This Soccer Thing Would be Easy for Real American Athletes - Right?

[Unregistered]

https://twitter.com/ochocinco/status...564646405?s=20

You don’t understand, my body is used to one speed & i keep trying to make the ball & my feet become one & it NEVER ****ing works, i had practice this morning w/
@BocaRatonFC & it really dawned on me I’d have to be reborn again to get the hang of this **** & that sucks

-Chad Ochocinco (Johnson)
Johnson was a six-time NFL Pro Bowler, was named to 4 All-Pro teams and was voted as the number one wide receiver on the Bengals 40th Anniversary team. He led the AFC in receiving yards for four consecutive seasons, and he made the Pro Bowl five straight times from 2003 to 2007.

[Unregistered]

https://twitter.com/ochocinco/status...564646405?s=20

You don’t understand, my body is used to one speed & i keep trying to make the ball & my feet become one & it NEVER ****ing works, i had practice this morning w/
@BocaRatonFC & it really dawned on me I’d have to be reborn again to get the hang of this **** & that sucks

-Chad Ochocinco (Johnson)
Johnson was a six-time NFL Pro Bowler, was named to 4 All-Pro teams and was voted as the number one wide receiver on the Bengals 40th Anniversary team. He led the AFC in receiving yards for four consecutive seasons, and he made the Pro Bowl five straight times from 2003 to 2007.

He is old and washed out of NFL. He has been beaten up everyday for last 15 years. He is not the same athlete he was at 20. If he had played soccer all his life and trained for soccer he would have been great. Seriously 5'8 soccer guy; give it a rest. Our best haven't been playing soccer. This is changing. 8 years from now we will be competitive on men's side.

[Unregistered]

He is old and washed out of NFL. He has been beaten up everyday for last 15 years. He is not the same athlete he was at 20. If he had played soccer all his life and trained for soccer he would have been great. Seriously 5'8 soccer guy; give it a rest. Our best haven't been playing soccer. This is changing. 8 years from now we will be competitive on men's side.

Sorry HS lineman, you don't get it. The 5'8 guys have advantages on the soccer field you'll never get - something Chad is figuring out.

[Unregistered]

Sorry HS lineman, you don't get it. The 5'8 guys have advantages on the soccer field you'll never get - something Chad is figuring out.

The 5'8 guy has been playing soccer the last 20 years and Chad picked it up again the last few years.

If they both invested the same amount of time there would be no comparison.

It is like learning a foreign language. One guy has been speaking it since he was 6 and the other guy started much later and only for a few years. Of course the first guy is going to be more fluent.

Is calling someone a HS lineman really supposed to be an insult?

If Chad would have been put in a soccer academy since he was 10, he would have probably been the best American soccer player.

The argument is the best male athletes in the US are not playing soccer. Just look at Oregonlive.com sports coverage. How much of it is dedicated to HS "boys" soccer vs. HS football?

[Unregistered]

Sorry HS lineman, you don't get it. The 5'8 guys have advantages on the soccer field you'll never get - something Chad is figuring out.

5'8 guys do have advantages on the soccer field like they do on the football field.

The best 5'8 athletes in the US end up playing running back or corner back on Friday nights.

[Unregistered]

The 5'8 guy has been playing soccer the last 20 years and Chad picked it up again the last few years.

If they both invested the same amount of time there would be no comparison.

It is like learning a foreign language. One guy has been speaking it since he was 6 and the other guy started much later and only for a few years. Of course the first guy is going to be more fluent.

Is calling someone a HS lineman really supposed to be an insult?

If Chad would have been put in a soccer academy since he was 10, he would have probably been the best American soccer player.

The argument is the best male athletes in the US are not playing soccer. Just look at Oregonlive.com sports coverage. How much of it is dedicated to HS "boys" soccer vs. HS football?

You honestly have no idea if they had spent the same amount of time on the sport that Johnson would be as good or better . . . Johnson's own perspective on the matter seems to indicate otherwise. With few glaring exceptions, the best soccer players in the world tend to be short.

HS Lineman is an insult in the same way 5'8 guy is. For the record I am above average height, just have played against enough good little players to recognize they have some advantages in soccer that they don't have in football or basketball.

[Unregistered]

You honestly have no idea if they had spent the same amount of time on the sport that Johnson would be as good or better . . . Johnson's own perspective on the matter seems to indicate otherwise. With few glaring exceptions, the best soccer players in the world tend to be short.

HS Lineman is an insult in the same way 5'8 guy is. For the record I am above average height, just have played against enough good little players to recognize they have some advantages in soccer that they don't have in football or basketball.

I don't think most people would list a lineman as a "skilled" position.

Only 2 of the top running backs in the NFL were over 6 foot. There are benefits to having a lower center of gravity to change directions.

You are grouping football players as a whole when different positions have different phyical requirements. You would not have a 5'8 goalie. A wide receivers job is much different than a running back. Christian Renaldo is 6'2 by the way.

"it really dawned on me I’d have to be reborn again to get the hang of this **** & that sucks"

He is saying what I said which is he needed to start at an earlier age and put in the time to improve his skills. You don't all of a sudden pick up soccer an expect to play at the pro or semi pro level. Chad Johnson is also 40 years old now.

[Unregistered]

Sorry HS lineman, you don't get it. The 5'8 guys have advantages on the soccer field you'll never get - something Chad is figuring out.

There is no advantage to being a 5'8 athlete unless you are female or a jockey.

[Unregistered]

I don't think most people would list a lineman as a "skilled" position.

Only 2 of the top running backs in the NFL were over 6 foot. There are benefits to having a lower center of gravity to change directions.

You are grouping football players as a whole when different positions have different phyical requirements. You would not have a 5'8 goalie. A wide receivers job is much different than a running back. Christian Renaldo is 6'2 by the way.

"it really dawned on me I’d have to be reborn again to get the hang of this **** & that sucks"

He is saying what I said which is he needed to start at an earlier age and put in the time to improve his skills. You don't all of a sudden pick up soccer an expect to play at the pro or semi pro level. Chad Johnson is also 40 years old now.

I am not grouping anything - just the same lame argument has been made about soccer for 40 years (if only our best athletes played the sport) and it is highly inaccurate.

Soccer shares some characteristics with golf and tennis in that you need thousands of hours on the skill acquisition aspect of the sport (whether in game like conditions or kicking against a wall); this is generally different than football,except maybe the quarterback and kicker positions. Being 6'2 doesn't help (and might hinder) in that skill acquisition; being 5'8 might.

I will grant you that there are NFL running backs and DBs that would love to see on a soccer field if they had devoted their life to the sport. But that is the exception and not the rule.

[Unregistered]

8 years from now we will be competitive on men's side.

Nope. Until you folks learn that soccer is a technical and cognitive skill set first, and an athletic endeavor second, you're going to keep producing trash players. Today they'll be really athletic trash (the US's specialty). If you start recruiting better athletes, they'll be even more athletic trash.

Go out to any youth soccer field in the country, and you'll see youth teams trying to win matches by athletic dominance: that's the first clue you're getting this wrong. Then, go into all but a few academies in the US, and you'll see players starting to be separated into a hierarchy that values early maturity too highly. Some will talk a big game about possession, but the whistle blows and it goes out the window. By the time all players catch up to each other in maturity, you've already invested too much resources in the most athletic kids, and now you're screwed. The smarter, or later maturing, or more technically gifted kid has had less reps, less tactical importance, and generally less attention than some big/fast kid who can't play fast enough for an actual soccer match. Then you roll out a national team that can dominate athletically and get dominated tactically and technically. Rinse and repeat.

I predict the US will waste another decade on the "best athletes" theory. It works so nicely as both an excuse and a thread of hope.

[Unregistered]

How can we have a thread on the great #85 without an obligatory GO BEAVS!

If there's one thing in (American) football that OSU is better than Oregon at--it's producing obnoxious NFL players. OSU has both Ochocinco and Brandon Browner, Oregon only has the Wizzenator.

Hey, you gotta take your victories where you can find them...

[Unregistered]

Ryder Cup

If only our best athletes played golf, we could win the Ryder Cup.

[Unregistered]

I am not grouping anything - just the same lame argument has been made about soccer for 40 years (if only our best athletes played the sport) and it is highly inaccurate.

Soccer shares some characteristics with golf and tennis in that you need thousands of hours on the skill acquisition aspect of the sport (whether in game like conditions or kicking against a wall); this is generally different than football,except maybe the quarterback and kicker positions. Being 6'2 doesn't help (and might hinder) in that skill acquisition; being 5'8 might.

I will grant you that there are NFL running backs and DBs that would love to see on a soccer field if they had devoted their life to the sport. But that is the exception and not the rule.

I think you are missing the point.

If we put in the best athletes and they put in the time, we would dominate the sport.

No one is saying that we just throw in our best athletes and they will automatically be great soccer players. Same with tennis. You throw in our best athletes and they train to be tennis players, they will be better than what you see now.

I said best athletes... not our tallest or biggest.

[Unregistered]

I think you are missing the point.

If we put in the best athletes and they put in the time, we would dominate the sport.

No one is saying that we just throw in our best athletes and they will automatically be great soccer players. Same with tennis. You throw in our best athletes and they train to be tennis players, they will be better than what you see now.

I said best athletes... not our tallest or biggest.

You seem to be missing the point that the definitions of the best athlete are different for each sport. Just because an athlete is big, strong, and fast in another sport that requires every down collision or the use of their hands doesn't mean they have the ability to learn to use their feet like the best in the world. Athletic ability isn't something that can be applied universally to the highest levels of any sport.

More importantly, why do you assume the best athletes here in the US are any better than the best athletes from the rest of the world? Are the humans here different than the humans there?

The reality is future team that could 'dominate' the rest of the world would look very similar in size and athletic ability as the best club teams in the world today.

[Unregistered]

I think you are missing the point.

If we put in the best athletes and they put in the time, we would dominate the sport.

No one is saying that we just throw in our best athletes and they will automatically be great soccer players. Same with tennis. You throw in our best athletes and they train to be tennis players, they will be better than what you see now.

I said best athletes... not our tallest or biggest.

. . . and you are missing mine - what the "best athlete" means varies by sport and position.

Spain is crazy about soccer; yet they also find ways to produce lots of great Tennis Players (they have won more Davis Cup in the last 10-yrs than world cups). Because they excel at Tennis, doesn't mean they can't also excel at soccer.

But in this country, the athlete excuse seems to (i) excuse our lack of men's soccer success despite large numbers of participants and (ii) lead to misguided proscriptions that we need to act and train more like football/basketball to be successful.

In the last 6-months, 2 different youth teams from socal have had substantial success on the global stage (one recently beat FC Barcelona's top team). They aren't doing it by trying to recruit the best American football players or emulate how you develop them.