Americans World Cup?

[chrisbird13]

For a real hard arse check out Neil Backl when he had the skin off the top of his head stapled back on so he could finish a game!

[El Kabong]

...see Ronnie Lott, a man who cut off his finger to finish a football game

That was a Myth dude he actually injured his pinky in a game and had less than a 1/2 inch surgically removed in the offseason..Good bad ass story but unfortunately a myth

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9TXb...=ronnie%20lott

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyh8l...ch=ray%20lewis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Yuc...lius%20peppers

Honestly Lawrence Taylor and Julius Peppers are better athletes than anyone who has ever or will ever play rugby...and for that matter I think they'd beat the shit out of people if they played rugby too.

Julius is 6'7 280+ pounds and runs the 40 in I'm guessing around 4.4-4.5

[El Kabong]

not only is Julius good at football but check out what he did with my Tar Heels in basketball

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAZhF...s%20basketball

[maracho]

I've been playing soccer my whole life. I've coached and reffed. And in my 28 years I've seen soccer grow leaps and bounds. I think what many countries have on us (other than the fact the sport is a national passion for most) is better orginization at the lower levels. This is something that is growing all the time in the US. I'd would be very suprised if the US didn't play in a WC final more than once in my lifetime. We have good players and great atheletes; its only a matter of time before it happens.

Check your stats. Next to Baseball, soccer has the most organized teams for kids including girls. It even surpasses basketball for numbers of teams.

[maracho]

I've been playing soccer my whole life. I've coached and reffed. And in my 28 years I've seen soccer grow leaps and bounds. I think what many countries have on us (other than the fact the sport is a national passion for most) is better orginization at the lower levels. This is something that is growing all the time in the US. I'd would be very suprised if the US didn't play in a WC final more than once in my lifetime. We have good players and great atheletes; its only a matter of time before it happens.

Another thing which I think does count against the American side is that you don't have an especially strong domestic league. If all your top players played there, and there was money there to bring in some good foreign players to supplement it, then your side would see a lot more of each other, and develop a better camaraderie. IT really is a problem with all of the smaller nations, where they become a two-tier team, with the base playing domestically, and the stars playing in different leagues, and are seen as incomers by the rest of the side.
At the moment, if a european player goes to the states to play then it tends to be a sort of semi-retirement, where they go in, pass on some expertise, play a few games and get rather bloated and sluggish.

Personally, I'd love to see the Ukraine really turn it on in the later stages and get quite far, especially to see Shevchenko get fitter and fitter and start banging the goals in!

The average American soccer player makes about 90,000 a year which is plenty of incentive—very few jobs in the U.S. can match that so I don’t think it is a money thing so much.
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbi...ope_spr_soccer


There are some Americans making millions of dollars playing soccer but there could be a whole lot more if Europe was not so discriminatory against them.
http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slu...ters&type=lgns

[VictorCharlie]

I've been playing soccer my whole life. I've coached and reffed. And in my 28 years I've seen soccer grow leaps and bounds. I think what many countries have on us (other than the fact the sport is a national passion for most) is better orginization at the lower levels. This is something that is growing all the time in the US. I'd would be very suprised if the US didn't play in a WC final more than once in my lifetime. We have good players and great atheletes; its only a matter of time before it happens.

Check your stats. Next to Baseball, soccer has the most organized teams for kids including girls. It even surpasses basketball for numbers of teams.

I'm pretty sure I didn't state any stats. And thanks for reiterating my point about the huge growth in soccer, but what I was getting at was better orginization from taking the millions of kids playing on saturday mornings and turning them into the best possible national team.

[AC-Cobra]

...see Ronnie Lott, a man who cut off his finger to finish a football game

That was a Myth dude he actually injured his pinky in a game and had less than a 1/2 inch surgically removed in the offseason..Good bad ass story but unfortunately a myth

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...type=printable

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9TXb...=ronnie%20lott

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyh8l...ch=ray%20lewis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Yuc...lius%20peppers

Honestly Lawrence Taylor and Julius Peppers are better athletes than anyone who has ever or will ever play rugby...and for that matter I think they'd beat the shit out of people if they played rugby too.

Julius is 6'7 280+ pounds and runs the 40 in I'm guessing around 4.4-4.5

Two Words

TANA UMAGA

The former New Zealand captain was a beast, Id be more scared of him than a starved Great White.

And as for the arguement on strength etc here it goes (remember I PLAY BOTH and love watching both so am not biased here)

"Rugby players dont hit hard enough to warrant padding" That is complete and utter tripe Lyle, either watch some world class rugby or get on a field and youll feel it.

Arguing about size aint gonna work either boys. Rugby players can be just as big as American Football players (except Defensive tackles and O-line). Not only this, they have to continue playing for 80 minutes (supreme fitness required there) and their playing the entire game themselves, covering whoevers there for their job and doing what needs to be done. In other words, theres 15 players on the pitch, and they have to attack, defend, track back, and kick. Whilst every player has a slightly different job, they all have to be all rounders rather than complete and utter specialist in such a tiny field of skills.

Heres another one for you. Ever tried taking a crunchin open field hit and then having to get straight back up, sprint, hit back or ruck out the man? In American Football you wont see this, nor you will see anyone having to make one tackle, get up in a flash cos someone passed out the tackle and make another desperation tackle to save a score.

I will never deny that American Football is a great sport I love it. And some of the athletes they produce are immense (Julius Pepper's as someone mentioned before, is a freak of nature). But if you took a bunch of world class Football and Rugby players, trained them in the other discipline for say a month and then had the two face each other in games of each. I GUARANTEE the Rugby players would not only easily win their own game, but would give a much better account of themselves in Football than the Football players would at Rugby.

In essence, its just the nature of the two sports. Doesnt make one better than the other. You may prefer the razzmatazz, big hits, big plays and drama of an NFL game. On the other hand you may prefer the tense, bruising, warrior sport of Rugby with the similar intensity which comes with being in such a high octane sport.

[El Kabong]

Tana did what now?

Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theisman's leg and the bone was popping out of the skin.

Hell Chuck Bednarik hit Frank Grifford so hard he knocked him out of football for 2 years

[The_One77]

USA don't like soccer....it's as simple as that. They think it's for grass fairies and wimps.
I don't really like the sport either, boring imo

[TitoFan]

A couple of rule changes to promote a little more scoring would do wonders for its popularity in the States, IMO. Not that that actually matters to the rest of the world.

[X]

Honestly Lawrence Taylor and Julius Peppers are better athletes than anyone who has ever or will ever play rugby...and for that matter I think they'd beat the S*** out of people if they played rugby too.

[/quote]

I'm sure they are great athletes, but I think US sports tend to produce specialists? Baseball, US football etc seem (to me, who does not know everything there is to know about them) to produce real specialist physical specimens.

Two more words:

JONAH LOMU

would have gobbled up US Football and was being pursued by them for more money that the GDP of New Zealand !!!!

[El Kabong]

Take a look at Julius and Lawrence they were FAR from "specialists" granted LT couldn't box worth a damn but he was extremely athletic. Julius could be playing in the NBA if he wanted.

Bob Gibson, Mickey Mantle and Jim Brown are other examples of great American athletes. Bob played with the Harlem Globetrotters and was one of the most intimidating pitchers (hurlers for you cricket fans) ever to play.

Mickey ran from the batter's box to first base in 3.9 seconds and was "the greatest football player Oklahoma ever produced".

Jim Brown, all american in football and lacrosse, greatest running back in NFL history and was offered tons of money to fight Ali

[JT Rock]

Jim Brown, all american in football and lacrosse, greatest running back in NFL history

I dont know about Jim Brown being the greatest running back of all time....Maybe in your opinion he is

I would pick Walter Payton over Jim Brown if were a captain in Gym class choosing players..LOL!!

[VictorCharlie]

I know Jim only played 8 years but the guy has a lifetime avg yards per carry of over 5yds. The guy could trip and fall for a firstdown. I'd take Barry over Sweetness anyway. Played on an average team and still put up great numbers.

[AC-Cobra]

Tana did what now?

Lawrence Taylor broke Joe Theisman's leg and the bone was popping out of the skin.

Hell Chuck Bednarik hit Frank Grifford so hard he knocked him out of football for 2 years

Djibril Cisse managed to break his leg so bone was popping out of the skin twice, all by himself, not much of an acheivement.

Lawrence Taylor is a beastly strong man, but put him on a Rugby pitch with Umaga, Lomu, Robinson, Johnson or any of that ilk for 80 minutes and he would be torched. THE ONLY PLAYER IN THE LEAGUE at the moment who I think cold cope with Rugby is Peppers and thats simply because hes a freak of nature, that man could be a better multisport player than Bo Jackson if he wanted to be.