FIFA 2014 World Cup all-purpose thread | Page 67 | Syracusefan.com

FIFA 2014 World Cup all-purpose thread

BlazeOrange said:
They'd need to modify the substitution rules for our big freak athletes to have a significant impact. Being able to go 90-120 minutes straight is a bigger factor than running a 4.4 fourty. That said, I'd be interested to see combine-like numbers from the elite soccer players to judge just how far off they are from athletes in other sports.

Maybe there is a big enough gap to fundamentally change the style of play, but I don't see how it would work strategically (other than the obvious advantage in set plays). Otherwise, would speedsters be able to stay onsides and beat the defender to long balls with enough gap to make a difference? If so, then teams just wouldn't push the back line forward as much. The other potential advantage would be in ballhandling with speed - could basketball players dribble with their feet through a defense as easily as they can with their hands?
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Actually if you have a speed advantage up front, having the back line push way up is a defensive disadvantage. If your offensive speedster gets a good "through ball", there is too much space for the goalie to defend.
 
Apparently people keep uploading the Germany-Brazil game to P***hub and other adult sites. The results have been hilarious. (I apologize for the foul language in the picture but this is excellent.)
enhanced-14220-1404908705-1.jpg


The response from their site?

enhanced-1804-1404908835-10.jpg
 

Robben has to be one of the worst floppers in the world. I was watching this old clip and shook my head. The USA played Netherlands tough in Netherlands that match. Robben's drawn penalty was the difference in that 2-1 loss the USA suffered.
 
http://www.espnfc.us/blog/world-cup-central/59/post/1943792/concacaf-wants-more-world-cup-spots
Good luck CONCACAF 3.5 spots is fair IMO.

Final results for each confederation
W-D-L GD
COMENBOL 15-4-4 +18
UEFA 23-8-14 +16
CONCACAF 5-4-6 -3
Africa 3-3-11 -13
Asia 0-3-9 -16

Teams at this WC
UEFA-13
COMENBOL-6
Africa-5
Asia-4
CONCACAF 4

Only chance CONCACAF could get 4 teams is if Canada WOKE THE and used the fact it produces a lot of athletes and develop them on the soccer pitch. Canada is the key for CONCACAF getting 4 teams as the USA, Mexico, Costa Rica are all solid for the most part. CanadianSU c'mon man your country needs to pick it up for CONCACAF.
 
Alsacs said:
http://www.espnfc.us/blog/world-cup-central/59/post/1943792/concacaf-wants-more-world-cup-spots
Good luck CONCACAF 3.5 spots is fair IMO.

Final results for each confederation
W-D-L GD
COMENBOL 15-4-4 +18
UEFA 23-8-14 +16
CONCACAF 5-4-6 -3
Africa 3-3-11 -13
Asia 0-3-9 -16

Teams at this WC
UEFA-13
COMENBOL-6
Africa-5
Asia-4
CONCACAF 4

Only chance CONCACAF could get 4 teams is if Canada WOKE THE and used the fact it produces a lot of athletes and develop them on the soccer pitch. Canada is the key for CONCACAF getting 4 teams as the USA, Mexico, Costa Rica are all solid for the most part. CanadianSU c'mon man your country needs to pick it up for CONCACAF.
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Well, don't count on us. All our good players run off and play for other countries.

I was at the 8-1 drubbing against Honduras in WCQs and it was embarrising.
 
CanadianSU said:
Well, don't count on us. All our good players run off and play for other countries.

I was at the 8-1 drubbing against Honduras in WCQs and it was embarrising.
Expand...
Canada is CONCACAF's best chance for a consistent 4th team. Honduras, Panama, T&T, and Jamaica don't have the same potential. Jamaica lost Raheem Sterling to England poaching happens to everyone.
 
Alsacs said:
Canada is CONCACAF's best chance for a consistent 4th team. Honduras, Panama, T&T, and Jamaica don't have the same potential. Jamaica lost Raheem Sterling to England poaching happens to everyone.
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We suck :).
 
Alsacs said:
Listen I get your point, but I disagree in the USA our best athletes smartly go into sports with more money and are popular within the USA. If soccer was the most profitable and popular sport the USA would be better in the sport. I don't think we would dominate but we would be a top 5 team in the world. Not every athlete would be able to play soccer but if they started when they were young and went thru training we would have some world class players. Josh Smith would be amazing at jumping and knocking headers off set pieces, Allen Iverson could have been a world class athlete in almost any sport the guy was that special. If Carl Lewis wanted to throw a baseball over the plate I believe he could do it with training in probably a week. Could he be a pitcher? Most likely not but it means nothing.
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Put me in the camp that the game chooses you, not vice versa. Every once in a million a Bo Jackson comes around, but that's about it. Most of the wonderkids at the high school level are simply just that. Or you could look at individuals who actually bleed soccer and meet the supposed parameters of a great theoretical soccer player; i.e. Steve Nash, NBA point guard. I'd say he made the right career decision.

Nash, a 2-time MVP, future HOf'er, on his soccer potential:

"How good are you?", I asked him after his team won. “I guess I could have played professionally,” he said. “If I’d focused on it. Sometimes I wish I had. But that’s probably just a grass-is-always-greener kind of thing.”

It's like saying John Smoltz, who has (had) all the free time in the world to pursue golf, was tour quality. He was miles and miles from there, and eons from Ryder Cup caliber, which would be the equivalent of national team quality.
 
PoppyHart said:
Put me in the camp that the game chooses you, not vice versa. Every once in a million a Bo Jackson comes around, but that's about it. Most of the wonderkids at the high school level are simply just that. Or you could look at individuals who actually bleed soccer and meet the supposed parameters of a great theoretical soccer player; i.e. Steve Nash, NBA point guard. I'd say he made the right career decision.

Nash, a 2-time MVP, future HOf'er, on his soccer potential:

"How good are you?", I asked him after his team won. “I guess I could have played professionally,” he said. “If I’d focused on it. Sometimes I wish I had. But that’s probably just a grass-is-always-greener kind of thing.”

It's like saying John Smoltz, who has (had) all the free time in the world to pursue golf, was tour quality. He was miles and miles from there, and eons from Ryder Cup caliber, which would be the equivalent of national team quality.
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tottenham_hotspur_football_club_steve_nash_eTT7xSmI.sized.jpg


He's a big Spurs fan
 
Alsacs said:
If our best athletes were playing soccer I think they would come NBA PGs, SGs, SFs, and NFL RBs, WRs, DBs. I don't think everyone of them would be great soccer players, but if we took enough of them and gave them the best training and coaching we would have a freakish team on the pitch. As I said above a player like Allen Iverson was dominant in basketball, football, baseball as a kid he is a freak athlete. If somebody like him grew up playing soccer and received the proper coaching he could have been a Messi on the pitch IMO.
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When doing the nfl to soccer team I thought about Desean Jackson. Similar to Iverson he's a freak athlete BUT both are meat heads and mental mistakes are magnified on the pitch.

This arguement always comes up at cup time but I don't think the crossover potential is that great because a lot of sports have specialists. Most basketball players aren't magic johnson that can play all 5 spots on the floor, and most nfl players are too big to play soccer similar to soccer players being too small to play nfl. Most nflba players are too tall and would have knee problems before they ever got to the usmnt if they chose soccer. Kobe makes me think of that. AI would struggle because soccer requires practice.
 
ImperialOrange said:
When doing the nfl to soccer team I thought about Desean Jackson. Similar to Iverson he's a freak athlete BUT both are meat heads and mental mistakes are magnified on the pitch.

This arguement always comes up at cup time but I don't think the crossover potential is that great because a lot of sports have specialists. Most basketball players aren't magic johnson that can play all 5 spots on the floor, and most nfl players are too big to play soccer similar to soccer players being too small to play nfl. Most nflba players are too tall and would have knee problems before they ever got to the usmnt if they chose soccer. Kobe makes me think of that. AI would struggle because soccer requires practice.
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The best players, like Messi, have a low center of gravity. Think Wes Welker or Joe Morris. Rules out almost all NBA guys.
 
CanadianSU said:
In all seriousness Soccer won't grow up here because...

Hockey.
Expand...
Canada is CONCACAF's best bet for a 4th team. If they wanted to co-host with the USA in 2026 their program needs to qualify for the hex in these next WCQ cycles. Having 3 MLS teams is suppose to help develop the game in Canada.
 
Capt. Tuttle said:
Actually if you have a speed advantage up front, having the back line push way up is a defensive disadvantage. If your offensive speedster gets a good "through ball", there is too much space for the goalie to defend.
Expand...
That's what I was getting at in a rambling way - wondering if the elite US athletes are so much faster than the current elite international soccer players that we could dominate with a Dump and Chase style of play (and do so for two hours)?

If so, I said that the response is that opponents would not push the back line up. That would open up the middle of the field for us, but would then require a greater amount of skill as opposed to raw athleticism to get the ball in the net.
 
BlazeOrange said:
They'd need to modify the substitution rules for our big freak athletes to have a significant impact. Being able to go 90-120 minutes straight is a bigger factor than running a 4.4 fourty. That said, I'd be interested to see combine-like numbers from the elite soccer players to judge just how far off they are from athletes in other sports.

Maybe there is a big enough gap to fundamentally change the style of play, but I don't see how it would work strategically (other than the obvious advantage in set plays). Otherwise, would speedsters be able to stay onsides and beat the defender to long balls with enough gap to make a difference? If so, then teams just wouldn't push the back line forward as much. The other potential advantage would be in ballhandling with speed - could basketball players dribble with their feet through a defense as easily as they can with their hands?
Expand...


The big thing sports fans from other countries comment on about our favorite sports is all the breaks in play we have: even basketball is full of time outs. We have short bursts of athletiticism: soccer is more of a marathon with a ball. Any thought that we have great soccer players 'hidden' in other sports has to consider that.

If soccer ever became big in this country, how would our networks deal with it? Where would they run the commercials?
 
SWC75 said:
The big thing sports fans from other countries comment on about our favorite sports is all the breaks in play we have: even basketball is full of time outs. We have short bursts of athletiticism: soccer is more of a marathon with a ball. Any thought that we have great soccer players 'hidden' in other sports has to consider that.

If soccer ever became big in this country, how would our networks deal with it? Where would they run the commercials?
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I concur with your assessment. Frankly I'd love to eliminate commercials: who needs to be bombarded with ads for garbage products like Miller / Bud lite, McDonalds and Domino's pizza? Stultifying. We should disabuse our nation of the belief that they need (or even benefit) from this stuff and the moronic commercial campaigns vomited forth in support of same.

/end rant
 
cmr27 said:
The best players, like Messi, have a low center of gravity. Think Wes Welker or Joe Morris. Rules out almost all NBA guys.
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Yup which is what prompted me knee issues point as well. I think taller players COULD play well but I'm not sure the human body would hold up. Same reason you don't see 6'10 wr's. Planting and cutting with such a high center of gravity would be hell on one's knees and ankles.
 
ImperialOrange said:
Yup which is what prompted me knee issues point as well. I think taller players COULD play well but I'm not sure the human body would hold up. Same reason you don't see 6'10 wr's. Planting and cutting with such a high center of gravity would be hell on one's knees and ankles.
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I walked past the Arsenal team on a side street in Chelsea one morning about six years ago. Wenger had lined up in two rows walking around the block for some unknown reason. There couldn't have been more than four guys who were six foot or taller. The average player looked like he was about 5'6.
 
cmr27 said:
I walked past the Arsenal team on a side street in Chelsea one morning about six years ago. Wenger had lined up in two rows walking around the block for some unknown reason. There couldn't have been more than four guys who were six foot or taller. The average player looked like he was about 5'6.
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Yup. Keepers generally tower over field players aside from the odd center half or "big" striker and most of them are 6'3-6'4 range.
 
Alsacs said:
Is their any doubt the Court of Appeal in Switzerland will lower this suspension now that Suarez is going to Barca.
Expand...
I think they denied an appeal just yesterday. Not sure if he can appeal again.
 
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