Hacker News Reader

Comment by bwing | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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!!!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com