Monday, June 12, 2006

Houston We Have a Problem!

I am extremly disappointed in myself because I bought into the hype of surrounding the US Soccer team. I let myself believe that they really were the 5th best team in the world, knowing in the back of my mind that this was truly a pipe dream. I knew we were in trouble when I watched the friendly matches and the one thing that I noticed was that we are not a physical enough team to compete with the European teams. If we want to compete against these teams we are going to have to find 11 guys with the size of Oguchi Onyewu, Gooch. We need 11 men with size and speed of Terrell Owens and the attitude Ronnie Lott, and here in lies the problem. If the United States actually wants to win a World Cup by 2010, as has been proposed, soccer is going to have move out of the suburbs and into the inner city as well as into the rural areas. US Soccer is going to have to attract athletes that want out of the situation that they currently live. People can talk about how much heart the US team has, but heart ain't going to get it done on the international stage in which the national team currently plays. As a friend pointed out we are good enough to compete in CONCACAF but we are not prepared to compete against the European teams. Think about this I can gaurantee you that the majority of the US players come from comfortable backgrounds, meaning middle to upper middle class. Compare thier backgrounds to the backgrounds of the Brazilian players or the Mexicain players and you will probably notice a stark contrast. We will not win a World Cup until the soccer's image moves away from soccer moms and orange slices to the way the rest of the world plays: a physical tough game.

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