Who would you vote for for USSF President
- Thread starter Sean Miller Fan
- Start date
Corporate sponsorship seems pretty decent for the olympics that happen every 4 years.
Soccer in Europe is better than the US in what I consider better leagues: England, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Holland
I didn't even include other continents that have countries far better than MLS. Brazil, Mexico, Argentina
Where do you find the best players in the world, in those countries listed. I'd put MLS in the 10th or later ranking, especially because some nations have multiple leagues that are better.
Soccer in Europe and South America are like Basketball and football in the US. That's the reality of it based on culture, history, investment, exposure, and availability.
Well then maybe if they want the US players to skip playing for more money at home, which is a no brainer, maybe the USMNT should subsidize the difference in salary for the guys they want to play in Europe. Why should an individual accept less pay than they can get?
10th? really, the way you guys where talking about it I figured they where like 30th, LOL. 10th best in the whole world is not bad, also means they are better than a good amount of European Leagues.
I placed them country wise below 10th. That doesn't include the numerous leagues for each country. Sorry to disappoint you, MLS still sucks.
There's like 200 countries! Hundreds of leagues, even top 20 is pretty good. I'm not disappointed, I don't care if they suck, I just want a league nearby, that plays in my time zone, in cities that make sense to me NY, DC, LA, that I can go to a game sometimes in person, those are my priority characteristics. So how bad they suck doesn't matter to me. I go to girls HS soccer and local minor league games too and I don't want to wake up at 7am and go to a bar to watch 2 English cities play each other, just not my thing. I try to watch some EPL sometimes, I just can't, it's too early in the day, and I can't get interested in any of the teams, I don't care at all about their "quality". I want to be a domestic and in fact local team fan, it's more about me having fun, than how great the play is.
Last edited:
I tried Googling it though and couldn't find an official ranking or anything recent. but there where several rankings ranking MLS in the Top 10. Not sure what it was determined by. Of course England, Spain and Germany where always top 3 in some order or another. But like I said, I don't care, I just want to put "America First" and "Buy American", LOL.
Buy American, but just know you are buying a less than stellar product, with soccer that is. But I will say our Women's National Team, tops in looks. Far better than the Japanese, Korean, and some other national teams. Yikes, there are some really unattractive female athletes out there.
In no order, these are the leagues that are definitely better than MLS
Mexico
Brazil
Argentina
England
England 2nd Division
Germany
Germany 2nd Division
Italy
Spain
France
Turkey
Netherlands
The following places have better player depth because their average domestic players are better than the average American but overall, I wouldn't say there's a big difference in quality.
Russia
Ukraine
Greece
Poland
Denmark
Sweden
Also, with their huge spending, the Chinese league is right there with MLS
I get it, but people go to minor league baseball and have fun. People go to Pitt hoops and I guess with they could have fun
.That's all I'm saying.To be honest, I think you need to support local domestic teams if in the long run you want it to be among the stronger leagues. Having domestic leagues matters. Giannis Antetekompou, aka The Greek Freak, probably wanted to play for Olympiacos or Panathinaikos before he knew he was good enough for the NBA.
I'm saying that French, Belgian and Dutch teams DIDN'T have an interest in him. Might he have been able to convince someone to take a chance on him? Maybe, maybe not. Remember that everyone knew that Roma was trying to sell him off before he went to Toronto. And yet other than Toronto no one was making any sort of offer for him. He went where he was wanted and could make good money. Just like most players do.
Like I said the European teams in leagues below the top want their limited number of foreign players to be young guys that they can sell off for a profit if they turn into top level players. Like Heerenveen did. Michael Bradley wasn't young, and he was someone that those teams NEVER would have been able to sell off for any real profit.
I totally support MLS, I have friends who played MLS, and a family member currently training with a MLS pro team. But this isn’t about support or loyalty, it’s knowing full well where the best quality play is in the world. It’s that simple.I get it, but people go to minor league baseball and have fun. People go to Pitt hoops and I guess with they could have fun
To be honest, I think you need to support local domestic teams if in the long run you want it to be among the stronger leagues. Having domestic leagues matters. Giannis Antetekompou, aka The Greek Freak, probably wanted to play for Olympiacos or Panathinaikos before he knew he was good enough for the NBA.
I'm never trying to say that they are among the best. Just my point is we need to have a domestic league, and second, I don't care, it's mostly just entertainment. And finally, what the USMNT does is not the only measure of if soccer is growing and improving in the USA. If we have a thriving league here, and have stadiums drawing as many or more fans than better Euro leagues, like we do right now, that's a great sign of growth since I was a kid in Western PA and everyone just made fun of it and nobody played.
Football, Baseball, Basketball all claim they are world champions. In soccer, you actually can be a world champion. That's the beauty of it. The World Cup is watched on every continent, and the emotions, passion, and love of the game during the World Cup is amazing. Nothing like it. If you ever get to see a game in another country, you will see the difference. Pretty amazing. But the true level of achievement for any player is to pull on the national jersey in the World Cup. There is always serious drama in the cup, National Pride. The US has politically done a lot to make people feel bad about national pride, you don't see people in other countries apologizing for being from that country. That pride bleeds into the World Cup. I've been to many World Cup games, and it's amazing.
My youngest daughter is a huge Spain and Belgium fan. When Spain lost 5-1 to Holland in 2014 my daughter couldn't stop crying. There is so much passion and love during the world cup because it takes so much to get there with such few roster spots, and the gap in years allows excitement to build. Representing your country is pretty amazing. So yes, the world cup is the greatest achievement. Ask any player young or old, and they will say the same thing.
I am Greek, and I am a fan of Greek MNT and Olympiacos, my uncle in fact was a board member of that club in the '70s and '80s. I've been to two big time soccer games in Greece, Olympiacos vs. AEK and Greece vs. Argentina friendly, both in the old Olympic Stadium in front of packed houses of 80,000 fans, yup, truly awesome, crazy in fact.
I get it, the biggest achievement for a player is playing in the WC, but do you give up millions of dollars in salary to do it is my question? And the fact that US players played in MLS did not necessarily cause them to fail to qualify for the WC. I couldn't try to force a guy to play for less far from home personally, if he could get paid more in his back yard.
Was that Spain/Holland game in 2010? I remember watching it at a Bar on the Greek Island of Karpathos if it was that same game, In fact I have this orange Holland hat I picked up as a souvenir after the game, it was the WC final, right?
It's interesting hat your daughter or anyone can become a fan of Spain and Belgium, I can only be a fan of USA and Greece, because I have deep connections to both, I honestly have a hard time being a fan of something I am not connected to or at least close to, like it's easy for me to be a fan of DC United because it's close by and all their games are on TV at 7pm and not 7am, but not any English or Spanish team, no matter the difference in quality... but to each his or her own.
For kids nowadays, international soccer teams are just that, "teams," to them. They don't think of them as countries so to speak. I know a kid who is a huge Argentina fan because of Messi and his dream is to play for the Argentine national team and he's not Argentinian!
Latest posts
-
-
-
-
OT'ish- this aint a good news for pitt and that contruction company
- Latest: LookLeftOnFifth
-
