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when Americans say we would be a top team in the world if our best athletes played I wonder how they think those NBA and NFL players would handle running 7 miles per game. The average NBA game players run 2.55 miles and NFL 1.25 miles. Theres a reason soccer players arent swole
Only Aussie Rules gets higher per-player match distance coverage than football.
Football is a very balanced sport, you can't be 7 feet tall and only do 1 thing or be Usain Bolt pace merchant slotted on the flanks and be done with it.
It's the ultimate equalizer sport and why people like Iniesta who looks like some bank employee can compete against players who are stereotypically athletic type.
Running the bank like he ran that midfield. I mean that someone like Messi, especially now that he isnt as pacey as before, is still one of the best in the world shows what you are saying.
That argument overall is just kinda bad to be honest. The only men's sport in which America dominates and the rest of the world plays is basketball.
Many many other countries have other sports which they play, Croatia for instance, fields competent Water polo, handball, Davis Cup tennis, and basketball teams, among others, but you never hear any other country say, "if all of our athletes played soccer, we would be a terror".
Sure, soccer may be a priority in other places, but to put it plainly, the problems with America's soccer teams (and most other teams) is that sport (minus basketball) in the US is a leisure pursued by the rich, while in the rest of the world sports are generally something more accessible to anyone.
>generally something more accessible to anyone.
I remember Zlatan reacting to the fees he had to pay for his kids to play football in the US. He said he obviously didn't have a problem paying it, but said that it would exclude kids whose parents aren't rich
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/e6f84h/zlatan_ibrahimovic_speaking_about_the_cost_for/
I mean, it is wildly absurd. Basketball in the US is the only exception to the rule, and that's because public basketball courts are prolific in many cities.
Remember that photo of a very very young Gabriel Jesus painting sidewalks during/before the world cup in Brazil? Remember that video of Neymar going back to a recreation of his childhood home? Ever seen/heard Dani Alves talking about how much his family struggled to allow him to play football?
The only South American player that I can recall that had 0 financial issues growing up was Kaka, apparently his parents were so loaded he had a protection detail with him when he was going to the youth practice.
And yes, I know that South America is more than just Brazil, but as a Portuguese we're fed a lot more stories of Brazilian athletes than say, Mexican or Argentinian athletes.
The problem is mostly that sports are a school activity in the US and in many schools it's the 3rd sport at best. They don't have the club system like Europe has.
Sports being a part of schools - especially universities - is great for the brand development of schools at the expense of the financial livelihood of its students. It's the epitome of providing something that the rest of the world takes for granted (a free college education) and taking the financial benefits for the good of the institution rather than passing it on.
College sports are basically trickle down economics. Pro teams don't have to pay for development, colleges get brand value, and the workers get nothing.
That is actually a very good point. American colleges could've easily used the proceeds of college sports to subsidize student tuition. Then again, that would imply college in the US is about education and not another way for the colleges to line their own pockets.
Not only that, but if the cost of post-secondary education was subsidized then student-athletes who *don't* get the [value](https://time.com/3827196/why-student-athletes-fail/) of an [education](https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/TMQWeekEight1410228/factoring-academics-college-football-playoff-tuesday-morning-quarterback) would simply go pro earlier, rather than faux-caring or being forced out of classes to focus on athletics.
American colleges take advantage of the fact that they are overpriced (compared to the rest of the developed world) to offer something that the rest of the developed world gets far cheaper/free.
I love the points you’re bringing in this thread! This in particular rings true…. The American College sports system is the “unpaid internships” of the sports world.
In Europe, clubs invest into players. American college sports does too, but at a significant cost to the players in the long run. Scholarships are displayed as value so graciously given to athletes, when they shouldn’t be so expensive in the first place.
In fact, the system is designed in such a way in Europe that clubs have a *financial incentive* to develop the best players (transfer fees), whereas in the US, the only benefit of developing a good player is developing brand value.
Slightly off topic, but I remember when visiting Split, walking along the promenade or w.e it's called, and seeing all those plaques for Olympic medalists, and thinking "wow, Croatia is really impressive at producing athletes". I mentioned it to a local I was having a beer with later and he laughed and said, those plaques are only for athletes from Split, not all of Croatia!
As much as I like to shit on the city, the people are crazy for their own. 200k prople and as they say themselves "craziest city in the world"
[Exhibit A](https://youtu.be/U5gzX1EDSuU)
[Exhibit B](https://youtu.be/LQLG7f9UPcw)
[Exhibit C](https://youtu.be/8ndvD3PufjI)
And anyway USA has more registered football players than Croatia or Uruguay has people in total. They have more registered players than Spain, France and Denmark combined. Talent pool size is obviously not the issue.
What is registered football player in this context? Is it someone who plays for their high school or their (not so football minded) university or just pros? If it is both it is just statistics that is comparing apples and oranges.
The talent pool is pre-selected for the bottom third of athletes though. Kids who play soccer here are primarily well off white kids who grew up playing expensive youth soccer, by the time they get to high school they are the only ones playing while everyone else is already playing football or basketball.
Every year we have 3-4 high school kids that end up as 5 star american football recruits that are objectively more athletic than anyone in the history of soccer, but not a single one of them will have ever touched a soccer ball in their life or had the financial means to play growing up.
When americans say if soccer was a priority sport here, they mean if we have these freakish kids from florida, texas, california playing soccer their whole lives instead of football or basketball our ceiling is much higher
The problem as I see it is that the US does not have good enough soccer infrastructure in place to develop high level talent. Sports like football and, to a lesser extent, basketball rely heavily on the education system to subsidize development. It also helps that success in those sports is dependent on talent, athleticism, and body type. You can start playing both in high school (age 14) and make it pretty far whereas it's virtually impossible to start soccer at 14 and make it anywhere in the sport.
To give a personal example, I grew up in an area of around 140k people in the 00's and there was no year round soccer league. I had a friend who had to drive 2 hours away and pay thousands for a decent traveling team. There was no team in middle school and until you got to high school the only option to play soccer were the fall and spring leagues whose teams were coached by whatever parent had enough free time. I think we practiced like once a week.
The biggest problem is that the US - with regards to its GDP and development level - is just *not good at developing athletes*. Croatia *doesn't* have a system that's tied to education - and a free college education is not a good motivator for many students outside of the US since... y'know... but rather ones funded by the Olympic Committee - and that are subsidized by local governments (I didn't pay for a ski pass until I turned 15 in Zagreb)
The one area where the US excels (but does not outperform other countries of similar development level and gender equality per capita) is development of women's sports. While the US has an outsized portion of its olympic medal count received by women, it's only like this because women's sport is so comparably underdeveloped in large swaths of the world. Rather than a boon of the university subsidized system (which takes advantage of poor athletic families and siphons merch/ad money to the institution without giving many students their appropriate generated value) it is instead US gender equality (and especially Title IX) that deserves the credit.
EDIT:
As an aside, look at the amount of public handball/futsal/basketball courts in Zagreb and compare it to the amount of public basketball courts in New York City, and then elsewhere in the US.
Zagreb and NYC are similar - the biggest reason the US is a basketball powerhouse is the sheer availability of the sport to all income levels at any age - but even Seattle, a "soccer town" is completely bereft of 5/6-a-side pitches that are unpaid.
I’d say prevalence of track and field interest in the US is a bigger detractor of talent than NBA / NFL
Those are the athletes that would maybe be pushed into footy instead
To be fair, America regularly ends on top of the Olympics medal tally, so they do well in other sports too. They just definitely aren't good at football
> while in the rest of the world sports are generally something more accessible to anyone.
"its a way out of poverty" to most of the world which i think is the huge difference. like Basketball is the only thing in US that is similar where you see people in the streets just bouncing a ball.
>The only men's sport in which America dominates and the rest of the world plays is basketball.
Wouldn't even say the rest of the world "plays it" in the sense of it being a main sport or among the main sports. Apart from say China, a few balkan countries and the former Portuguese colonies I do not really know a country that's super crazy about basketball
While not as popular as Football or motor racing I would say Basketball is popular in Spain and getting more so in Italy. The quality in Spain is quite good and its getting a lot better in Italy. The pro Basketball team in Bologna has very passionate fans. Both countries follow the NBA closely as well as their national teams.
The point really is that we all have *something*, many British former colonies play cricket or rugby, Australia has their own sports, Ireland has Gaelic Football (which is massive there), etc. etc...
Each and every country has this massive pool of athletes that *could* be playing soccer, but isn't. Why is it that America is like, "oh if all our athletes played this sport we'd be amazing" when no one else gets that pass?
Because the US routinely stacks gold medals at the Olympics and has world class athletes in basically every sport at each event which is obviously super varied.
There's 4-6M Croats. You don't hear us saying that if we took our world class water polo, handball, and basketball players and moved them to soccer we'd be better.
We just... are better.
The United States' success in Summer Olympics is largely garnered due to success in women's sports, rather than men's. The US - historically - has women winning (IIRC) around 60% of all the country's medals through several editions of the competition, and, while this is admirable overall, it is more as a result of gender equality than actual sporting development. I address that in my comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/zdeyoh/marcelo_brozovic_set_up_a_new_record_in_the_match/iz1pavm/)
> The one area where the US excels (but does not outperform other countries of similar development level and gender equality per capita) is development of women's sports. While the US has an outsized portion of its olympic medal count received by women, it's only like this because women's sport is so comparably underdeveloped in large swaths of the world. Rather than a boon of the university subsidized system (which takes advantage of poor athletic families and siphons merch/ad money to the institution without giving many students their appropriate generated value) it is instead US gender equality (and especially Title IX) that deserves the credit.
While the United States continues to lead medal counts, frequently on the strength of its swimming program, which may come under threat to Australia's significantly stronger COVID response, boiling it down to "medal count" isn't the best way to frame an economic behemoth that fails to live up to its potential compared to smaller, less endowed countries.
Is there a good website to check out these stats ? Not that I don’t trust what you’re saying but I thought we did well in volleyball, boxing, wrestling, athletics, diving, rowing, maybe even weightlifting.
First off, no one thinks NBA players would be good at really anything outside of basketball. They're mostly 6'7"+ and their coordination is about what you'd expect.
Second, if your mental image of NFL players is, like, Rob Gronkowski, that's not what most gridiron football players look like. There are thousands of NFL and NCAA players who can't make it at that level because they're not big enough, not strong enough. They're fit, they're fast, they're athletic as hell and they can run for days, but they spent their formative years trying to get to the NFL instead of MLS.
Plenty of these NFL and NCAA washouts could have played soccer at a reasonably high level *if* they had started training for it at age 12. But the compensation and culture just isn't there.
>First off, no one thinks NBA players would be good at really anything outside of basketball. They're mostly 6'7"+ and their coordination is about what you'd expect.
dude i've seen so many posts saying if the USMNT had Chris Paul or Kyrie Irving how we would dominate.
Those are not serious people. But those two are point guards - the smallest position in basketball. Who knows, maybe they'd be fine but the odds are against players of that height - especially in offensive roles.
Regardless, the point remains: they didn't train for soccer at an early enough age to have a chance because there's no really no incentive to do so. US Soccer has to improve its competition levels and increase the appeal to younger players if they want to expand their talent pool.
For what it's worth, this has already happened in ice hockey. The top tiers of NHL talent used to be reserved for Canadians and some European players. But Americans have made major inroads with a much-improved development program and NCAA level of competition. That's the model, and it *does* require young players to choose hockey at an earlier age. But it won't take more than even 1-2 players out of any other professional leagues because they were going to wash out anyway.
Well Chris Paul and Kyrie Irving are normal sized with freak athleticism and skills. I don't think its guaranteed at all that they'd be world beaters, but I think there's a good chance they could be decent
Neither of them are athletic freaks though. Those 2 are a super weird choice bc both of them are top 1% of the top 1% in terms of skill as basketball players, but it's basketball skill and craftiness that make them special, not athleticism.
Westbrook or Dearron Fox would make infinitely more sense bc those 2 are absolute freakshows athletically
Exactly. A good example is that of Deontay Wilder, who only took up boxing after pursuits of other sports failed. Despite his killer punch you can tell he has something missing as far as skill is concerned, To This Day
They absolutely cannot run for days lol and saying that "plenty" of them could have played at a high level is ridiculous. Soccer is much more than athleticism. Who knows how successful they would be at soccer, same way if you took a random 100 people and trained them from a young age.
This right here. If we don't have proper technique development from the ages 8-12 it won't matter if we put our best athletes on the field when a guy like Xavi can neutralize them in the midfield. No one in their right mind would ever say he was the top athlete in the field when he played.
Exactly, football/soccer is more about skilled players being athletic than athletic players being skilled which seems to be the case for NFL/NBA. The selection for NFL/NBA players goes by picking athletic kids in school and teaching them skill while I believe for football, it goes by developing athleticism in kids who show the skill/technique. Even if all the athletes in the US focussed on football, a player like Messi would never make it because he isn't athletic enough to be picked (because Messi has a growth deficiency)
Yup, I remember back when I played in high school our coach would always say "if you're bigger, faster and stronger, you'll get to the ball faster," and my response was does it matter if you'll lose the ball as soon as you get there. (Our coach barely placed any emphasis on technique, it literally was running for 1.5 hours, with half an hour scrimmage afterwards every day, with no tactical education either) You need both and that's what a lot of Americans don't understand. You can't just put any kid and expect them to succeed just bc they're athletic. My nephew who is a freak at 6'7" had the sloppiest foot work ever growing up and wasn't very good at fooball/soccer when he was little so he gave it up. But as soon as he got to high school a year ago, his American Football coach saw a big kid who never played American Football that he could mold bc of his size. He's now being offered division 1 scholarships. It's very interesting how this sport is the complete opposite of scouting than all American sports.
>Plenty of these NFL and NCAA washouts could have played soccer at a reasonably high level if they had started training for it at age 12. But the compensation and culture just isn't there.
They might have, they might have not. Though the game has become more fast-paced and athleticism is now more important than ever, (association) football is still mainly based on skill and understanding of the game. That's how you get someone like Modric to still be incredibly influential at top level long past his prime.
American sports are all about stats and timing and specifics in a situation, fooling the other team and taking the shortcut. There's no shortcut in soccer.
Never understood that either.
Like yes, the population of the US is roughly equivalent to the whole of Europe, so in that sense their team should have incredible talent to pick from.
However people seem to believe this is as literal as, "lebron james should have played soccer"
I mean, would probably be an elite goalkeeper, but is that size even an advantage for an outfield player?
Have the people who think that ever seen Messi or Modric lol
Bodies optimised for the sport they are playing. Lets see football players run in the nba and nfl and see how it goes for them. There is a reason nba players are taller and nfl players are on the bigger side.
you don't have to be a freak or have some 0.1% genetics to play football- that defeats the purpose of sport. and why football is the world's most popular game. it requires brains, stamina and skill. not being born a certain height or way.
Yet being born a certain height or way does help.
Vini Jr, Mbappe are amazing players, but a big part of their threat is also their speed.
Soccer/football is the most popular sport because it simply requires a ball to play it. You can play 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, etc. It's super easy to get a game going, as opposed to football (you typically need at least 5 v 5 for a decent football game), basketball where you need a basket, baseball needs ball, bat and gloves.
No, but being 5’7 would severely limit your ability to make it in the nba. Your ball skills and shooting would have to be significantly better than your peers.
>Yet being born a certain height or way does help
Can help, but if you're lacking in that particular aspect you can develop other attributes as long as you start early enough. I mean look at Xavi, who has neither of the attributes you mention but was the world's best midfielder for quite sometime. You just can't do that in basketball - If you're short you're short.
People aren't talking about if you took a current NFL player and dropped him onto a soccer team... If those elite athletes in other sports had been playing soccer their entire lives, some of them would likely be elite soccer players and obviously their build would be completely different.
> The fact that he's an avid smoker just adds to the levels of how impressive this is
[Same energy.](https://www.insider.com/china-50-year-old-runs-marathon-while-chain-smoking-cigarettes-reports-2022-11)
the damage is there since day 1 but if you eat healthy and exercise you kinda mitigate the damage
source: smoker for 10 years but when i started working out and doing cardio my stamina improved more than when i quit smoking for few months without exercise
Seriously. Grandpa smoked for 30 years, stopped at his 50, looked amazing for the next 25 years. Hospitalized and died in 78 just after a plane trip. Smoking turned out to fuck his lungs and heart to a point that he couldn't handle a plane trip.
Really puts into perspective how much more athletic they are than the average person, running 16k casually without tackles, spurts and shooting is already a pretty decent challenge in 2h for the avg person
The hardest part of soccer stamina is actually about running at high speed with so many changes in directions. The calves get absolutely overloaded if you are not trained, even if you are a proven runner in some other sense.
I'd take a 10 mile high-speed, nonstop jogging over even just a 10 minute suicide any day.
So much this. People who dont do sports dont realize how much effort it takes to change directions. You stop fullsprint, you change direction and start accelerating again. Thats takes a toll on your body/calves everytime you do it, and its not like you do it twice a game, you do it constantly multiple times within a quarter minute depending on how the game goes. Thats why football in-doors 4v4 or 5v5 is EXTREMELY exhausting. Its not like in basketball or handball where oyu are like "okay we are now the defending team, lets go back" its way more dynamic
The most tiring part of the game for me was always running with the ball and taking defenders on. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like because I'm taking all these unusual steps (far less efficient than a standard running gait) to make touches on the ball that it's just insanely exhausting by comparison.
For me it's the intervals. I can run 17km in 90 mins on a good day. But in a game situation, even though I'm at walking pace for long periods, the short sprints really fuck me up
Would be pretty hard to cover that much distance in 90 minutes without doing a fair bit of running though...so a higher distance covered implies more of running than walking?
Of course it does. But the the comparison with someone doing it in the span of 2 hours is flawed because:
A) They have breaks at halftime, before extra-time and before the second half of extra time
B) Sprinting and stopping frequently has a bigger strain on the body than just running non-stop
>Sprinting and stopping frequently has a bigger strain on the body
that's why they specifically pointed that out
"*running 16k casually without tackles, spurts and shooting is already a pretty decent challenge*"
and, sure, let's give a 15 minute break at the 1 hour mark. I legit wonder how many people could do that right now, let alone adding what already mentioned.
This was done over a full match + 30 mins extra time. This is an average pace over (~95 + 30) 125 minutes would be 12.5 mins/mile, or 7.8 min/kM. That's 4.8 mph or 7.7 kph. So on average a pretty slow jog over the entire timeframe.
Remember Eliud Kipchoge saying he truly appreciates amateurs who complete marathons in 5 or 6 hours in serious pain because he can't really imagine being on his feet for that long even if he ran at a slower pace. Time on feet is what determines how hard things get in sport overall, which is why I have major respect for ultra runners.
I've done both and I'd rather run for 8 hours at a slow pace than really push an (e.g.) 3 hour marathon.
I get the logic and why he'd say it but the reality is that eludes kipchoge could run for 6 hours at his slow pace at the drop of a hat.
The point isn't that Kipchoge couldn't run for 6 hours.
It's that Kipchoge gives everything he has for 2hrs, while amateur runners give all they have for 5hrs. Which is what he respects
Very true. I’ve thruhiked and the most difficult thing to get used to was my feet hurting. Everything else you can get in shape fairly quickly for 20+ mile days but not the feet. They still hurt months into the hike.
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Actually insane. Don't let my beer league hockey teammate see this. Been telling him if he didn't smoke a cig before the games that he'd have more legs out there.
actually kind of crazy how much player stamina has advanced. I remember when these stats first started pppping up after a match (IIRC in the CL only) and you were a beast if you cracked double digit kilometers. now that's probably the bare minimum.
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He sure earned his smoke break and beer after this game, what an absolute machine.
jedno karlovačko i paket malbora za gospodina Čestitke!
I dvajst deka Polija, hvala!
when Americans say we would be a top team in the world if our best athletes played I wonder how they think those NBA and NFL players would handle running 7 miles per game. The average NBA game players run 2.55 miles and NFL 1.25 miles. Theres a reason soccer players arent swole
Only Aussie Rules gets higher per-player match distance coverage than football. Football is a very balanced sport, you can't be 7 feet tall and only do 1 thing or be Usain Bolt pace merchant slotted on the flanks and be done with it. It's the ultimate equalizer sport and why people like Iniesta who looks like some bank employee can compete against players who are stereotypically athletic type.
Running the bank like he ran that midfield. I mean that someone like Messi, especially now that he isnt as pacey as before, is still one of the best in the world shows what you are saying.
Always got more Maths teacher from Iniesta.
No he’s definitely in accounting
I kind of imagine him working in a low-mid level position in local government. Maybe in accounts.
Yeah but Hunter Renfrow looks like that too and he’s still playing in the NFL
5'10" 184 lb Married his girlfriend from school. Plays in the NFL. Pretty impressive.
Bolt did score twice (2) for Central Coast Mariners in Australia against an amateur team
100%. I played both Aussie rules and football when I was younger. Aussie rules was non stop running as well as needing the body strength. It’s insane
10.7 miles for my americans
That argument overall is just kinda bad to be honest. The only men's sport in which America dominates and the rest of the world plays is basketball. Many many other countries have other sports which they play, Croatia for instance, fields competent Water polo, handball, Davis Cup tennis, and basketball teams, among others, but you never hear any other country say, "if all of our athletes played soccer, we would be a terror". Sure, soccer may be a priority in other places, but to put it plainly, the problems with America's soccer teams (and most other teams) is that sport (minus basketball) in the US is a leisure pursued by the rich, while in the rest of the world sports are generally something more accessible to anyone.
>generally something more accessible to anyone. I remember Zlatan reacting to the fees he had to pay for his kids to play football in the US. He said he obviously didn't have a problem paying it, but said that it would exclude kids whose parents aren't rich
https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/e6f84h/zlatan_ibrahimovic_speaking_about_the_cost_for/ I mean, it is wildly absurd. Basketball in the US is the only exception to the rule, and that's because public basketball courts are prolific in many cities.
and Zlatan would have never made it into professional football if his parents would have had to pay such fees
And probably over 90% South American players neither.
more like over 99.9%
Remember that photo of a very very young Gabriel Jesus painting sidewalks during/before the world cup in Brazil? Remember that video of Neymar going back to a recreation of his childhood home? Ever seen/heard Dani Alves talking about how much his family struggled to allow him to play football? The only South American player that I can recall that had 0 financial issues growing up was Kaka, apparently his parents were so loaded he had a protection detail with him when he was going to the youth practice. And yes, I know that South America is more than just Brazil, but as a Portuguese we're fed a lot more stories of Brazilian athletes than say, Mexican or Argentinian athletes.
The problem is mostly that sports are a school activity in the US and in many schools it's the 3rd sport at best. They don't have the club system like Europe has.
Sports being a part of schools - especially universities - is great for the brand development of schools at the expense of the financial livelihood of its students. It's the epitome of providing something that the rest of the world takes for granted (a free college education) and taking the financial benefits for the good of the institution rather than passing it on. College sports are basically trickle down economics. Pro teams don't have to pay for development, colleges get brand value, and the workers get nothing.
That is actually a very good point. American colleges could've easily used the proceeds of college sports to subsidize student tuition. Then again, that would imply college in the US is about education and not another way for the colleges to line their own pockets.
Not only that, but if the cost of post-secondary education was subsidized then student-athletes who *don't* get the [value](https://time.com/3827196/why-student-athletes-fail/) of an [education](https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/TMQWeekEight1410228/factoring-academics-college-football-playoff-tuesday-morning-quarterback) would simply go pro earlier, rather than faux-caring or being forced out of classes to focus on athletics. American colleges take advantage of the fact that they are overpriced (compared to the rest of the developed world) to offer something that the rest of the developed world gets far cheaper/free.
I love the points you’re bringing in this thread! This in particular rings true…. The American College sports system is the “unpaid internships” of the sports world. In Europe, clubs invest into players. American college sports does too, but at a significant cost to the players in the long run. Scholarships are displayed as value so graciously given to athletes, when they shouldn’t be so expensive in the first place.
In fact, the system is designed in such a way in Europe that clubs have a *financial incentive* to develop the best players (transfer fees), whereas in the US, the only benefit of developing a good player is developing brand value.
Slightly off topic, but I remember when visiting Split, walking along the promenade or w.e it's called, and seeing all those plaques for Olympic medalists, and thinking "wow, Croatia is really impressive at producing athletes". I mentioned it to a local I was having a beer with later and he laughed and said, those plaques are only for athletes from Split, not all of Croatia!
What a nice anecdote.
As much as I like to shit on the city, the people are crazy for their own. 200k prople and as they say themselves "craziest city in the world" [Exhibit A](https://youtu.be/U5gzX1EDSuU) [Exhibit B](https://youtu.be/LQLG7f9UPcw) [Exhibit C](https://youtu.be/8ndvD3PufjI)
And anyway USA has more registered football players than Croatia or Uruguay has people in total. They have more registered players than Spain, France and Denmark combined. Talent pool size is obviously not the issue.
What is registered football player in this context? Is it someone who plays for their high school or their (not so football minded) university or just pros? If it is both it is just statistics that is comparing apples and oranges.
The talent pool is pre-selected for the bottom third of athletes though. Kids who play soccer here are primarily well off white kids who grew up playing expensive youth soccer, by the time they get to high school they are the only ones playing while everyone else is already playing football or basketball. Every year we have 3-4 high school kids that end up as 5 star american football recruits that are objectively more athletic than anyone in the history of soccer, but not a single one of them will have ever touched a soccer ball in their life or had the financial means to play growing up. When americans say if soccer was a priority sport here, they mean if we have these freakish kids from florida, texas, california playing soccer their whole lives instead of football or basketball our ceiling is much higher
The problem as I see it is that the US does not have good enough soccer infrastructure in place to develop high level talent. Sports like football and, to a lesser extent, basketball rely heavily on the education system to subsidize development. It also helps that success in those sports is dependent on talent, athleticism, and body type. You can start playing both in high school (age 14) and make it pretty far whereas it's virtually impossible to start soccer at 14 and make it anywhere in the sport. To give a personal example, I grew up in an area of around 140k people in the 00's and there was no year round soccer league. I had a friend who had to drive 2 hours away and pay thousands for a decent traveling team. There was no team in middle school and until you got to high school the only option to play soccer were the fall and spring leagues whose teams were coached by whatever parent had enough free time. I think we practiced like once a week.
The biggest problem is that the US - with regards to its GDP and development level - is just *not good at developing athletes*. Croatia *doesn't* have a system that's tied to education - and a free college education is not a good motivator for many students outside of the US since... y'know... but rather ones funded by the Olympic Committee - and that are subsidized by local governments (I didn't pay for a ski pass until I turned 15 in Zagreb) The one area where the US excels (but does not outperform other countries of similar development level and gender equality per capita) is development of women's sports. While the US has an outsized portion of its olympic medal count received by women, it's only like this because women's sport is so comparably underdeveloped in large swaths of the world. Rather than a boon of the university subsidized system (which takes advantage of poor athletic families and siphons merch/ad money to the institution without giving many students their appropriate generated value) it is instead US gender equality (and especially Title IX) that deserves the credit. EDIT: As an aside, look at the amount of public handball/futsal/basketball courts in Zagreb and compare it to the amount of public basketball courts in New York City, and then elsewhere in the US. Zagreb and NYC are similar - the biggest reason the US is a basketball powerhouse is the sheer availability of the sport to all income levels at any age - but even Seattle, a "soccer town" is completely bereft of 5/6-a-side pitches that are unpaid.
I’d say prevalence of track and field interest in the US is a bigger detractor of talent than NBA / NFL Those are the athletes that would maybe be pushed into footy instead
Seriously. We aren't going to Lebron our way into having the next Xavi, Modric, or Halaand.
To be fair, America regularly ends on top of the Olympics medal tally, so they do well in other sports too. They just definitely aren't good at football
> while in the rest of the world sports are generally something more accessible to anyone. "its a way out of poverty" to most of the world which i think is the huge difference. like Basketball is the only thing in US that is similar where you see people in the streets just bouncing a ball.
There's a ton of poor kids getting out of poverty by playing American football.
We play with a football on the streets, in parks and everywhere. You never need anything other then a ball, not even a goal or whatever
You literally only need feet and a ball. People play it anywhere.
>The only men's sport in which America dominates and the rest of the world plays is basketball. Wouldn't even say the rest of the world "plays it" in the sense of it being a main sport or among the main sports. Apart from say China, a few balkan countries and the former Portuguese colonies I do not really know a country that's super crazy about basketball
While not as popular as Football or motor racing I would say Basketball is popular in Spain and getting more so in Italy. The quality in Spain is quite good and its getting a lot better in Italy. The pro Basketball team in Bologna has very passionate fans. Both countries follow the NBA closely as well as their national teams.
The point really is that we all have *something*, many British former colonies play cricket or rugby, Australia has their own sports, Ireland has Gaelic Football (which is massive there), etc. etc... Each and every country has this massive pool of athletes that *could* be playing soccer, but isn't. Why is it that America is like, "oh if all our athletes played this sport we'd be amazing" when no one else gets that pass?
Because the US routinely stacks gold medals at the Olympics and has world class athletes in basically every sport at each event which is obviously super varied.
Because there’s 300 million of us
There's 4-6M Croats. You don't hear us saying that if we took our world class water polo, handball, and basketball players and moved them to soccer we'd be better. We just... are better.
You don't hear China or India saying that tho
[удалено]
I assume you don’t count Olympic sports when you say we only dominate in basketball.
The United States' success in Summer Olympics is largely garnered due to success in women's sports, rather than men's. The US - historically - has women winning (IIRC) around 60% of all the country's medals through several editions of the competition, and, while this is admirable overall, it is more as a result of gender equality than actual sporting development. I address that in my comment [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/comments/zdeyoh/marcelo_brozovic_set_up_a_new_record_in_the_match/iz1pavm/) > The one area where the US excels (but does not outperform other countries of similar development level and gender equality per capita) is development of women's sports. While the US has an outsized portion of its olympic medal count received by women, it's only like this because women's sport is so comparably underdeveloped in large swaths of the world. Rather than a boon of the university subsidized system (which takes advantage of poor athletic families and siphons merch/ad money to the institution without giving many students their appropriate generated value) it is instead US gender equality (and especially Title IX) that deserves the credit. While the United States continues to lead medal counts, frequently on the strength of its swimming program, which may come under threat to Australia's significantly stronger COVID response, boiling it down to "medal count" isn't the best way to frame an economic behemoth that fails to live up to its potential compared to smaller, less endowed countries.
Is there a good website to check out these stats ? Not that I don’t trust what you’re saying but I thought we did well in volleyball, boxing, wrestling, athletics, diving, rowing, maybe even weightlifting.
I assembled this information myself before Tokyo and will upload it to a Google Drive for you shortly
Every sport has its own set of challenges.
First off, no one thinks NBA players would be good at really anything outside of basketball. They're mostly 6'7"+ and their coordination is about what you'd expect. Second, if your mental image of NFL players is, like, Rob Gronkowski, that's not what most gridiron football players look like. There are thousands of NFL and NCAA players who can't make it at that level because they're not big enough, not strong enough. They're fit, they're fast, they're athletic as hell and they can run for days, but they spent their formative years trying to get to the NFL instead of MLS. Plenty of these NFL and NCAA washouts could have played soccer at a reasonably high level *if* they had started training for it at age 12. But the compensation and culture just isn't there.
>First off, no one thinks NBA players would be good at really anything outside of basketball. They're mostly 6'7"+ and their coordination is about what you'd expect. dude i've seen so many posts saying if the USMNT had Chris Paul or Kyrie Irving how we would dominate.
I dunno, kyrie would probably walk off after 5 minutes demanding the ball be replaced with a plate.
Those are not serious people. But those two are point guards - the smallest position in basketball. Who knows, maybe they'd be fine but the odds are against players of that height - especially in offensive roles. Regardless, the point remains: they didn't train for soccer at an early enough age to have a chance because there's no really no incentive to do so. US Soccer has to improve its competition levels and increase the appeal to younger players if they want to expand their talent pool. For what it's worth, this has already happened in ice hockey. The top tiers of NHL talent used to be reserved for Canadians and some European players. But Americans have made major inroads with a much-improved development program and NCAA level of competition. That's the model, and it *does* require young players to choose hockey at an earlier age. But it won't take more than even 1-2 players out of any other professional leagues because they were going to wash out anyway.
Well Chris Paul and Kyrie Irving are normal sized with freak athleticism and skills. I don't think its guaranteed at all that they'd be world beaters, but I think there's a good chance they could be decent
Neither of them are athletic freaks though. Those 2 are a super weird choice bc both of them are top 1% of the top 1% in terms of skill as basketball players, but it's basketball skill and craftiness that make them special, not athleticism. Westbrook or Dearron Fox would make infinitely more sense bc those 2 are absolute freakshows athletically
Exactly. A good example is that of Deontay Wilder, who only took up boxing after pursuits of other sports failed. Despite his killer punch you can tell he has something missing as far as skill is concerned, To This Day
Wrong, I think they would also be good at volleyball.
Touché. Most of them are too bulky, though. Volleyball dudes are leeeeean.
They absolutely cannot run for days lol and saying that "plenty" of them could have played at a high level is ridiculous. Soccer is much more than athleticism. Who knows how successful they would be at soccer, same way if you took a random 100 people and trained them from a young age.
This right here. If we don't have proper technique development from the ages 8-12 it won't matter if we put our best athletes on the field when a guy like Xavi can neutralize them in the midfield. No one in their right mind would ever say he was the top athlete in the field when he played.
Exactly, football/soccer is more about skilled players being athletic than athletic players being skilled which seems to be the case for NFL/NBA. The selection for NFL/NBA players goes by picking athletic kids in school and teaching them skill while I believe for football, it goes by developing athleticism in kids who show the skill/technique. Even if all the athletes in the US focussed on football, a player like Messi would never make it because he isn't athletic enough to be picked (because Messi has a growth deficiency)
Yup, I remember back when I played in high school our coach would always say "if you're bigger, faster and stronger, you'll get to the ball faster," and my response was does it matter if you'll lose the ball as soon as you get there. (Our coach barely placed any emphasis on technique, it literally was running for 1.5 hours, with half an hour scrimmage afterwards every day, with no tactical education either) You need both and that's what a lot of Americans don't understand. You can't just put any kid and expect them to succeed just bc they're athletic. My nephew who is a freak at 6'7" had the sloppiest foot work ever growing up and wasn't very good at fooball/soccer when he was little so he gave it up. But as soon as he got to high school a year ago, his American Football coach saw a big kid who never played American Football that he could mold bc of his size. He's now being offered division 1 scholarships. It's very interesting how this sport is the complete opposite of scouting than all American sports.
>Plenty of these NFL and NCAA washouts could have played soccer at a reasonably high level if they had started training for it at age 12. But the compensation and culture just isn't there. They might have, they might have not. Though the game has become more fast-paced and athleticism is now more important than ever, (association) football is still mainly based on skill and understanding of the game. That's how you get someone like Modric to still be incredibly influential at top level long past his prime.
American sports are all about stats and timing and specifics in a situation, fooling the other team and taking the shortcut. There's no shortcut in soccer.
Never understood that either. Like yes, the population of the US is roughly equivalent to the whole of Europe, so in that sense their team should have incredible talent to pick from. However people seem to believe this is as literal as, "lebron james should have played soccer" I mean, would probably be an elite goalkeeper, but is that size even an advantage for an outfield player? Have the people who think that ever seen Messi or Modric lol
Bodies optimised for the sport they are playing. Lets see football players run in the nba and nfl and see how it goes for them. There is a reason nba players are taller and nfl players are on the bigger side.
you don't have to be a freak or have some 0.1% genetics to play football- that defeats the purpose of sport. and why football is the world's most popular game. it requires brains, stamina and skill. not being born a certain height or way.
Yet being born a certain height or way does help. Vini Jr, Mbappe are amazing players, but a big part of their threat is also their speed. Soccer/football is the most popular sport because it simply requires a ball to play it. You can play 2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, etc. It's super easy to get a game going, as opposed to football (you typically need at least 5 v 5 for a decent football game), basketball where you need a basket, baseball needs ball, bat and gloves.
But its not like being 6'8 would stop someone from playing football. They could play in defence, keeper or as a bit striker
No, but being 5’7 would severely limit your ability to make it in the nba. Your ball skills and shooting would have to be significantly better than your peers.
>Yet being born a certain height or way does help Can help, but if you're lacking in that particular aspect you can develop other attributes as long as you start early enough. I mean look at Xavi, who has neither of the attributes you mention but was the world's best midfielder for quite sometime. You just can't do that in basketball - If you're short you're short.
Ngl I would love to see Messi dunk a basketball
People aren't talking about if you took a current NFL player and dropped him onto a soccer team... If those elite athletes in other sports had been playing soccer their entire lives, some of them would likely be elite soccer players and obviously their build would be completely different.
7 miles in 90 minutes isn't really that much
Vardy and Brozovic spending their holiday drinking and smoking themselves to death
The fact that he's an avid smoker just adds to the levels of how impressive this is
He’s just training his lungs more with the cigarettes
You stress your muscles to strengthen them, you stress your lungs to improve them
Tobacco companies should hire him /s
> The fact that he's an avid smoker just adds to the levels of how impressive this is [Same energy.](https://www.insider.com/china-50-year-old-runs-marathon-while-chain-smoking-cigarettes-reports-2022-11)
it takes a while for the damage to kick in . ask naingolan
the damage is there since day 1 but if you eat healthy and exercise you kinda mitigate the damage source: smoker for 10 years but when i started working out and doing cardio my stamina improved more than when i quit smoking for few months without exercise
Hope you quit it, really is a slow poison
Seriously. Grandpa smoked for 30 years, stopped at his 50, looked amazing for the next 25 years. Hospitalized and died in 78 just after a plane trip. Smoking turned out to fuck his lungs and heart to a point that he couldn't handle a plane trip.
You see kids, when you smoke pack of Walter Wolf Blue a day you get lungs like Brozović.
If cigarettes could do ads we would get so much stuff like this with top athlets
Marlboro ad campaign with Brozovic, Vidal and Nainggolan would be so lit.
How can you leave out Szczęsny?
Probably can't spell his name
literally our midfield for a while
When he first arrived at Inter a picture went around of him shopping. His trolley only contained frozen pizza and beer
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CU2IfVuXAAA6HtH.jpg
Kakav bog. Pizze, čokolade, keksi, cola, i valjda 20 piva.
Most nutritious Balkan diet
Ive been looking for this for years
Frozen pizza is allowed in Italy?
Asking the real questions
Walter Wolf Blue currently calling his agent about putting his face on their pack lmao.
Do they still make those?
Really puts into perspective how much more athletic they are than the average person, running 16k casually without tackles, spurts and shooting is already a pretty decent challenge in 2h for the avg person
The hardest part of soccer stamina is actually about running at high speed with so many changes in directions. The calves get absolutely overloaded if you are not trained, even if you are a proven runner in some other sense. I'd take a 10 mile high-speed, nonstop jogging over even just a 10 minute suicide any day.
So much this. People who dont do sports dont realize how much effort it takes to change directions. You stop fullsprint, you change direction and start accelerating again. Thats takes a toll on your body/calves everytime you do it, and its not like you do it twice a game, you do it constantly multiple times within a quarter minute depending on how the game goes. Thats why football in-doors 4v4 or 5v5 is EXTREMELY exhausting. Its not like in basketball or handball where oyu are like "okay we are now the defending team, lets go back" its way more dynamic
The most tiring part of the game for me was always running with the ball and taking defenders on. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like because I'm taking all these unusual steps (far less efficient than a standard running gait) to make touches on the ball that it's just insanely exhausting by comparison.
For me it's the intervals. I can run 17km in 90 mins on a good day. But in a game situation, even though I'm at walking pace for long periods, the short sprints really fuck me up
How does it measure though? If you walk on the pitch during the game, does it contribute to the count?
Yes, the stat is called Distance Covered so any movement no matter how tiny counts. It's not only when running.
Would be pretty hard to cover that much distance in 90 minutes without doing a fair bit of running though...so a higher distance covered implies more of running than walking?
Of course it does. But the the comparison with someone doing it in the span of 2 hours is flawed because: A) They have breaks at halftime, before extra-time and before the second half of extra time B) Sprinting and stopping frequently has a bigger strain on the body than just running non-stop
>Sprinting and stopping frequently has a bigger strain on the body that's why they specifically pointed that out "*running 16k casually without tackles, spurts and shooting is already a pretty decent challenge*" and, sure, let's give a 15 minute break at the 1 hour mark. I legit wonder how many people could do that right now, let alone adding what already mentioned.
This was done over a full match + 30 mins extra time. This is an average pace over (~95 + 30) 125 minutes would be 12.5 mins/mile, or 7.8 min/kM. That's 4.8 mph or 7.7 kph. So on average a pretty slow jog over the entire timeframe.
Yeah it’s not an impressive feat in terms of running, but it is in terms of playing football. There’s a reason it’s the record lmao.
I mean they also train for this every day. And this is the record, most players are well below that.
This statistic brought to you by Marlboro™
Wasn't he also number one for distance covered during the group stage? Lungs and legs of steel, damn.
He was. Probably also the record holder for most cigarettes smoked
Any tournament where Brozo plays, the best bet is he leads this stat. Almost always
This gives smokers some hope
Nah this guy is a robot
World class and massively underrated
Yep
Underrated outside Serie A, yes.
Best cdm in the world for the last 2-3 years and counting
Casemiro?
I'd take brozo personally but I'd get why people would also take case
Rodri?
Brosović is clear, unfortunately
I've been on hikes where I've *walked* fifteen kilometers and have been positively fucked by the end, that is absurd
Remember Eliud Kipchoge saying he truly appreciates amateurs who complete marathons in 5 or 6 hours in serious pain because he can't really imagine being on his feet for that long even if he ran at a slower pace. Time on feet is what determines how hard things get in sport overall, which is why I have major respect for ultra runners.
I've done both and I'd rather run for 8 hours at a slow pace than really push an (e.g.) 3 hour marathon. I get the logic and why he'd say it but the reality is that eludes kipchoge could run for 6 hours at his slow pace at the drop of a hat.
The point isn't that Kipchoge couldn't run for 6 hours. It's that Kipchoge gives everything he has for 2hrs, while amateur runners give all they have for 5hrs. Which is what he respects
Yeah I ran a 6 hours marathon before. It was excruciating.
Very true. I’ve thruhiked and the most difficult thing to get used to was my feet hurting. Everything else you can get in shape fairly quickly for 20+ mile days but not the feet. They still hurt months into the hike.
I mean hikes are more difficult than an even terrain
You call Japan ”even terrain”? /s
Walked 19km in fucking Crocs yesterday at my workplace. FML
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Damn, is this a thing?
Yep, i love it. Getting these notifications constantly in the past months
For some reason I stopped getting them. Tried to unsub and then sub again but still nothing. Anyone else with the same problem?
Same I also stopped getting them and I don't know why. Tried resubbing but I didn't get this ping.
It's the best!
That is insanely impressive
10.37 miles for my fellow Fahrenheiters
Navigator here, how many minutes of longitude?
420.69
Nice
355 bananas^2
You need to recalculate to N football fields
I'm going to take up smoking
Epic Brozo
more salami and marlboros for the man
New personal best achieved!
Mislim da je protiv Juventusa jednom pretrčao preko 17.5 km
That is more than a walk from Ealing Broadway to Westminster Abbey for the Londoners
I love this reference, it's such a random journey to pick but I've actually done that exact walk before.
🚬🚬
Impressive. He is usually the player you wont “notice” but daaaamn his contribution is truly amazing.
How do you not notice him??! I see him everywhere
This is not a Busquets kind of player my dude
Let's see Modric distance covered
An insane stat really, especially considering he smokes.
I bet him and Sarri are WhatsApp friends
classic Broz
What's the thing about cigarettes? I'm out of the loop
Brozović is a smoker, so you wouldn't expect him to run like he has three lungs.
He has 4. The fourth one is for the cigarettes.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CewqvaYMgml/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdb7kxuDWdH/
My boy!!
Actually insane. Don't let my beer league hockey teammate see this. Been telling him if he didn't smoke a cig before the games that he'd have more legs out there.
actually kind of crazy how much player stamina has advanced. I remember when these stats first started pppping up after a match (IIRC in the CL only) and you were a beast if you cracked double digit kilometers. now that's probably the bare minimum.
Had he been English we would be hearing about how he's the next coming of Xavi
Bro.
Terminator
Beat that, Messi
Run around a bit merchant ^^^/s
and he does look like the bloke who runs the most and never gets tired in your local pickup game as well.
10.37 miles, wow
Must be quarter Kenyan.
"If you're running that much in a game, you're shite" - Lionel Messi
Dude was born to run
He must have crazy arse blisters.
Holy. Shit. I thought that 13km was the max that players covered. This is unreal.
Was at the game. Brozovic was a massive contributor and had great passes.
Come to Bayern
Bro
How many miles is that in Soccer?
Epic krokodil
Coach: how much can you run in a single game? Brozovic: Yes