prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 12, 2010 16:03:12 GMT -5
That said, even with the ugly final, I'm still pretty high on soccer. I think the slow, gradual growth of soccer in the U.S. will continue. For Americans to really embrace soccer though, I think we need a deeper World Cup run, probably to the semifinals. What U.S. Soccer needs is a Forlán, a Villa or a Mueller, a player with a knack for scoring. With Donovan and Dempsey playing their usual game, a scorer would have a field day. Is Altidore that player? Time will tell, but I've been watching him since he was 17 and he needs to be quicker with his game. He used to stand out, now not so much. He's 20 so there could be 3 more Cups in his future. Is Davies that player? It would be a huge media story.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 12, 2010 16:09:14 GMT -5
SF, IMO there's space for all sports in the US. The bandwagon will be huge if the US ever wins the WC. It will not be easy, just ask Spain and Holland.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 12, 2010 17:05:55 GMT -5
There's room, but it's not particularly an American sport.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 12, 2010 17:39:48 GMT -5
It will be if the US wins the Cup.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 12, 2010 17:40:14 GMT -5
Lucky guy:
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njhoya06
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Post by njhoya06 on Jul 13, 2010 0:57:08 GMT -5
That said, even with the ugly final, I'm still pretty high on soccer. I think the slow, gradual growth of soccer in the U.S. will continue. For Americans to really embrace soccer though, I think we need a deeper World Cup run, probably to the semifinals. What U.S. Soccer needs is a Forlán, a Villa or a Mueller, a player with a knack for scoring. With Donovan and Dempsey playing their usual game, a scorer would have a field day. Is Altidore that player? Time will tell, but I've been watching him since he was 17 and he needs to be quicker with his game. He used to stand out, now not so much. He's 20 so there could be 3 more Cups in his future. Is Davies that player? It would be a huge media story. Doesn't Donovan have a knack for scoring? If the US played as many games as Uruguay, Spain and Germany, Landon could have scored two-three more goals and won the Golden Boot himself. Obviously he's not young/promising as Mueller, or as talented as Villa or Forlan. But like what was Mueller before this tournament? Unproven. Or Forlan really? A star on a second tier European team, not exactly a Rooney or Ronaldo or Messi. What the US needs is a run to the semis. The quality of our players improves by the tournament. One of these times we'll break through. In the interim, we'll have to settle for the huge, incremental gains in viewer ship that ABC/ESPN saw in ratings this WC.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 13, 2010 2:12:46 GMT -5
Slovakia's Vittek could have scored more goals, but guessing goals by games played is not how it works. Just ask the English how many goals was Rooney going to score before the WC.
B. Bradley had Donovan coming in from the wings in midfield and changing sides with Dempsey. A scorer in the mold of Villa, Mueller, etc... could have taken advantage of their play and the attention that both of them drew from defenders to score in one-on-one situations. The US didn't have that player.
This past season 20 year-old Mueller scored 13 goals for Bayern Munich which earned him a spot with the national team. Unproven? I don't think so. He was more effective than twice WC "proven" flops Rooney, C. Ronaldo, etc... As to Forlán, you cannot call the two-time winner of La Liga's highest scorer award (Pichichi Trophy) and two-time European Golden Shoe winner an unknown. He's a household name to fans in the countries with the best leagues in Europe and throughout Latin America. Atletico Madrid second tier? Really?
The run to the semis will come with goals from the forwards, who haven't scored since 2002.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jul 13, 2010 6:47:37 GMT -5
Having a forward who can actually convert would have made this US team really, really, good.
That said, a run to the semis wasn't going to make soccer really popular in the US.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jul 13, 2010 10:09:43 GMT -5
The problem is that besides Altidore, there aren't really any promising young forwards coming up for the US. Altidore himself is a question mark - he was great in the Confederations Cup, but he's been disappointing in Europe and couldn't find the net in South Africa.
We've got a really strong midfield with guys like Donovan, Dempsey, and Bradley, but you can't win World Cups if all your goals come from the midfield.
If you look at the Germans, they usually didn't dominate play against their opponents. But when they got chances to score they almost never missed. Simply converting their chances had them scoring 4 goals in almost every game. That's the difference that effective forwards gives you.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 13, 2010 14:07:05 GMT -5
That said, a run to the semis wasn't going to make soccer really popular in the US. Who knows what will happen if the US makes a run at the semis in 2014... It will be tough though with Brazil, world champion Spain, a relatively young Ghana and Germany. Also, I expect other South American teams to do better in their continent than the African teams did this time around.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Jul 13, 2010 16:28:40 GMT -5
One thing that will help US interest in 2014 will be that Brazil is in a similar time zone to the US, especially the east coast. That means that most weekday games will probably be on in the evenings, not during the work day.
That said, FIFA might move more of the games to the afternoon for 2014 because afternoon games in the Americas are on in prime time in Europe. Still, it'll be better than the early morning games we had from South Africa and Germany, and miles better than the middle of the night games from 2002.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Jul 13, 2010 23:24:32 GMT -5
It'll be fun to catch the games at EST happy hour. Perfect excuse...
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hifigator
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Post by hifigator on Jul 14, 2010 11:04:32 GMT -5
Stig, I'm not sure how that will impact viewership. On one hand, obviously, most typical Americans are working something like 9 to 5. So games at 10am and 2:30pm are both during the workday. On the other hand, for those jobs that allow at least casual viewing of anything, I would wager that almost all were tuned to the World Cup games. Whereas in the evening, even though most typical people are off work, there are other options, although at this time of year, at least sports wise, they're pretty much limited to baseball.
From my own greedy perspective, I really enjoyed the timing, much like I enjoy the British Open in golf ... err .... the Open Championship!
I like waking up and having a real event on and I like being able to keep the casual eye on a significant event during the workday.
But then again, I am in retail, and don't speak for the masses.
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The Stig
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Post by The Stig on Aug 30, 2010 21:57:02 GMT -5
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Aug 31, 2010 10:47:45 GMT -5
Sweet and sour for Bradley... sweet is the new deal, but sour in that it seems like he wasn't the obvious first choice. We'll get more info re: Klinsman in the coming days.
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prhoya
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Post by prhoya on Aug 31, 2010 10:54:38 GMT -5
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