***Official 2026 World Cup Thread***

[aeroclone]

I've been hearing about the growth of soccer in the US my entire life. But in that time, it really doesn't seem like we have made up any ground on the top European countries. More kids are playing, and clubs and tournaments are soaking up the cash. And we put more buttons in seats at MLS games. But none of that seems to have translated to the product we put out at the highest level. I'm to the point where I don't ever expect to see the US field a legit World Cup contender in my lifetime, let alone actually win it.

 

[AppleCornCy]

 

[twojman]

The US has 12-15 players in the top 1000 of the world, we need to double that to be a threat in the World Cup. I honestly don't know what we have in the pipeline to improve on this in the next 4 years. Do we have the right coach? I think so.

'The best athletes play other sports.' That's so weak. We have a population of 340,000,000. The 6 teams that have made the quarters have a COMBINED population of like 231,000,000. To say we can't compete with that is wrong. Are there things that need to change? Yes. MLS academy's probably need to step up and not necessarily with up front payments by the players and their families...maybe some sort of piece of future contracts or something otherwise it will leave people in the dust.

 

[BryceC]

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.

There is a lot of complaining about rules in other sports. But people don’t complain about ones that would fundamentally change the game.

Nobody is out here saying scoring in basketball is too easy, we should make it so there is no goaltending.

Or something like scoring is too hard in football, we should make it 7 yards until a first down.

Thats the kind of stuff people continuously say about soccer rules and then act all offended when people say that no, that’s a terrible idea.