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Dr0110111001101111 t1_ixguxd1 wrote

Reply to comment by Dr_thri11 in Supermarket Rewe drops ads with German soccer association over armbands row by fattyfoods

I agree that American soccer players train/develop similar to how American baseball/basketball players develop. The difference is that there are far fewer countries that have as much interest in those sports, so america can stand out better. Soccer is far more universal, so you have something closer to uniform exposure over the whole world.

With that said, look at a team like the Yankees. Only about half of them are actually American. Japan took the gold in the 2020 olympics. Don't confuse the MLB's ability to import talent with the notion that this country produces superior baseball players. Baseball would be unrecognizable without central america.

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Dr_thri11 t1_ixgvc7l wrote

Can you see how having 4 other sports and soccer being a very distant 4th places siphons off the elite athletes though. You can't tell me that a country of 330 million wouldn't consistently field a better team than most of Europe and South America if it was far and away the most popular sport. But it's not, it's been kind of an afterthought the most elite athletes in the US have 4 other sports they tend to pick first.

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Dr0110111001101111 t1_ixgx182 wrote

I definitely think it would make us far more competitive, but I definitely wouldn’t assume that would guarantee elite status just because of population size.

You made a great example with Uruguay. Tiny country, consistently competitive. Meanwhile soccer is huge in India (compared to USA) but they rarely even get a team to qualify.

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