Irish blood, will never root for England.I am actually rooting for England now...I've got like 15% English blood or something in me.
Bellingham and Kane...what a combination those guys are.
***Official 2026 World Cup Thread***
- Thread starter ISU3PtLand
- Start date
You do realize the rest of the world is catching up to us in basketball and baseball, and while we own the gold in hockey from these Olympics, we're essentially level with Canada and many other nations aren't far behind?
How many of the last #1 draft picks and draft picks overall have come from Europe? Universities are also recruiting Europe hard for those that aren't ready to go to the NBA. Sure, it might take another generation or two for other countries to come level with the USA in basketball, but the gap has definitely narrowed, especially when you compare it to the Dream Team era. Hell - Kobe Bryant WARNED everyone that the AAU system was going to destroy America's dominance in basketball. It hasn't yet, but that gap has narrowed.
For baseball, the world's best player is Japanese. Sure, that's a freak generational talent, but there hasn't even been a clear cut dominance over Latin American players for decades now.
And if you need the most prevalent example: women's soccer. USA owned that for decades because it was the #1 women's sport in America and few countries ever invested in it. That is not the case anymore, and the USWNT winning the World Cup every cycle is now far from a foregone conclusion.
Same but it was 30 years ago, and only thru elementary school.
I had played in hs in the 80s during PE. Which was mostly just guys running over other guys when they weren't looking.
Just going to keep reposting this to combat this narrative. Are American youth sports a mess, yes. Is it the reason we aren’t competitive in soccer, no. Are we still the best country for all-around sports. Yes. By a mile.
Excluding football, the only sports invented in America are basketball and volleyball.
Basketball: men won 17 of the 21 golds in the Olympics including the last 4. Women have won 10 of 13. Neither team has not medaled in an Olympics.
Baseball: Has one gold and two runner-ups in the last 3 World Baseball Classics, second-most medals of any country. Tied for second-most medals of any nation in Olympic baseball, only behind Cuba
Golf: Have the best women’s and men’s golfers in the world. And probably the 5 of the 6 best golfers of all time
Hockey: Just swept men’s and women’s at the Olympics. Men’s and women’s hockey have the second-most medals of any nation in the olympics
Women’s Soccer: most medals and golds of any nation in the World Cup history including the last two
Women’s indoor volleyball: most medals of any nation in Olympic history, including medaling in the last 5 and gold in 2021 Tokyo
Men’s volleyball: tied for most medals and tied for most golds of any nation in Olympic history
Softball: Most medals and golds of any nation in Olympic history.
Track and Field: we have 860 Olympic medals in its history. The next closest nation is England with 219.
We have 2,765 total medals in the summer Olympics well over 2x the next nation (Soviet Union at 1,010). And 3x the amount of golds over them. We have the second-most golds and medals ever in the Winter Olympics,126 and 363, only behind Norway at 166 and 447.
We are one of the top 3 nations in most sports. Of the really popular ones, men’s soccer and tennis is where we aren’t. All of these sports have the same youth development structure as our soccer. So what’s different
A lot of truth here. America is just such a unique beast. It's our cultural sporting ethos that we expect to be the best at everything. We have a massive population and lots of resources to support attempting to do that. That's just not the case very many other places, where most nations have a small handful of sports that are the focus. Typically that soccer first then some niche sports behind it. In some cases, there's another of the big 4 sports that is prioritized too (i.e. baseball in Japan, hockey in Canada/Scandinavian countries, basketball in France, etc.) but there is not really anywhere like the US where we're wanting to be the best at everything all at once.
Also, it's so easy to say "just run development the way they do in Europe" but given our geography it's just impractical to expect to have a cohesive system that works across all of the US in the same way. That's why I think the best path forward is simply continued growth of the domestic professional system. Continue to full flesh out the US pro soccer pyramid from MLS down through youth academies that are more accessible. You don't have to tap into everyone and be THE sport in the country. You just have to continue to increase the % of youth that can/will continue to play and develop into their teenage years and then the talent pool continues to grow just because of the sheer volume of our population.
Will be interesting to see how the Norway & England players deal with this come Saturday:
That was a pretty weak penalty shot by Mbappe.
I hate the stutter steps and pausing on penalties. If the goal keeper has to stay on the line, that **** shouldn't be allowed by the taker. Big fan of them missing whenever someone pulls that.
I'm convinced a hard kick down the middle would score 90% of the time. I suppose until a goalie catches on and actually stays home.
6 out of final 8 are European, so just on principle I will have to root for Morocco and Argentina. The other two matches, I guess Belgium and England, but I don't care in any of them.
Morocco can thank their goaltender for still being in this game - he's the only reason why they are.
I don't mind the stutter-steps - to me that's no different than a deke in a hockey penalty shot. What I don't like is the practical start/stop/start. I thought you weren't allowed to come to a complete stop once you start, and yet it looks like some of them do - including on the take that Mbappe missed.
I don't mind the stutter-steps - to me that's no different than a deke in a hockey penalty shot. What I don't like is the practical start/stop/start. I thought you weren't allowed to come to a complete stop once you start, and yet it looks like some of them do - including on the take that Mbappe missed.
Also there are way more than two sports for women to go pro in and make tons of money. Tennis and golf should be the first ones that come to mind, then volleyball, and then basketball. Plus many many many more.
