses, 9 ties
Record versus Mexico since 2000: 12 wins, 5 losses, 5 ties

Doesn't really look much the same to me, but you know, I'm apparently a jackass for daring to answer your question differently than you had already pre-supposed.

[89Hen]

Extra points for the difficulty of landing that one GF.

"Record versus Mexico through the '90's: 5 wins, 28 losses, 9 ties"

and Harvard has how many DI football National Championships through 2013? Not exactly sure what games from 1930-1989 have to do with this. The USMNT was 3-1-3 vs Mexico from 94-97... the relative period in question. You're not making a very strong case here for "light years" (Jon's words) or "throttle" (yours).