What would happen if the US's best athletes played soccer?

[Unregistered]

Is this blatantly racist? Lebron would "drown"??? What would make you suggest that? Have you ever sat near the floor at a NBA game? Attributing the greatness of these athletes to some physical aberration as a singular defining factor and diminishing the skill involved to nothing are ludicrous and irresponsible suggestions.

OMG! Racist??? To state that a professional basketball player can't swim competitively because he lacks muscle development and technique is now considered racist??? You can't be serious.

And btw, I am NOT the person you were responding to. Only someone who is sick to death of people who play the race Card at the drop of a hat.

[Unregistered]

No, all wrong. Problem is coaching at grass roots level, not scouting. Only a few thousand boys per year get the proper training from 5 to 10. 98 percent of kids in the US system are too far behind technically by age 12 to ever play at the highest level. Might as well be playing lacrosse. Get the dads off the sideline, times 10 real coaches and US could compete with the big boys.

And way too many "in terms of".

And even fewer of those boys put in the time, energy, and family commitment to properly follow through on what they are taught.
Stop blaming the coaches. Soccer is a simple game that requires little instruction. What it does require is a self-driven level of practice that the majority of kids do not have. Fathers are to blame for watching football and not soccer on Saturday mornings.
Soccer is not the first thing discussed at the family table and when it is, we will see a change.

[Unregistered]

No, all wrong. Problem is coaching at grass roots level, not scouting. Only a few thousand boys per year get the proper training from 5 to 10. 98 percent of kids in the US system are too far behind technically by age 12 to ever play at the highest level. Might as well be playing lacrosse. Get the dads off the sideline, times 10 real coaches and US could compete with the big boys.

And way too many "in terms of".

How does coaching at grassroots level (completely agree) render the other comments "all wrong"? I don't seem them as mutually exclusive, as far as I'm concerned, both are entirely correct.

[Unregistered]

OMG! Racist??? To state that a professional basketball player can't swim competitively because he lacks muscle development and technique is now considered racist??? You can't be serious.

And btw, I am NOT the person you were responding to. Only someone who is sick to death of people who play the race Card at the drop of a hat.

Guess you missed the part about "would nearly drown." And wrong muscle groups? Another racial reference, like fast twitch fibers. You think Michael Phelps isn't well developed? You think Lebron was incapable of developing those muscle groups if he had trained for that from an early age. Sick of the denials of blatant racism. It's beyond obvious.

[Unregistered]

Guess you missed the part about "would nearly drown." And wrong muscle groups? Another racial reference, like fast twitch fibers. You think Michael Phelps isn't well developed? You think Lebron was incapable of developing those muscle groups if he had trained for that from an early age. Sick of the denials of blatant racism. It's beyond obvious.

You're a wacko. You lose an argument and try to play the race card to bail yourself out. You probably think it racist to suggest that Lebron would never have been able to be a top marathon runner, sprinter, defensive back, gymnast, tennis player, baseball player or golfer either.

[Unregistered]

You're a wacko. You lose an argument and try to play the race card to bail yourself out. You probably think it racist to suggest that Lebron would never have been able to be a top marathon runner, sprinter, defensive back, gymnast, tennis player, baseball player or golfer either.

You lost the argument pages ago. The argument was about whether he is a great athlete or just a product of his "freakish height." He is in fact a world-class athlete....one of the greatest in the world...and that has nothing to do with whether you like him or don't like him. If you're now changing the argument there is nothing worth discussing. Would "skilled" gymnasts be good NBA players? You people are pathetic...and I have no idea about the primitive origin of your ideas.

[Unregistered]

NBA players are the best athletes in the world, as a group, and Lebron is the best player on the planet.

So, you no longer want to make this argument?

[Unregistered]

Here is an interesting article on how the NFL is measuring the athleticism of potential draft prospects. If you don't think that the top tier soccer clubs around the world aren't doing something similar you are absolutely kidding yourself.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/analyzi...0645--nfl.html

[Unregistered]

Here is an interesting article on how the NFL is measuring the athleticism of potential draft prospects. If you don't think that the top tier soccer clubs around the world aren't doing something similar you are absolutely kidding yourself.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/analyzi...0645--nfl.html

Perhaps. But athleticism in only one factor in any player analysis. And, properly, done, the criteria would be different for every sport.

[Unregistered]

Perhaps. But athleticism in only one factor in any player analysis. And, properly, done, the criteria would be different for every sport.

Very true but if you don't think that there are baselines for these athletic metrics that all of the major soccer clubs basically use you don't understand sports.

When evaluating players most coaches are going to apply a sort of sliding scale similar conceptually to a sound equalizer. If one trait is low they typically look for another trait that is high to offset it in order for the prospect to be considered viable. All of this is also going to be relative to the other players in the group.