Subject: What if our greatest athletes played soc

I thought this article was funny. It's about what if USA athletes from others sports played soccer.

http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/5649612?GT1=8297

hahahahaha thats the dumbest thing ive ever read in my life, written by a true american idiot.

what he and most of america fail to realize is that soccer is the beautiful game, size doesnt matter (although it can help). Soccer players are a different kind of athlete; one that can last 90 minutes running/springing nonstop on a pitch vastly larger than a basketball court and slightly larger than a football field.

i laughed at the article too, but only in shame that many americans would read it and agree that we need to convert meatheads over to the soccer world to improve our game

I just think that Kevin Garnett playing goalkeeper would be the funniest thing ever.

What that retard fails to realize is that jacked players who can run incredible short bursts cannot even cope maintaining a close to average tempo for 90 minutes with a break in the half. That's why you see the jacked specimens dominate the 100 meters and then longer distances are all about everyone else. Soccer's not football and the parallels between longer distance and short distance are obvious, pretty much as fromastaflex put it.

It's kind of funny he'd mention baseball, they aren't even athletes.

hahaha true

True, you couldn't take Steve Smith or Terrell Owens and ask them to switch sports today and become a member of the National Team. But if you went back in time to when they were 5 years old, and made soccer the most popular sport in the country, things might be very different.

Take the amount of work they've put into become the best of the best in their sport, and throw that into becoming the best Soccer player they could be, and they'd probably be playing right alongside the Gooch.

I do agree that it would probably be very funny with KG in goal.

Its just stupid because soccer is an entirely different sport they might not even be great at, even if focused on from early in life. plus if they focused on training for soccer they wouldnt be as built as they are right now.

Exactly.

but its not the fact that soccer is a different sport...all the sports superstarts are naturally athletic, they're good at any sport. Look at Steve Nash, he got into Santa Clara on a soccer scholarship, if he stayed on US might have had another good player.

the reason he plays soccer is because hes not from the usa, hes canadian. plus hes not a huge guy, hes got actual talent. the article was ridiculous in saying people like brian urlacher could play D.

Now I'm going to take issue with that statement.Just because someone is large,agile and tough enough to play middle linebacker does not preclude him from being a good soccer player......I'm a perfect example of this,I 'm a first generation American ,played soccer from the age of four till into my late teens,for the local German club team(this was in the 70's so club teams were really the best level of soccer being played at the time)and was good enough to have college coaches inquiring as to my plans...I also played football and was good enough at that to get a scholarship to a Big Ten school to play linebacker.....If you seriously think that the skill sets for soccer are so demanding that world class athletes couldn't master them if they started playing at a young age you are sorely mistaken.Brad Friedel is damn near 6'6" tall and is quite agile enough to be one of the best keepers in the world,is it really that far-fetched to say Kevin Garnett,one hell of an agile guy who happens to be 6'10", would be a hell of a keeper if he had been playing soccer instead of basketball all these years?......

All he was saying is that those athletes wouldn't necessarily reach a similar level. If they had spent as much time on pursuing soccer, conditioning and soccer training, they probably would've been at the least decent soccer players as that is what it ultimately comes down to, how much time you spend. Then talent factors in but it's not the overriding factor, I think you can compensate for that with additional time.

Football and basketball are not soccer. Basketball is inferior physically in terms of running and football demands intermittent short bursts. Football players focus on optimizing their bodies for what is required of them by the game. Football players must either jump monsters or must get jumped by monsters. Hence they need to be jacked up. Just because looking jacked up evokes more awe doesn't mean a monster can make the jump to soccer and actually compete because those bodies are optimized for a continuing game over 90 minutes. That muscle then becomes your liability.

And thus the author of that article is a classic retard.

As for height, that becomes a hinderance as well, although if you compensate for it becomes your advantage, look at a Viera and an Henry, two of the best in their respective positions largely because of their physical assets. If these American athletes played soccer, TO would be less jacked, thin, jacked only in the lower body, and KG would be jacked in the lower body and the same elsewhere.


Onto something we could all probably agree though, how about Ashley Cole's girlfriend...to the right of the article...had to click that pic.
(edited)

Interesting. Regarding height as a hindrance, I am short (no pun intended)on time know and cannot reseach the article, but does not the U.S.A have a very tall guy in the backfield? and, according to Buce Arena, it is one of his advantage.

Thanks for the link, kysupercat!!

Fun story - and it does make you wonder what might have been (and what could be) if players early on decided to play soccer instead of their sport of choice. There's no doubt in my mind that players with talent like Nedved and Rosicky exist in the US - but they either choose other sports or aren't developed enough to see their full potential.

I think the author does make a point - our country has athletes that can hold their own with anyone. If these athletes could be schooled in soccer (from a young age) and developed as players, then the US would truly transform into the world power they want to be. It might be possible then to have a player as talented as Koller - someone who's tall, strong, powerful, and accurate with his head and feet (at a world-class level - no offense to Brian McBride!). Or someone like Nedved - but faster, stronger, and more accurate.

One can only hope we'll see that kind of transformation happen as our nation catches up to the rest of the world in giving soccer the attention it deserves as "the beautiful game."

Na dI'd think it has already been started but we'll see about that. Anyway, don't belittle Nedved like that, doesn't get much better than him even though he's past his prime, truly outstanding player, they can win this World Cup with him and that team.