Ibrahimovic, Balotelli, Peter Crouch, Pogba, Griezmann
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Pick a starting point guard in the nba. Anyone. Have them play soccer since they were little and they are hall of fame. It’s a tier 3 sport in the US.
Kihei would be world class if he grew up on Brazil.
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None of them. Come on - you must be kidding.
Soccer rules and so does lacrosse. Lacrosse is a fantastic TV sport too. Should be bigger than it is.
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While I’m not a huge soccer fan myself, I do acknowledge their athleticism. I think some of the rules are ridiculous though, but hardcore soccer fans usually don’t appreciate my suggestions.
I recently added a new gripe. I just found out that the 2026 World Cup will have 16 groups of 3. That means some teams will have a huge advantage because the final games of the group phase won’t be played simultaneously due to an odd number of teams in each group.
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Haha I am assuming by your takes that you don’t know who any of those players are, and neither of us are going to change the other’s mind. Back to panicking about 17 year olds, happy Friday!
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You must be bored. Matlock comes on from 3-5 pm every day. Not one guy globally could play in the NBA. And just about NBA guard would be the best ever. Tier 3 sport in this country.
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Alright- he figured me out. Just stirring the pot to stir it. Hate today for our basketball program for a lot of reasons.
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Im going to Olive Garden for bottomless salad with my daughters volleyball team. I’m out!
Also- April Fools! But I do think Kihei would be good at soccer.
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Just got back from Luc’s soccer game at NJIT. first half was good but then became far from the beautiful game
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Imagine if Barry Sanders grew up with an ball on his feet though
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No No No No No
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Oh yeah. In the US it is certainly true that we have a bunch of athletes who could have been great soccer players if they’d gone in that direction at a young age. But in all of South America and Europe, as well as some other places, the top athletes are all in soccer. So saying there are no top athletes in the sport is just… well it has no basis in fact, haha.
As football starts to fade out a little (not in popularity on TVs, but in kids participation), I do wonder if it’ll be soccer that picks up more and more of those kids in the US. We shall see. For decades US has been “10 years away” from being a soccer power, haha.
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I was talking to a guy about the similarities in the vision you need to be a ball handler in basketball and a ball advancer in soccer.
Both guys have to be creative with their actions, be able to anticipate what your opponents will do and what your teammates will do. And both have to adjust to what the defense gives them and that could be as little as a slight hip movement one way or the other.
Made sense to me. The physicals skills required for each are vastly different though. Lionel Messi would never have a chance in the NBA even if he could make every pass like he was seeing the future. But you have a guy like Joel Embiid who outgrew soccer and picked up basketball as a teenager. Tim Duncan’s swimming pool got destroyed by a hurricane so he gave up competitive swimming to play basketball.
Could LeBron play soccer if he picked it up as a teenager? No idea, but he has good footwork so maybe. I guarantee that no one’s going to push him off his spot if he wants a certain position.
I have a lot of thoughts on the soccer part of this having lived in Brasil and having 2 kids grow up there. Long story short we do it wrong and dont develop soccer players right. Also college soccer is an enormous hinderance to development
No one plays pick up. Kids rarely go to fields/ courts by themselves with a ball. And young organized stuff should ALL be indoor or very small fields where you learn those skills. Have talked about this with the likes of Claudio Reyna and Kyle Martino. I see this part well
And sadly we have gotten to the point of way to much parental influence and structure
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One hundred percent agree. I watch UVA’s team because I love UVA, but college soccer is basically completely irrelevant to high level player development now. Occasionally somebody will be a late bloomer or be undiscovered and then be picked out of the college soccer ranks, but of all the major sports, it’s the one where the college game has the least to do with the highest levels of the game.
At least we’ve seen MLS teams putting together legitimate academies over the last decade or so that are operating more on the European and South American model. Those have started to pump out real talent, and are responsible for a significant chunk of the national team. I mean, look at the clubs our national team players are at this cycle compared to the team that failed to qualify for the World Cup four years ago. It’s a massive difference. So I think we are making progress, but for 90% of American kids playing soccer, the path they are on is not one that is going to lead to being a high level pro.
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Like Matt Damon said in Dogma:
“Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer.”
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Soccer that’s a sport now?
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Dragon would wreck shop on the pitch. Definitely set a record for red cards in a season
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