Yes that’s true. Having a guy like LeBron would be nice to have in the box for corner kicks. But you can’t have a whole team of them. At some point you need someone that can deliver that perfect cross.
***Official 2026 World Cup Thread***
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Yes that’s true. Having a guy like LeBron would be nice to have in the box for corner kicks. But you can’t have a whole team of them. At some point you need someone that can deliver that perfect cross.
I know I’m in a small camp here, but I’m honestly more excited for soccer season to start than college football for the first time ever. The NIL and transfers and conference realignment crap has taken a pretty big toll on my enthusiasm.
USA soccer is heavily dependent on club teams that try to teach the sport to everyone but ultimately have to make money. We've convinced ourselves that the only way we will have good players is to travel regionally and nationally and have priced out more than half of the potential athletes.
I agree. But it’s the casual fan that they need to capture. And the casual fan doesn’t seem to care about transfer rules just yet.
Honestly, having Apple become a streaming series juggernaut lately may help in that more people will already subscribe and give the MLS a chance.
It's almost like the Texas Tech Sorsby situation but not as bad as that.
When I lived in Shawnee it was an easy drive for me out to Sporting KC games. They were a blast. Great atmosphere. Kind of expensive to go though.
I get it, and that's why I tried to stop complaining about things so much after that night. But you seem to think that fans of football and other more popular American sports don't ***** about rules and gameplay and nothing could be further from the truth. Fans of those sports ***** about what they don't like about the sport and how it could be improved all the time. Good Lord, I see someone swear off college sports pretty much every day on this message board. I get soccer fans are defensive about it but that's just how fans are, especially when the team they are rooting for loses.
We're hundreds of years behind other nations in this sport. That's significant in passion, development, coaching and overall infrastructure.
Watch youth and high school soccer. We don't value possession. There's too much focus on through-balls and scoring and too little focus on composure and touches. Those make up the player pools that eventually make up our national teams.
There is increased interest overall, but we're still dealing with a horrible perception issue. Hell, this thread is a microcosm of how the rest of the country feels. We battle the rest of the world trying to catch up while fighting off our own that go out of their way to **** on the sport when they could just ignore it.
When a chunk of people try to make it cool to "Nickelback" a sport, it doesn't make it any easier to increase interest and get better.
Watch youth and high school soccer. We don't value possession. There's too much focus on through-balls and scoring and too little focus on composure and touches. Those make up the player pools that eventually make up our national teams.
There is increased interest overall, but we're still dealing with a horrible perception issue. Hell, this thread is a microcosm of how the rest of the country feels. We battle the rest of the world trying to catch up while fighting off our own that go out of their way to **** on the sport when they could just ignore it.
When a chunk of people try to make it cool to "Nickelback" a sport, it doesn't make it any easier to increase interest and get better.
Not talking about conditioning. Just one example, I live in a school district in Texas, powerhouse in everything. Huge school, won like 3 state titles in a row in football etc....Every single year the 4-5 best soccer players on the freshmen team end up at dback, linebacker, shortstop, point guard, or running track or even lacrosse. And at that schools level you really can't play more than 1 sport. These are elite players, guys that are d1 at their respective sport. But soccer loses the elite guys to other sports 9 times out of ten here. This isn't to say the kids that stick with soccer aren't great athletes, they are, but the truly unique unicorns very rarely stick with soccer. The 6'4, 220 kid that can run a 4.5, football coach shows up and says, you're the tight end. That kid that's 6'5 and has great hand eye coordination, ends up pitching or playing off guard. Etc.
When people pick a topic and try to feel part of the in crowd by shitting on it. Kinda cancel-culturish, but in more of a backing the bully way.
Yeah, and I don't see it improving with the money being given to athletes in football, basketball and baseball.
Right. nothing has changed from the old years long USMNT thread. We are a hair better, but the same old **** applies that’s been talked about for years and years.I’ve been on CF for too long. I’m almost positive this is third time I’ve been part of this exact thread.
Yeah but I think if our athletes began working on those skills at an earlier age, they would develop them. Maybe not LeBron per se, but others would. It’s just kids choose other sports than soccer for a variety of reasons and stop working on developing those skills.
I’ll never be convinced that the U.S. couldn’t be an elite soccer country. We’re either the best or one of the best in every other sport. It’s just the culture has never put the emphasis on soccer like other nations have that holds us back.
This was exactly the point I was getting at with the thread I started today. We all complain about the rules and officiating in every sport. And most can acknowledge that there's room for improvement in sports we love.
Die hard fans, especially of niche sports, sometimes seem get defensive of criticism. Happens alot with wbb and wrestling fans too.
