Who says America is not interested in Football ?

[Nick Bateman]

Having just watched the USA defeat Holland away, one cannot question USA's appetite for the sport we gave them.

[HatterDon]

You might want to wait until you see the tv figures before you gauge our appetite. There was so much ballyhoo connected with this match that I completely forgot that it was happening today. I caught the last 40 minutes because I was looking for a baseball game to nap to -- and I'm the biggest football fanatic in the entire Peoples Republic.

[Forever Fulham]

What?!!!  I took a half day today an started driving home.  I turned on the XM Radio and caught the game in early 2nd half -- The Dutch player had a hat trick by then and it was 3-1 for Netherlands.  My wife called me and I stopped for gas at the Shell station.  And forgot to turn it back on.  How did the U.S. win?  What happened?

[Nick Bateman]

What?!!!  I took a half day today an started driving home.  I turned on the XM Radio and caught the game in early 2nd half -- The Dutch player had a hat trick by then and it was 3-1 for Netherlands.  My wife called me and I stopped for gas at the Shell station.  And forgot to turn it back on.  How did the U.S. win?  What happened?

Frankly, it was one of the best matches I've seen all season.  Hence I felt moved to write on the forum toiday, in fact, I was in the mind to hype the game up earlier this morning - it was a serious TEST of USA against a top-ranked opponent who fielded a team which took it seriously.

Tremendously exciting non-stop action throughout and credit to the Dutch for participating in the entertainment.  Bradley made a few errors more than his usual, but still displayed why I rate him so highly and would love Fulham to acquire him from the low-level Italian club he resides with, setting up two goals with intelligent intuitive passes.

[Forever Fulham]

What?!!!  I took a half day today an started driving home.  I turned on the XM Radio and caught the game in early 2nd half -- The Dutch player had a hat trick by then and it was 3-1 for Netherlands.  My wife called me and I stopped for gas at the Shell station.  And forgot to turn it back on.  How did the U.S. win?  What happened?

Frankly, it was one of the best matches I've seen all season.  Hence I felt moved to write on the forum toiday, in fact, I was in the mind to hype the game up earlier this morning - it was a serious TEST of USA against a top-ranked opponent who fielded a team which took it seriously.

Tremendously exciting non-stop action throughout and credit to the Dutch for participating in the entertainment.  Bradley made a few errors more than his usual, but still displayed why I rate him so highly and would love Fulham to acquire him from the low-level Italian club he resides with, setting up two goals with intelligent intuitive passes.

I read your separate post.  Thanks, Nick.  Bradley plays for Toronto FC now BTW.

[Nick Bateman]

Thanks, Nick.  Bradley plays for Toronto FC now BTW.

Then Fulham should have no trouble in bringing him here...  049:gif

[Forever Fulham]

This beautiful game doesn't put a premium on being huge, really tall, or having enormous muscles.  Speed, yes, that's important. Quickness, though, is probably more important that speed.  Look at the best player in the world.  If he took his shirt off, would the ladies swoon?  I think not.  Is he tall or at least average height?  Nope.  There's a place for size and speed in the game.  But for most of the positions, especially if the style of the club is to keep the ball, to the greatest extent, on the carpet, you can be average in height and mass and not be disadvantaged.  Look at Modric! 

The prototypical baseball player went from Joe DiMaggio, a lean 175 pound player with above average quickness in the 40s who could get lost in a crowd if you didn't know who he was, to these juiced up behemoths with thick necks and massive forearms, girth around the middle, wide hips, they don't look good in polyester uniforms, and they weigh around 220 lbs. up to 250 (or more).  Like a stuffed sausage.  In just a few generations, players in that sport went from normal looking to Otherness. 

Same thing in American NFL style football.  What were once normal looking people with a generally athletic build playing the game, players are now lifting massive weights 12 months a year, transforming themselves into freakish shapes.  And the steroids, HGH, and other performance enhancing drugs. 

Basketball has similarly changed.  The players were much smaller, shorter, slower, less aerobically fit, less muscular,  and played a more pass-oriented noncontact style of play.  All that has changed. 

Yet soccer (football) has seen fewer changes in the average weight and shape of its players over those same years.  Yes, the players are in infinitely better physical condition, aerobically.  And they are stronger and more resilient.  The play is faster.  The training is scientific, the injuries properly treated, the turf is level and consistent, there is warm up and cool down.  But the physical contact is a fraction of what it once was.  There's no Chopper Harris any more, trying to cripple the dribbling dandy.  A player like Crouch comes along, and he's seen as freakishly tall.  A big muscular African player runs out of gas.  It's as if the requirements of the game set parameters  for the ideal player in any generation.  The low centered shorter player can cut more quickly with the ball.  Barcelona can dribble and short pass its way through a team of big trees.  But then along comes a counterattacking style of team like Bayern which relies more on speed and size -- to a point.   It still features otherwise normal looking players.

Most Americans aren't going to be tall enough for pro basketball or football, or fast and strong enough for American(NFL) football.  And the notoriety of the long standing effects of concussions and post-career body ailments are keeping more and more mothers from middle and upper socio-economic strata from permitting their children to play pointy football. 

Who can these kids relate to today when the turn on the TV?  The soccer player.   

When one considers that Michael Jordan is the same height as Dan Burn, yet has much more speed & quickness to go  with a 44" vertical jump one has to wonder what kind of football player he'd have been. The big change will come when the money gets to the beautiful game. I think that baseball and basketball have declined in popularity in the last 15 years or so and pointy ball is, if it hasn't already, will soon peak. The concussion backlash is growing and the game has already become a rick man's pastime. A team with two 6'6" former power forwards at CB, four leftover running backs/corner backs manning the fullback and wing positions makes one's mouth water. Hopefully, my great grand kids will see it.

I've seen teams in the U.S. loaded with speed merchants on the wings and giants for CBs.  Lots of players have breakaway speed.  If they can't control the ball, can't take on jockeying defenders who are timing their moment to disrupt, it's all for nothing.  It still gets down to the kind of talent the game requires.  (Remember what an abject failure Michael Jordan was at baseball when he took a hiatus from basketball?)  Dan Burn may be about the same height as former basketball great Michael Jordan, but Dan Burn isn't that much of an athlete to begin with.  He's not quick.   He's not fast.  He's a little ungainly.  His balance and coordination are somewhat lacking.  His attitude is right. He's trying alright.  But the native ability isn't really all there.  This discussion about poorer kids who are better athletes because they go outside and play, play, play more hours than other kids and then chase the big wages sports instead of English football, and if only they would have spent their youth playing football in a football-centric environment, how good they would be -- we've heard that argument for decades.  I think there is some truth to it.  The more hours you put in practicing and experimenting and working at something, the better you are going to be.  Especially if you start at a very young age.  You still need a supportive infrastructure around you.  Like the Canadian kids who play hockey all winter on the frozen pond behind the houses in their neighborhood.  Or the poor Dominican Republic kids who  while away their days playing endless games of baseball.  Or the black American kid who practically lives at the basketball court down the street.  Until American kids get together informally to play the game, and can make up a scrimmage with neighbor kids all of whom meet up in the nearby park, well, the number of brilliantly talented players is going to stay suppressed.  Generations ago, kids would meet up and head over to a baseball diamond and play pickup baseball for hours, until they had to go home for dinner or chores, or homework.  Who does that anymore?  The computer.  The tablet.  The iPhone/iPod/iPad.  The video games.  When do you see children outside any more, looking for other children?  To ride bikes or play pickup sports or race and a run around.  Simple outside games the neighbor kids used to play like Kick the Can, or kickball, or throwing the frisbee, or flag football, or simply taking a clothespin and attaching a playing card to the spokes of your bicycle so that it created the sound impression of a motor, or maybe something not sports but still outside and physically active, like building a tree house?  All over suburbia, the remote control opens the garage door, and the neighbor disappears inside, where they spend almost all of their time now.    I don't know but a few of the neighbors on my street, and none of the children.  I'm not alone in that. 

If you aren't growing the fan base, you are killing off the future of the sport.  At least with soccer in the U.S., so many kids are on organized club teams.  That, alone, won't make them great players.  I used to take my son from judo instruction to club soccer practice.  And after his normal soccer training, he'd either wander over to train with boys 2 years older than he for another hour.  Or he'd do that on off days when his regular team didn't practice.  He wasn't getting the neighborhood boys informal get together and play experience described above.  He didn't have that were he lived.  So we had to substitute informal with formal.   I know there were other boys who fell in love with the game but didn't have the neighborhood 'infrastructure' to get better with random meet-ups with neighbor boys at area parks or commons.  So we found the next best thing: More hours of training in the average week.  I was that dad still in a suit and tie who had to sit for hours while my son went from one practice field to another.  We'd race from here to there to make start and stop times.  Crazy, looking back.  Nuts.  What the hell were we doing?  But he loved the game so, and I loved that he loved it so.  So there you have it.   Would I do it all over again?  Hell no.  He didn't have a normal childhood, where you play for the very sake of play. 

Great piece FF

I was certainly lucky I had loads of other kids in my local 'estates' (sub sections) and a park at the bottom of our garden.
On weekends 2/3 kids would start kicking around at 8.00am  (playing center and heading) and quite quickly it became 5-a-side (who remembers rush goalies) then 10 a side and frequently the 'pitch' became twice the size for 15 a side.
The teams were 'shirts' and 'no shirts'
Kids would come and go and the game would continue almost until it was dark or until the last 2 were called for tea.
Jumpers for goal posts and a ball, that was it.

Sundays were worst having been playing for 7/8 hours my Mum or Dad would shout
"Have you done your homework"......................Ouch

Summers were for football, cricket, fishing, touch rugby and scrumping and then come August it's off to the Cottage, Griffin Park or Hounslow Town.

I never spent a moment indoors except.............................homework and food

Shirts and Skins is still the best way to divide a bunch of kids.

[Jonaldiniho 88]

I beg to differ.  My son was a starter on the #1 ranked USSF U-18 Academy team in the nation.  National champions.  And the year after that, national runners-up.  They went to the national soccer center in Lancaster, California one year and mopped the floor with their opponents, respectively ranked  #2, 3, and 4 in the nation at the time.  My son scored twice and had one or two assists, while playing three different positions.  At least three of his teammates went pro.   Some of the players on that team could possess and dribble with extreme skill.  The skill, ladies and gentlemen, is out there.  The problem is as was intimated above--the financial incentive wasn't there and, to the greatest extent today, is still not there.   His club team was filled with academic high achievers (both in grades and S.A.T. scores)(Harvard, Brown, Notre Dame, etc.)  Most went Division 1 NCAA schools.  But as well as they succeeded on the pitch, they were realists from mostly upper-middle and upper socio-economic strata.  They believed the likelihood of a career in English football was a poor prospect.  They'd take their full  or near-to-full rides to top universities and get their degrees while playing the game, then move on to either graduate degree programs or their first career job.  And play on the weekends in fun leagues or pick up games.  And if you asked them, many would candidly tell you that they didn't all that much care to watch games on the telly.  Play the game, yes; watch it, no.  My son still watches Arsenal play, but only occasionally.  MLS--no, unless one of his former teammates is on a squad that's playing.  That part always surprised me.  How can you play at such a high level yet not want to watch the pros play?   Me, I love watching the game.  My point is that the talent is there.  It's other things-externalities-which kill the continuation to the pros.  There is a core of kids with great early training who can play the game.  But they wander off to other things.  It's a function of economic need, I suppose.  Parents have to pony up big bucks for their children to play in club football select teams.  That cuts out most of the poor and lower-middle income kids -- the mainstay of American football, basketball, baseball, hockey teams.  Kids who aren't that invested in academics, whose family situation is more unsettled, who would rather be outside playing sports they can easily participate in rather than spend time studying.   Unless and until the Player's Family Pays scenario is replaced, the situation will only incrementally improve.  Talent will still out.  Just not in great numbers. 

A very well explained point but there seem to be some anomalies. For a rich, well educated youth maybe it's not the gateway to money but football requires less money than American football, baseball, ice hockey and tennis to play to mention but a few. Boots, shin pads and one ball between twenty two starters. If poorer, talented athletes want to play a sport football is fricking cheap no?

You're absolute right that round football requires far less cost in the kit and equipment.  However, if you want high quality training, 3x a week, plus games, at the select football level in North America, your parents have to cough up a lot of money.  I don't recall exactly how much we had to pay the club, but I think it was around $4,000-$5,000 a season.  For poorer families, that's just too much.  There were so many Hispanic kids, for instance, in South Texas, such as the metro San Antonio area, who played pickup football all day after school and on weekends.  They'd dribble, dribble, dribble, shoot at the garage door, play in the street.  They were more developed in their skills than the kids on club teams.  Until around 14 or 15.  Then the drills, the disciplined practices, the oversight and direction provided by the trainers, and the scheduled games with post-mortems, etc., etc., shifted the comparable skills advantage to the club team kids, and the disparity only increased thereafter.  My son played at different times with a few "scholarship" Hispanic and African kids who had mad dribble skills, were calm on the ball from endless hours of unstructured play.  They were creative, something many of the even better club players couldn't match.  You can drill the creativity out of a club team player.  I've seen it first hand.  The better trainers spot it in nascent development in certain players and they cultivate it, rather than try to stamp it out.  But it can be maddening to incorporate into the structure of a disciplined team.  Take Dempsey for example.  He got his flair from taking on adult Mexican men  as  a teenager in pick up games. 

I really enjoy your posts and appreciate the non confrontational way you can respond. 4-5 thousand dollars is ridiculous to charge families when all you need is a playing field.  It's interesting what you say about structure beating talent (dribbling skills) as I have always found that a when you beat a player with ball at feet the structure goes to poop as someone has to cover and then a scrabbled defence is an acute dribblers best friend. I do like American sports a lot and the coaching is an art your side of the pond but young people playing for fun should be near to free. Do any universities have scholarships similar to the American sports for football? It seems like talent from impoverished backgrounds make it other sports is "soccer" not treated the same? Sorry for barraging you with questions but it's only out of interest.

[HatterDon]

Thanks, Nick.  Bradley plays for Toronto FC now BTW.

Then Fulham should have no trouble in bringing him here...  049:gif

It'd be a hell of a pay cut, Mr. Watch, and the mistakes you saw are par for the course for MB this season. He's struggled to find his form from day one.

[love4ffc]

Youth football is a subject near and dear to my heart.  I could talk about this for days.  For me this is a fantastic discussion that I wish more Americans were having. 
A couple of things I would like to add to the discussion. 

1.    For those who visit the States you need to know that the Football community in the states is still a minority (Captain Obvious).  With that said find the right people in the know and I promise you you'll not only have great conversations but can find some great pick-up games to help you pass the time. 

2.   Youth football in the States is expensive.  To be fair though all American youth sports tend to be expensive if you are going to play at the upper competitive level.  ***I'll come back to this later
3.   While youth football in the states is one of the largest youth sport currently and growing we have many problems that hinder our growth. 

a.   Age 10 other sports come into play competing for the youth of America. 


b.   Age 16 we lose a lot player due to burn out.  Kids who are tired of the pressure their        coaches, parents and clubs put on them. 

c.   Age 18 – as said before there is no clear direct path for kids to proceed into the semi-pro or pro level. 

d.   The sporadic structure of the football leagues in the States itself. 

I've been involved in football now for about 37 years as either a player or a coach.  In that time I have seen more changes in the last 15 years and even more so in the last 7 years than any other time.  What has brought about those changes?  Simple the United States Soccer Federation's desire to develop more and better players for the future.  What is hindering even further development?  Lots. 

The biggest hurdle for further development in US football is our current structure for youth football leagues.  If you look at the youth football structure in most countries you will find that youth leagues report to and follow the guidelines set forth by that countries head football association.  This is not the case in the US.  There is no direct link from US youth football leagues to the US Soccer Federation (USSF).  Sure they all belong to the US Youth Soccer organization but none of them actually have to listen to what they say.  This makes it extremely difficult for the USSF to get all of the US youth leagues doing the same things such as size of teams and number of players on the pitch for various age groups. 

Youth sports in the US boil down to $$$$ and not what is best for the development of the children.  That's the mind set of US youth soccer that has to be changed.  Only then can we open the sport up to all children and truly develop players for the future. 

[Forever Fulham]

I beg to differ.  My son was a starter on the #1 ranked USSF U-18 Academy team in the nation.  National champions.  And the year after that, national runners-up.  They went to the national soccer center in Lancaster, California one year and mopped the floor with their opponents, respectively ranked  #2, 3, and 4 in the nation at the time.  My son scored twice and had one or two assists, while playing three different positions.  At least three of his teammates went pro.   Some of the players on that team could possess and dribble with extreme skill.  The skill, ladies and gentlemen, is out there.  The problem is as was intimated above--the financial incentive wasn't there and, to the greatest extent today, is still not there.   His club team was filled with academic high achievers (both in grades and S.A.T. scores)(Harvard, Brown, Notre Dame, etc.)  Most went Division 1 NCAA schools.  But as well as they succeeded on the pitch, they were realists from mostly upper-middle and upper socio-economic strata.  They believed the likelihood of a career in English football was a poor prospect.  They'd take their full  or near-to-full rides to top universities and get their degrees while playing the game, then move on to either graduate degree programs or their first career job.  And play on the weekends in fun leagues or pick up games.  And if you asked them, many would candidly tell you that they didn't all that much care to watch games on the telly.  Play the game, yes; watch it, no.  My son still watches Arsenal play, but only occasionally.  MLS--no, unless one of his former teammates is on a squad that's playing.  That part always surprised me.  How can you play at such a high level yet not want to watch the pros play?   Me, I love watching the game.  My point is that the talent is there.  It's other things-externalities-which kill the continuation to the pros.  There is a core of kids with great early training who can play the game.  But they wander off to other things.  It's a function of economic need, I suppose.  Parents have to pony up big bucks for their children to play in club football select teams.  That cuts out most of the poor and lower-middle income kids -- the mainstay of American football, basketball, baseball, hockey teams.  Kids who aren't that invested in academics, whose family situation is more unsettled, who would rather be outside playing sports they can easily participate in rather than spend time studying.   Unless and until the Player's Family Pays scenario is replaced, the situation will only incrementally improve.  Talent will still out.  Just not in great numbers. 

A very well explained point but there seem to be some anomalies. For a rich, well educated youth maybe it's not the gateway to money but football requires less money than American football, baseball, ice hockey and tennis to play to mention but a few. Boots, shin pads and one ball between twenty two starters. If poorer, talented athletes want to play a sport football is fricking cheap no?

You're absolute right that round football requires far less cost in the kit and equipment.  However, if you want high quality training, 3x a week, plus games, at the select football level in North America, your parents have to cough up a lot of money.  I don't recall exactly how much we had to pay the club, but I think it was around $4,000-$5,000 a season.  For poorer families, that's just too much.  There were so many Hispanic kids, for instance, in South Texas, such as the metro San Antonio area, who played pickup football all day after school and on weekends.  They'd dribble, dribble, dribble, shoot at the garage door, play in the street.  They were more developed in their skills than the kids on club teams.  Until around 14 or 15.  Then the drills, the disciplined practices, the oversight and direction provided by the trainers, and the scheduled games with post-mortems, etc., etc., shifted the comparable skills advantage to the club team kids, and the disparity only increased thereafter.  My son played at different times with a few "scholarship" Hispanic and African kids who had mad dribble skills, were calm on the ball from endless hours of unstructured play.  They were creative, something many of the even better club players couldn't match.  You can drill the creativity out of a club team player.  I've seen it first hand.  The better trainers spot it in nascent development in certain players and they cultivate it, rather than try to stamp it out.  But it can be maddening to incorporate into the structure of a disciplined team.  Take Dempsey for example.  He got his flair from taking on adult Mexican men  as  a teenager in pick up games. 

I really enjoy your posts and appreciate the non confrontational way you can respond. 4-5 thousand dollars is ridiculous to charge families when all you need is a playing field.  It's interesting what you say about structure beating talent (dribbling skills) as I have always found that a when you beat a player with ball at feet the structure goes to poop as someone has to cover and then a scrabbled defence is an acute dribblers best friend. I do like American sports a lot and the coaching is an art your side of the pond but young people playing for fun should be near to free. Do any universities have scholarships similar to the American sports for football? It seems like talent from impoverished backgrounds make it other sports is "soccer" not treated the same? Sorry for barraging you with questions but it's only out of interest.

Not sure how to respond, so indulge me while I ramble a bit.  Dribbling was my son's weakest skill.  Sublime passer/distributor.  Size and speed to go with it.  And very physical, barely legal in physicality at times.  Was state champion in judo; fifth at Jr. Nationals.  He took that discipline and training, the balance and coordination, the explosive movement, and incorporated it into his game.  Played a lot of holding mid, center back, and outside mid.  Re: your comment about great dribblers breaking down initial defenders, which creates momentary chaos and opportunity -- I think that's true with defenses.  Most disciplined defenses will target the great defender and play textbook Pressure and Cover.  The Pressure man meets the dribbler and attempts to stand him up, make him commit to a course of action.  If the dribbler tries to fake out the onrushing defender, pass around him, or dribble around him, the Cover man is xx feet behind the Pressure man to mop up, snatching the ball and taking off.  It's the simplest and most effective style of neutralizing an advanced dribbler, but who really coaches it anymore?  Who trains and trains kids to do that?  Instead, as a nod to modern style I guess, trainers want everyone spread out, covering their own space or their own man.  But you can't do that so well when facing a great dribbler.

My son was the lone guest player on an Austin based team which got invited to play at the Disney Showcase one year in Orlando.  The team was loaded with talent, ranked #4 in the country for their age group.  Had two or three national team players in its squad.  That team made it to the semi finals, but lost to Chelsea's youth team, barely.  He didn't get to play in that last game.  And it still pisses me off.  Anyway, in those series of games, he ran into some incredibly talented young dribblers.  I swear some of them weren't thinking.  They were in a zone, just doing.  I remember my son's trainer of several years, a former Championship player who left his Channel Islands home at 16 to join an academy program, explain that a great dribbler has to be able to move a ball five yards without consciously thinking about it.  "You get to the point, he said, where you react automatically.  Stop thinking about what to do.  And just do it." 

Well against one of the better teams at this Disney tournament, my son was repeatedly tasked with taking on this wunderkid dribbler who was on the national team as well (for his age group).  He gave my son absolute fits.  The feints.  The shoulder drops.  Deception moves, pretending to start moving one way, then cutting the opposite direction.  He could even do that drag the ball back then wait for the defender to step in, then take off forward combo move that Zidane used to do. 

In the end, he had to body the kid up, stop playing the ball and start playing just the body mass in front of him.  Impede forward progress.  The judo skills took over.  But still that kid got the better of him I'd say 50 percent of the time.  Eventually, whether or not there is a Cover man behind the primary defender, the dribbler runs into congested traffic, and the odds then greatly favour the defense.  As my son's English trainer used to constantly tell him, "It easier to destroy than it is to create."  Anyway, the kid was the best young dribbler I had ever seen.  He eventually scored in that game by taking the ball into areas where the immediate defender had to hand off defending duties to his teammate.  At the moment of the switch, the kid just reverse direction and made a bee line for the box.  That kid got an invite from Chelsea people in attendance to go across the pond for a look see. 

As to soccer/football athletic scholarships to U.S. universities for more impoverished families, yes, a lot of high quality high schoolers got and get full or near full ride scholarships to NCAA Div. I or II schools.  A lot of them lose those scholarships after their Freshman year for a variety of reasons.  Some make it all four years with scholarships intact.  It's getting harder to get a full ride scholarship today though.  The program only has so many to hand out, and the universities have been cutting back on the allotment through belt tightening.  They like to spread the total number of allocated scholarships around by giving out fractions.  A 50% scholarship; a 25% scholarship.  And if they can find a player for whom they can work their magic with the Administration to make up the difference with an academic scholarship, all the better.  My son had combinations of athletic and academic scholarships.   I'll bet there are others on this message board with similar stories. 

[Forever Fulham]

Oops.  I apologize.  I meant to  type: Most disciplined defenses will target the great offensive dribbler [not defender]and play textbook Pressure and Cover.

[HatterDon]

Oops.  I apologize.  I meant to  type: Most disciplined defenses will target the great offensive dribbler [not defender]and play textbook Pressure and Cover.

FYI, you can edit your posts. There's a little tab on the finished post that allows you to do that.

Great stuff, by the way.