Assess the USA soccer situation here

On that free kick, I was wishing the US had a Beckham-type who could put that ball on net. Oh no, we can't shoot off a free kick, we have to lob it on net and pray someone else gets a body part other than an arm on it. Why??

 

Convey should have taken it. But I don't think he was on the field at the time. He's scored quite a few times for Reading taking those free kicks.

 

World Cup soccer is just like the Olympics. People in the U.S. watch it for a couple of weeks and then could care less about the sport for the next 3 years and 11 months. Think back to how many people were watching curling - yes, curling - during the Winter Olympics. Experts every where. Do you think any of those people have watched a curling event since? Gymnastics, track and field, bobsledding, short track speedskating ..... soccer. All the same thing.

 

This was the major factor to me. Watch any other team in any other game and their passing and kicks around the net were crisp and on-point. The U.S. may have done that twice in two games. Otherwise looked like a high school team.

 

It sucks.

 

Apparently someone disagrees with you. Far more soccer is shown than any of those events, and Fox even has a channel devoted to the sport. Soccer won't be a big three sport, but it has a strong niche in the United States, and, something a lot of you don't consider, if there is an explosion in the Hispanic population in the next 20 years, it will have an even bigger following.

 

Apparently all the Mexicans who are here now are the ones that don't like soccer.

 

Soccer definitely has more potential--this is a sport that has has had professional leagues with television contracts in the US for well into 25+ years.
And many more people have participated in soccer during their life than have tried curling or bobsled.

But, if it is ever going to go beyond niche status, it needs a defining USA, USA, USA moment on the world stage. And when the results are basically falling face down drunk like a bunch of frat boys after a Jager binge, well, opportunity lost.  And another 4 year hibernation.

Frauds.

 

But seriously, folks ...

My only take on this is that I came away from my one personal experience with Bruce Arena thoroughly disliking the man. A couple years ago, I did a Q&A with him for my paper, asked him about the state of soccer in the U.S. and stuff like that, and he was a condescending ass. You know, he is the face of American soccer, whether he likes it or not. That's part of the job. If you want to give a stock answer to a question you've been asked 1,000 times, that's up to you. You don't need to be a snide jerk about it.

That is all.

 

This is the most overlooked aspect of all. Everyone presumes that soccer isn't popular based on MLS attendance or ratings. However, there are two channels dedicated to the sport, Gol TV and Fox Soccer Channel. Then you have the Spanish channels which show games fairly regularly from the Mexican league, which draws VERY good ratings. Throw in the Italian station which shows Serie A and the various localized sports channels that show EPL repeats to fill blocks of time and you have a tremendous amount of games on television.

Sure, MLS isn't receiving the ratings of the NFL, MLB or NBA, but I wonder how the USA/Italy game compared to the NBA Finals.

Can any other sport state that they have two channels solely dedicated to showing their games 24-hours a day?

 

The Yankees have ESPN...