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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

This will happen right after the year of Linux desktops.

The US National team being competitive in international is way too high of an expection from anyone that follows international soccer. The US is stuck geographically playing Mexico all. the. damn. time. They rarely play any European teams. They also rarely play good South American teams.

Until they regularly play good teams, they will stagnate going back and forth with Mexico. The same applies to Mexico too. The only way to get better is to keep playing better teams.

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This overestimates the role of international soccer in predicting future international soccer success. Players get 99% of their development with their club teams. While it is crucial for Americans to regularly play good teams, this experience is mostly going to happen in top European leagues and the Champions League.

And we're in the midst of a huge boom period for Americans in Europe, with young Americans playing regularly for perennial Champions League teams Dortmund, Barcelona, Chelsea, Juventus, and Leipzig, a handful of starters on quality teams behind them, and major European teams spending more and more resources scouting American prospects.

Player quality is the main driver of international success: Belgium went from 57th-ranked in 2010 to 1st-ranked in 2015 (yes, FIFA rankings are bad, but they point to something real) not because of some change in scheduling philosophy but because they had a bunch of great players in 2015.

Belgium has not one but two players named Hazard, a Mertens, a Lukaku, a Tielemens, just to name a few. It's not surprising they've jumped in the standings with a squad like that. They also have Martinez as a coach.

Just look at the recent fixture list of the USMNT[0]. I'm really not meaning to offend, but these are not soccer power house types of squads they are facing.

The USMNT has a long long way to go. As long as there competition with American Throwball, basketball, baseball, etc, the US will suffer this level of mediocrity as the money potential just isn't there.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_men%27s_national...

I do like your nomenclature of "American Throwball", I might use that one in the future.

This is the unfortunate truth, IMO. As long as football is a distant fourth or fifth in American sports priorities, I don't see a reality where it excels. Why would it, when the athletes who could probably do amazing go to the other sports where they make 20x as much at a minimum, but more likely 200x as much?

Given the current trajectory of things, I simply don't see it changing either. Without some sort of black swan event either seriously incentivizing football or disincentivizing the other sports, there is no immediate path to the traction necessary to make football popular enough in the States for the USMNT to be a world class player in the next few decades.

The fact that MLS came out with an ad campaign shouting themselves as the 5th Major Sport was such an abysmal PR campaign, that I just cannot ever respect them after the fact.

They are literally celebrating the fact that they are not EPL, they are not Championship, they are not League 1 and on down the line. WTF! were they thinking that self deprecation was going to work at that level???!!!! You know, when you're bored with NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, there's us little guys called MLS. No, you're not trying to buy a house, we're a real sports league. For reality not for realty!!!

I don't think the situation is that dire. For the USMNT, maybe—a lot of that is competition and coaching—but not for MLS and American players overall.

The US has way more European pros now, playing on good, Champions League caliber teams. MLS has attracted higher quality talent, and the farm teams are producing better talent domestically.

Not that dire!?! There's a reason that FIFA games gives MLS such a low star rating in the game. Ever sit down on a Saturday morning to watch EPL/Serie A/League 1/Bundesliga/etc and then watch MLS on Saturday evenings? It's like watching professionals all day followed by little league. The level of play is so so much different. It's like driving on a long road trip at highway speeds to finally make it home and forced to slow down to drive a city speeds. Your body just feels like things are in slomo. That's how I feel about MLS.

Let's have perspective.

The EPL matches picked up over here for TV are between top-table, expensive clubs. Watch some bottom-table matches or matches from the Championship, and I'll think you'll find the quality isn't that far off from MLS.

US soccer including MLS has come a long, long way since 2010. Look at MLS from that era compared to today—it's night and day.

So you're trying to convince me the MLS is something to celebrate as it at best matches 2nd tier leagues in other countries? Hmmm... That's like suggesting watching minor league baseball teams instead of watching the majors. Although, there's probably just as large of an audience for that than MLS.

But please, tell me how EPL matches work. They have lots of money with high salaries to pay the top talent in the world and attract the best coaching minds you say? I can't imagine why anyone would rather watch that /s

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