Ghana With the Wind
The United States obviously has a long way to go before they can claim to be capable of fielding a respectable soccer team. The U.S. was placed in the toughest group in this year's World Cup, and yet still a chance to advance out of the group was essentially gift wrapped for them. Italy put away the Czech Republic, and all the U.S. had to do was beat Ghana...but they couldn't handle it.
No disrespect to Ghana, who has fielded a surprisingly good soccer team that Brazil best watch out for...but the U.S. should have taken this one. The fact that they didn't is proof positive that the #5 rating was far too high, and that the U.S.A. is not yet a real player on the world soccer stage.
Why is it that the U.S. can't compete with the rest of the world in soccer? Easy. We have too many great sports in this country. The best atheletes in Ghana are soccer players. The best atheletes in the United States play basketball, football, hockey, baseball...they run track, they swim, they ski, they do roller derby. They do just about anything but soccer. We just don't devote our atheletic resources to the world's game. We devote it to our own games.
So, what if the United States were as soccer crazy as the rest of the world? What would our world team look like? Here's my guess:
Forwards: Randy Moss, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant. All quick, wirey, and eager to score.
Midfielders: Terrell Owens, LeBron James, Joe Thornton. Tough, gritty guys who can knock out some teeth and score from far away.
Defensemen: Ray Lewis, Shaq, LaVar Arrington, Mike Tyson. They wouldn't even need to do anything. Ronaldo would run like hell away from these guys.
Goalies: Ben Wallace, Ryan Miller. Nobody blocks shots like Big Ben. If he can swat a basketball, he can knock down a shot on goal. And if Miller can block a tiny puck travelling at 150 miles per hour, surely he can knock down a large soccer ball travelling at a modest 75 miles per hour. Miller might not be the NHL's best goalie, but he's arguably the best born in the U.S.A.
So cheer up, America. We still have the world's best atheletes. They just don't play soccer.
No disrespect to Ghana, who has fielded a surprisingly good soccer team that Brazil best watch out for...but the U.S. should have taken this one. The fact that they didn't is proof positive that the #5 rating was far too high, and that the U.S.A. is not yet a real player on the world soccer stage.
Why is it that the U.S. can't compete with the rest of the world in soccer? Easy. We have too many great sports in this country. The best atheletes in Ghana are soccer players. The best atheletes in the United States play basketball, football, hockey, baseball...they run track, they swim, they ski, they do roller derby. They do just about anything but soccer. We just don't devote our atheletic resources to the world's game. We devote it to our own games.
So, what if the United States were as soccer crazy as the rest of the world? What would our world team look like? Here's my guess:
Forwards: Randy Moss, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant. All quick, wirey, and eager to score.
Midfielders: Terrell Owens, LeBron James, Joe Thornton. Tough, gritty guys who can knock out some teeth and score from far away.
Defensemen: Ray Lewis, Shaq, LaVar Arrington, Mike Tyson. They wouldn't even need to do anything. Ronaldo would run like hell away from these guys.
Goalies: Ben Wallace, Ryan Miller. Nobody blocks shots like Big Ben. If he can swat a basketball, he can knock down a shot on goal. And if Miller can block a tiny puck travelling at 150 miles per hour, surely he can knock down a large soccer ball travelling at a modest 75 miles per hour. Miller might not be the NHL's best goalie, but he's arguably the best born in the U.S.A.
So cheer up, America. We still have the world's best atheletes. They just don't play soccer.
posted by AdmiralLando at 11:14 PM
2 Comments:
Correction -- Joe Thornton is Canadian. Not sure whether he'd be eligible. I was trying to work hockey players in, but forget it. Take out Thornton, put in Carmelo Anthony.
Top three annoying things about soccer:
1) It has a game clock with no purpose: time is spent fucking around out of bounds, and then randomly adding 2 minutes to the end of the half to compensate for it.
2) Hearing people berate America for calling it "soccer" instead of "football." Plenty of countries where "foot" is not even a word have adopted some phoenetic pronunciation of "football," which makes far less sense to me.
3) 50% of the game is based on players' ability to feign serious injury upon the slightest touch from an opposing player. (Althought, if we could somehow get Vlade Divac on the American team, he would be a huge asset in this area.)
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