There's a great scene from The Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon tries to explain American-rules football to Leonard, and Wolowitz asks him, "How did you learn so much about football?" Sheldon explains that growing up in Texas, you cannot help but learn about football-- you're surrounded by NFL, college, HS, pee wee football, which makes it like a religion (or at any rate it would have done, in the 1990's), "...but curiously, they seem to think 'Original Football' is some sorta Commie plot..."
We have the exact same thing here in Australia. Instead of football and basketball, we have to compete with Cricket, Australian Rules Football, Rugby League and Rugby Union.
But it's getting bigger. The Australian media meat rides afl but as someone from Western Australia I can tell football is getting more and more popular
growing up loving soccer in America wasn't always easy. I would get bullied a lot and never really understood why people would hate a sport that was so fun to me. It was really refreshing to go to college and finally find a community that appreciated footy
How old are you and where did you grow up? I'm 45 and grew up in So Cal and soccer was by far the biggest sport amongst the youth until High School when American Football overtook it at school.
I think you would be glad to know that it has changed, you will get an occasional remark. But so many people play it now, more than baseball for sure. It is growing massivly
I get bullied from both sides of the aisle lol. A lot of Americans make fun of me for liking soccer, while non-Americans find me weird for liking soccer while American. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Sometimes I wonder why I even follow this sport to begin with.
It’s amazing how similar the story is to us over here in Australia. Very much the sport played my migrants and too soft compared to AFL and Rugby league. When the Matilda’s had their run to the semi final last year it was amazing to see how many people were invested in soccer/football. It’s slowly coming along
@@martynhunter6083 A move for a talented A-League or NPL player will eventually happen, wanting it or not, as it would happen in any franchise-based league with a salary cap. The player demands a salary proportional to his ability, and this surpasses the league cap, so the only way is to offload the player. India, Australia and the US would have trouble to be near their current football state if not for the franchising system to safeguard a platform to invest resources to develop the game, even if those three have flaws that range from minor to critical. Also, some attention to continental club competitions would make a difference, in which Australia seems to be better than the USA despite having only the Wanderers as champions.
if the infrastructure in your home country isn't that great then it is inevitable that the youngsters would seek the top academies elsewhere. maybe when Australia does create a strong academy system and a competitive pro league they would want to stay.@@martynhunter6083
@WhyAreAllTheGoodUsernamesTaken How is Daggers doing? I meant to keep up with his career but completely forgot. He used to play for the team I follow Perth Glory. He was sadly underused. He always got the fans going but manager always used him as a last 20 minute sub.
Only thing he missed is that HS sports in rural areas replaces the local club sports structure. And the colleges become the highest sporting level reachable in the early 20th century.
This is true, but the level at which hs sports can be compared to an professional team youth setup has to be understood. Hs sports ,unless it’s a top 1% school in the nation in a certain sport or it’s a football state, like Texas, or Georgia, Can’t have the money and infrastructure comparable to a professional teams you set up it’s just that simple
@@brianngure151 Actually HS definitely have more money to work with in a lot of cases, and there are a shit ton more American HS than Every Soccer Academy in Europe combined, in just Texas alone.
@@brianngure151 just seeing this reply. You are correct for the current environment, but my perspective was historical and why the US doesn't have the same structure.
I also think the "Soccer War", the 1928-29 internal war between the US Football Association (later the US Soccer Federation) and the American Soccer League, had an interesting impact of the development of football in the United States. Essentially, it removed the most popular football club in the United States from the United States' top league due to the ASL wanting to be more "franchise" like. That club being Bethlehem Steel, not to be confused with the modern version of the club now called Philadelphia Union II, ugh (While MLS Next Pro is beneficial for developing players, I really loathe MLS' hatred of the history of this sport in this country). And when I say "popular", they weren't on par with baseball but they were certainly no slouches either. Bethlehem Steel match results were printed in Philadelphia newspapers and Bethlehem Steel would also travel outside the United States like their tour of Scandinavia in 1919. International friendlies would occur in the U.S. prior to the Soccer War. For example, some friendlies included the likes of Rangers and Celtic. Real Madrid played one of their first matches outside of Europe in the U.S. on September 25, 1927 (although fun fact, they needed players from Athletic Club and Osasuna to fill out the Real Madrid squad for that match). Sparta Praha would play a series of friendlies in the US in 1926. Hakoah Vienna, who played a match at the Polo Grounds in New York that set the U.S. attendance record for football that would last until Pele. The Corinthian, a London club that would actually be the namesake of Brazil's famous Corinthians, played a massive set of friendlies in the US. The decision essentially caused multiple teams to leave the league either due to disagreement or concern about regulations. This destabilized pretty much every club around this conflict regardless of decision, and *all* of that right before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. While it is unclear if semi-pro/pro football clubs in the U.S. could have survived the Great Depression, the "Soccer War" certainly helped to kill clubs like Bethlehem Steel, the New York Soccer Giants, Fall River F.C and Pawtucket Rangers in a more rapid pace. Also, off topic, but the successor American Soccer Leagues (yes, plural) are an interesting story too. The United States has a bizarre history in this sport. Essentially to sum everything up since this post is kinda long: The Soccer War basically took the U.S.'s small grassroots infrastructure and destroyed it basically in the span of a year.
I also feel like the Cold War impacted the growth of Association Football in the U.S. and its perceived "unamerican"-ness. Especially as nations in the Eastern Bloc such as the Soviet Union, Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia were some of the most successful football powers during the Cold War. Some of the few football matches that aired on TV in the U.S. until cable television were World Cup or Olympic matches.
Yeah, back then, asoc was more popular than American football, at least the early attempts at the professional level. The early NFL in the Midwest had no real chance until the teams started to spread out. You aren't gonna have much draw with the Portsmouth Lions, but you move them to Detroit and you start to get fans. If only we had forward movement back then, we would be in a different place now, with teams that were created organically like the ones in other parts of the world. Bethlehem Steel. They would have been the OG Steelers.
@@de132 also other Eastern Bloc Countries that you forgotten to mention which are both East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Albania & Romania were also very strong in their football as well too of course.
What's not mentioned here is that soccer has always been a sport children played in the US. When I was a kid everyone's first organized sport was soccer. You usually started playing at 5 or 6 years old and most kids played for a few years before quitting and moving on to more popular sports that they would go on the play in high school and maybe college like football, basketball, and baseball. Because of this, it was very heavily associated with children. I think the stigma against it where I lived was basically, "soccer is a game for small children, grow up and play a real sport." Also, there basically was no high level soccer to be watched anywhere at the time. I very well may have stuck with it if I could watch the best players in the world on TV every weekend like I could with any other sport. I literally did not know what a good soccer player looked like until I was in like high school and ESPN started carrying some PL and Champions League matches.
@@csnide6702and that lasted about 20 years, kids haven't gotten together to play a pickup baseball game since the late 50s. You know what his point is and he's correct.
Dana white is a billionaire, he's already won. Why tf does he feel compelled to be such a hateful prick? He can never just have a slightly negative opinion
I recall being excited for the 94' world cup back when I was stationed in Hawaii and talking to my fellow Marines about it. They looked at me like I was a traitor. They statements like "If we cared about it, we would pull athletes from the real sports leagues and just win the whole thing, you know if we cared about it". It seems like the American attitude is "If I can't compete at the highest level, I'll simply berate it and say it's beneath me". I'm so happy to see that mindset die out. Long live football. World football.
Ur friends have a point tho. After the main american sports have taken most of the top atheletes, whats left over is taken by soccer. So until that changes USA will never win the world cup.
@@xFurashuxTo be fair, a lot of them are. The only American sport that Non-Americans are better at is maybe Baseball, only because Japanese baseball culture is insane.
@@psvmjohn no they are not. You can't be a champion of the world if teams from only 2 countries can participate. Giving titles without competition defeats the whole idea of tournaments. I can give them that in American football they are the world champions because only they play that.
As an American, this video helped me understand a lot of hate for soccer here. As a woman, it also makes me a bit emotional and proud to know that women’s soccer kind of led the way.
It's worth noting that a lot of American sports media influencers are old. All of the top names are Sports journalists and ex-atheletes in their 50's-70's with backgrounds in the traditional American sports: MLB, NFL, NBA, and the college specific version of those three sports. They grew up in that generation that was actively taught to hate soccer. There is a big lack of soccer specific mainstream media voices in ESPN, Fox Sports, and other traditional American sports outlets. That colors the perception of soccer and MLS in America a lot. No one outside the soccer bubble covers soccer.
Not sure how old Pat MacAfee is, but he has been commenting on football a bit. And Jomboymedia. So while traditional media is behind the curve a bit, on social media football is definitely being talked about.
@@sidneyryan1291Beyond the memes and bants, it's more of a disinterest, in my experience anyway. That said, I know a lot of people who like basketball here.
I remember for years, Bob Ley, was the only guy on ESPN that cared about football in the U.S. Ley even pushed for the 1990 FIFA World Cup to have highlights on SportsCenter, which basically made him ESPN's permanent football host from 1990-2016. He got to cover pretty much every World Cup (men's and women's), and most European Championships for ESPN in that span. It certainly helped a lot that, as host of Outside the Lines, Ley was among ESPN's most intellectually respected personalities up there with the likes of John Saunders and Dick Schaap.
He publishes this on THE SAME DAY we beat Mexico for the 3rd straight time in the Nations League. We aren't England, France or Holland but we're on the up!
Mexico, a team that's - at best - a round of 16 participant at the World Cup. Very much like the US, so you guys are beating teams of a similar calibre. There ain't a great deal to celebrate there.
Ok, this is probably up there as one of your best videos. I've been playing, watching, and following soccer my entire life and I learned some new things. The history and development of the US game versus foreign leagues and clubs was particularly good. And I did catch you shamelessly plugging in some UVA shots. Go Hokies!
Paul Caliguiri played for my club SV Meppen and I've never heard the story^^ He was also chosen as one of 72 greatest personalities in the club's history in 2012
I have played soccer since I was 5 years old. I received a scholarship to play at a US college (I am Canadian). I believe the principle knock on soccer in North America is the “flopping.” We grow up with hockey and football where you get stitched up in the tunnel to the dressing room and get back to the bench without missing a shift… and then you play against a guy who falls down if you breathe too hard on him. There is a cultural chasm that might be impossible to overcome.
One aspect that’s definitely overlooked is HS Soccer. It’s not taken as serious as other HS sports from Pro Scouts but if you really look you can find a lot of good players. It’s crazy to me because a lot of the best players that can’t play club due to costs are playing HS. That’s the most local team most in the country will play for and schools do have Freshman/JV/Varsity teams.
USSF abandoning high school and college play as a path to professional soccer was an absolutely massive mistake. We'd have been much better off trying to get states to adopt two seasons a year for High School soccer and working on creating better high school coaches than basically anything we did do except create MLS, and even then we still need to be investing in HS soccer.
How good they are is pretty relative. I know 2 British teenagers who went over to America and played football there. One of them was a big talent at one point, released from a premier league academy and then released from a non league club in Englands 7th tier of football. Has since made loads of apps for 2nd tier American teams. Another played in goal for a local team in England, went to HS soccer and became their star striker, breaking the record for most goals ever scored for them and helping them make a state final. I watched that final live and the best player on the pitch by a long way was a winger who was very good at dribbling but nothing else. Poor awareness and never released the ball at the right time. There are so many prospects in the UK who never quite make it due to the level of competition but could play in the US and be a top tier talent. The gulf is so wide because of youth coaching, England made massive strides on that front (copying the Spanish model a decade or so ago) and are reaping the rewards now. The US have to implement the same thing while battling against their other three main sports for talent, attention and money. This post isn't hating btw, the US will keep getting better as the sport is reaching more and more people and I welcome that, good luck to them. But until there's elite coaching from young ages (under 10s at the absolute latest, all the way through to under 18s) the US won't be able to catch up with major footballing nations. This video (and comments like yours) did give me a better understanding of how broken up coaching is for football in your country and I appreciate that.
@@zHawkC The quality of High School coaching in the USA is generally dismal across the board. At 1st division college level it is much better, but at this point it's rare for a school to have a coach that played at that level and so was exposed to quality coaching. Most of them only know what they learned from other bad coaches. It also varies widely across the country. The level of coaching in say a Maryland or in a wealthy district of a big Northeast high school is vastly different than the level of coaching in say Oklahoma or Mississippi where soccer is still very much a marginal sport seen to be primarily a girl's sport. As such, whether or not a British teen comes over here and makes a big sensation depends not just on the British teen but where he ends up playing. I finished High School in Alabama in the 1980s for example where soccer was very much not a respected sport and most high schools had only had a team for less than 5 years, and sure an average British male student would have been one of our best players because no one really had a clue. But our best player was a kid from Ohio who had been a good player in Ohio but who was by Alabama standards then the best ever to have played the game in the state.
@@celebrim1 Yeah that's a good point. It's easy to forget how different the states are, coming from the UK where things like education and sports are so standardised nationwide. From what I've heard the high school coach had a background in american football and next to no knowledge of football. Based on what you've said that must be pretty common in the South. Lots of kids must miss their chance to be good players if the coaching doesn't get good until college level. I often hear about people who've never played American football converting and doing well even in their 20s. But this doesn't work for football, building technique from an early age is so incredibly important. By the time you're at college it's usually too late to catch up on a missed football education.
They don’t suck at football, India sucks at football, China sucks at football, the US has a pretty decent team well within the 15 to 20 best in the world. They don’t dominate tho, they aren’t a serious contender to win a World Cup, but they aren’t bad by any measure. They dominate their own conference in North and Central America, they always beat Mexico (a country that loves football a lot more). In the US there’s this mentality that if you’re not the best you suck, that ain’t life, you can be good and not be the best. There are levels to this.
I don't think dominating our region matters much anymore. Mexico was like the only competition but now they are at their worst. Then about 3 teams like Jamaica, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama who kinda just thug it out.
@@Deeznutz29828 Canada is becoming a good team too, but yeah Concacaf ain’t nothing to write home about. In South America the US would be at the level of between Colombia and Ecuador
@@hugomarquez3189 Canada improved, they have some good players but idk if they're a good team yet. The US on paper is probably on the level of Colombia or Ecuador but Im pretty confident the US would lose if we played each other.
the US has a good team when playing other coutnries of the same caliber. If you took a US team at its best and pitched it against a Spanish, German, French, English, Portugese, Argentine or Brazillian team at it's best you would find the gap pretty big. If the US wants to truly compete with the best it needs to stop using nations like Mexico as the comparison. If you are setting the bar that low then no wonder the US cant get far in the world cup.
Thank you for this video, Zealand. As a Gen Zer growing up in the American Football culture of Texas, I too often heard what you spoke about, in that all my nonsoccer-loving friends (which was about 95%) viewed soccer as a sport for primadonnas and women. In fact, my friends who did enjoy soccer were mostly all women. Soccer was so ostracized by the high school football culture in Texas, that it actually discouraged me from ever playing any organized soccer myself at any level. Too many times did I hear the exact verbiage you mentioned growing up from my American football and baseball coaches, "Get up! Be tough! No crying! This isn't soccer!" Even the 2014 WC (in which I personally watched almost every match) was not enough to garner the attention of my peers. But now, with the rise of American youngsters in Europe, the Pulisic-Mckenie era, and the 2022 WC campaign, I can see that soccer is finally breaking through with my countrymen. And man is it beautiful to see.....
@@tabletbrothers3477 Of course they would. Neither player would be good at the other. But AFB players could at least play the game. Neymar taking a dive handoff towards Fred Warner at a full head of steam would result in national mourning in Brazil. Same goes for rufby and aussie rules.
@@valantheflame0193 AFB players wouldn't be able to play because they don't have stamina but we know you are just trying to facetiously brag about how physically big they are.
@@valantheflame0193They are two different sports that generally require two different physiques, why are you making a comparison? That requirement does not make one better than the other. What is the point of your comment?
Or how American football fans view the patty cake rugby with 1 or 2 American style football hits a game. The rest of it is just mud wrestling. Pads and helmets make the game much more violent on every play not just some plays when everything works out.
@ericciaramella1984 Well, that depends on which rugby you're referring to. If you're referring to a union, then I agree that American football has slightly more frequent big hits, but if you're referring to league then every hit is bone crushing and there are harder hits than American football. The sport of American football is a waste of good athletes that would be much more utilized in rugby. Just compare the skillset of the rugby league forwards to the skillset of the offensive linemen. Rugby league forwards skillset: - run - catch - tackle - hitup - fend (stiffarm) - pass - offload - sidestep Amercan football offensive linemen skillset: - blocking Waste of athletes!🤦🏿♂️
Immigration is why baseball became popular. Baseball became a way to integrate into American society, it was a way for people to interact with their neighbors who came from other countries. They had no prior ties to the Yankees or Red Sox, like they had with soccer teams.
Canada also isn’t a great football country, but I’m English and just moved to Canada and I was surprised when most people said they preferred football in a survey I did for a math project 😂
@@Hazlem235 In Canada we play Canadian Football, which is a similar but different variation of Gridiron Football. Skills translate between Canadian and American Football, and many have played both, but they are key differences between the two sports.
Fun fact: the 1950 American World Cup team had five players from the same city and four players from the same neighborhood in St. Louis. St. Louis, while always being a baseball first city has a rich history in soccer culture in America. There were semi-professional leagues that are believed to have started in the 1890s and 11 teams from St. Louis have won the U.S. Open cup. There’s also the rivalry between St. Louis University and Southern, Illinois University, Edwardsville. The rivalry began in the 60s when SIUE came into existence, the team started playing each other in one game competition for the bronze boot, which is a trophy. Both of the universities have had success at the national level St. Louis University, 10 national championships in the 60s and 70s while SIUE won two national championships one was in division two and one in division one. The rivalry was at its peak in the 80s and still the record for the highest attended college soccer game was the 1982 edition of this rivalry when 22,000 people came to Bush stadium to watch the teams play. The rivalry took a hiatus from the 90s to 2018 when SIUE moved to division two. However when SIUE returned to division one the rivalry began back up and is now in the St. Louis MLS stadium, this past year 8000 people came to the rivalry game and I’m hoping more come in the future , SIUE also won the bronze boot for the first time since 1982. St. Louis also had one of the best supported major indoor soccer league teams the St. Louis steamers, which, during its peak, saw higher average attendances than the St. Louis Blues our hockey team. St. Louis is an underrated soccer city. Edit: hahaha I used text to speech to type this out and realized just now that there were a few errors…SLU did not win 110 national championships as I accidentally put.
@@joso7228 ? What’re you taking about? We have an MLS team and we have the Battlehawks (we’ll see how long that league survives). Many people in STL don’t want the NFL back.
And the way that people knew Pelé was because of ABC's Wide World of Sports, who showed the final of the World Cup live on ABC. With Pelé and Brazil being in a bunch of those finals, people knew of Pelé, which is why he was such a significant signing
Im just getting into the sport at 22 years old personally. I started playing fifa and learning about the sport and really enjoy it. Baseball is still my favorite sport, but I’ve been enjoying watching MLS games. I live right near the NE revolution and the new Rhode Island FC so I’m probably going to go to some games as well.
Another thing hampering growth here in the States is pay to play. I live in a mostly middle to upper class area and even those kids can't afford the eye-popping fees to play soccer here which makes you wonder how aspiring players who aren't so well off can even touch the field in this system
It can't be any more than what we pay for our hockey and football gear and equipment, as well as fees. My parents would spend 5 figures a year for hockey. I'd argue parent and grand parent preference plays the biggest part. They going to push their kids to play hockey, football, baseball or basketball? Or soccer?
@@Nolan-55Tbf since hockey and American football require so much gear, the costs make a little more sense(still ridiculously expensive). For soccer you need barely anything, so paying hundreds if not thousands for a kid to play a 12 or 13 game season make 0 sense
Hockey is maybe the most expensive team sport to play though. Cost of rinks, sticks, equipment... it's low-key a rich person sport. Soccer really shouldn't have to be that way. It's not some kind of accident that lots of the best players in other countries come from impoverished or working class communities. But centering the sport around pay-to-play and higher education makes it near impossible for those Americans to gain access to the sport. The academies are going to have to play a huge role in overturning this.
Pay-to-play has definitely got to be a factor in developing soccer in the US; it's really easy to have a kid on a travel team cost their family five figures once you've paid for the league fees, transportation, lodging, food on trips, etc. That, and the perception of a lack of professional opportunity compared to basketball and football, means that a kid with a lick of athletic talent is pushed to play them instead of soccer. Imagine an alternate timeline where Tyreek Hill (who obviously has world-class speed and eye-foot coordination) is an offensive midfielder rather than a wide receiver!
@@BonaFideBC It is expensive if you do not live in the right areas of the USA (and Canada) where there is a tradition of turning a backyard into a rink over the winter, and kids come home from school and play hockey with each other every afternoon for the winter months. (Unfortunately climate change is putting a crimp in this tradition some winters.)
Ha! Even worse! Though I keep wondering if you'll be able to turn a bowler into a baseball pitcher at some point. Look what the Aussies have done with the punting position in the NFL.
@@r2dad282 Stranger things have happened. Although I do remember English cricketer Harry Brook played with the St Louis Cardinals for a short stint in believe.
A pretty accurate rundown of the situation, but I think you miss the fact that the open league structure seen in soccer and other sports outside the USA at one point did exist in the USA and as a result of economic factors, the closed leagues dominated over the open leagues and in every sport drove the open leagues out of business. One factor in this was that from a very early era, revenues in professional sports were driven in the USA primarily by mass media. The USA is just so big that neighborhood rivalries as seen in Europe were rare to non-existent in the USA. Your rivals were cities hundreds of miles away. The closed leagues were better able to negotiate for mass media contracts, in parallel to trade unions with their collective bargaining agreements. Pro soccer in fact in the 1920s and 1930s was quite popular in the USA, but because it adopted league structures inspired by Europe and never developed a closed league system in the 1930 "Great Depression" all of its clubs folded while baseball was enjoying a golden age driven by radio. The rise of soccer in the USA corresponds precisely to the development of a professional closed league system that works within the US sporting landscape and its unique challenges. The thing to understand is that the USA along with Australia are almost uniquely multi-sport nations. As such, the real rival of a team like the New York Yankee is not the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Boston Red Sox, but rather the New York Giants, or the New York Knicks. The real competition isn't between clubs in the same sport, but rather clubs in different sports because if your local club is not entertaining people will change the channel or buy the jerseys of a different sporting team in the same community. People who love sports are almost never in the USA fans of a single sport, but have a whole sporting calendar and multiple teams that they support each playing different sports. This is important for a lot of reasons, including the reason that the NASL folded which came down to the fact that the league didn't have enough rules to govern its member clubs. Again, the open system failed. The individual clubs, trying to act like European clubs in a completely different landscape didn't have salary caps or revenue sharing rules, so they all tended to overspend and collectively never developed a lot of revenue once the first and second year novelty wore off.
I’m 43, American playing soccer since I was a kid (should’ve played in college cause was all area goalie but was so scared of failing to run 12 min 2 miles or some run test). I played full games as freshman as left fullback, best shape ever but my body was never good at continuing long distance running. That quick break helped. I’m from western Pa, heart of American football. Love soccer, football, baseball, basketball and hockey. Played all of them. Soccer, baseball and basketball the longest. I understand sports, respect these games and others because I get what’s going on. The deeper inside of what’s happening. I could play any position in soccer. Knowing the field, flow, where to play the ball, guide my teammates. My uncle was HS coach and needed a goalie, put me there. It’s gotten bigger because more immigrants coming. Plus people understanding the game better. That’s the key to any sport. One reason NBA I lost interest in and nfl new rules pushing me away each year. I went to 94 WC and plan on going to 26 WC. USA I believe will have its best team ever there. I don’t think we will win but never know, 80 hockey team did.
Great video as always. I think something that wasnt mentioned that is helping the sport grow is 2 other things. 1. The amount of elite clubs coming over for friendlies is growing. I hope that changes to a weekend of actual league matches or a super cup. Like in FM24 I just played an italien super cup at the big house in january. Now that isnt realistic as its the big house in january. But itd be amazing to see the spanish or italian super cup played over here. Spain just played theirs in Saudi Arabia so maybe one day. 2. Just the ease of watching leagues. I can watch england, dutch, spanish, german and italien soccer on TV. My latino friends watch mexican league soccer. Its super easy to watch whatever league youre in to.
Americans spend absurd amounts of money on sports compared to almost anyone else in the world. Soccer is still not quite a sport that has broken through, but each of the 30 MLS teams would likely cost as much as a mid-table Prem team if you wanted to "buy" the franchise. And excitingly, this has gone BOTH ways. Americans are definitely warming up to soccer, and Europeans are definitely warming up to the NFL. The NFL plays a few games in Europe every year, and they sell well and people seem to enjoy them. It's not an either-or thing. Both sports can be fun. And America certainly has enough money spent on sports to fully fund both. The NBA, for as big as it is, is nearly an order of magnitude less popular than the NFL. Yet the NBA has somewhere in the range of 20-30 players that get paid a yearly salary that would be almost prohibitive in soccer outside of the Saudi Pro League. This is why lots of European clubs are doing friendlies in the US. They can make ABSURD amounts of money playing friendlies in front of US audiences. It's one of the reasons that a lot of people think it's only a matter of time before American soccer becomes a worldwide powerhouse at the club level: the amount of money that Americans casually throw at sports is insane.
I looked into this a lot while doing an alternate history timeline. There were various leagues attempted over the years, it would have been very possible for any of them to have continued and steadily grown the sport in the USA.
I was one of those rare kids that grew up playing soccer, in part thanks to growing up in the shadow of an Air Force base where kids who had spent time at bases in England, Germany, and Italy would be rotated back and enjoyed playing soccer much more than American Football. I played until the costs of traveling for teams got too much, but the love of the sport and how it helped me in other sports will not be forgotten.
When I was growing up, soccer was the sport kids played until they figured out which sport they REALLY wanted to play. You moved on to football, basketball, baseball, etc. Soccer was simply a sport that introduced you to the concept of athletic competition.
We're too diluted as a nation to make USA soccer a powerhouse. This creates this unfortunate decision for most young people as they take the next step in school sports (high school then college). As a former dual sport athlete, having to decide between soccer & lacrosse scholarships was hard enough and that's two different sports played in different seasons (fall & spring). Being that soccer shares the same season as football, you have too many exceptional athletes choosing football as their path early on knowing this ultimatum always arrives. Its the same reason why I had to quit baseball even though I loved it (just because I loved lacrosse more). In many cases, football is just a more popular & attractive option (as its considered more "masculine" as a physical sport, has a larger roster that accomodates any body build/type, and oh .... cheerleaders decorate your locker before every game day). Its even those little factors that legimitately get some people to say I'd rather be a kicker/punter than a backup goalkeeper.
The USA is not going to be a powerhouse like Brazil, Argentina, France any time this century, no, but there is enough athletic talent available to squeak into the top dozen or so. Part of the beauty of soccer is it is not so discriminating about body type. If you are not at least 5'11" you have to be an obvious one in a million athlete for any college to give you a serious look for the football team. Ditto basketball. Many of the best soccer players to ever lace on boots are ballpark 5'9" or less (Messi, Maradonna, Xavi, Iniesta, just off the top of my head). So literally half of our young males would be far better off focusing on baseball & soccer and ignoring football or basketball entirely, if they want a chance of even playing at the college level. More so if they have dreams of a professional career.
I think it does discriminate with respect to body type on some level; I can scarcely see someone like Ryan Crouser or Jason Kelce being successful at it, even if they were to try to cut as much body fat as possible and avoid strength training as a way to decrease their muscle mass. Even DK Metcalf, who clearly has lower body fat than either of the two I just mentioned (and better fits European notions of athleticism, having once even participated in the Olympic trials for the 100m dash), would likely struggle to play soccer at a high level due to his large lean muscle mass. With a few obvious exceptions such as Micky Quinn, soccer really does require someone to be built very skinny, so that he can put on a little bit of muscle without becoming the least bit bulky--basically it's only open to people whose body type is at least passably capable of being trained to specialize in distance running rather than sprinting or strength events. IMO this is one strength of Am. football or baseball; they have different positions that lend themselves to different body types. On the other hand, while American sports do allow for a bit more variety in body type, they perhaps don't do as well for those who _are_ more light and skinny, so soccer probably would serve them better. @@ComradeOgilvy1984
@@philipmcniel4908 I think your points are not wrong, but very exaggerated. There are a portion of players on most soccer teams that could easily have bulked up to play American football -- mostly keepers and defenders. Not everyone on the top teams looks like they are ready to run a marathon. Kelce could easily have been a soccer player if he trained for it from age 15, instead of bulking up for explosive power. While you have to be mobile to play soccer defense, it is simply not true that every defender covers a lot of ground in a game -- those that charge forward to attack do, and others (especially CBs) do not. It might seem obvious that soccer would select for fast players, but it is not so simple. The best teams have often had players on the pitch that were not fast. Prime Iniesta and Prime Xavi were actually pretty slow, and they were not merely on the same squad but first choice to be on the pitch at the same time.
We're not bad though. We're actually pretty decent. Stop perpetuating this idea and recognize how far we've come in 30 years and the potential we have.
This is what gets me. What arbitrary metric do people require to accept that we do love the sport here? My local club Cincinnati has a beautiful downtown stadium if 25k+ that regularly sells out to enthusiastic crowds and yet I still hear "why don't Americans care?" These people are stuck in 1994.
@@SJPace1776 It's not arbitrary lol. It's pretty easy to tell. Here in Croatia, everyone will know if Croatia's playing, what the score is, even the women will watch the game if national team is playing. How's that for a metric? You just know it, you can see how important it is to people by their attitude.
We no longer suck at football and are clearly the best team in CONCACAF, which yes does suck. We still got a long ways to go to catch Spain, Brazil, Argentina, France, etc, but we are closing the gap fast. The fact we are 13th in the world is pretty good considering 85% of Americans really don't care much. MLS has made a huge impact as has the USL. I would love to see college soccer in the US Open Cup and would love to see an open system. Maybe one day.
@@tomatoisnotafruit5670 opinion ranks aka "Real" ranks do not exist. This team is way better than the 30's. We got players that don't even play that start in La Liga and the Bundlesliga.
@@jdredwine7224 I looked through Fifa teams ranking and USA is not a top 20 team. Argentina, France, England, Belgium, Brazil, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Uruguay, Morocco, Columbia, Germany, Senegal, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, Poland, Korea. All better than USA. USA was the weakest team to make it to RO16 in 2022 World Cup.
@@tomatoisnotafruit5670 you might want to check again. FIFA has us 13th. The truth is about 5 of those 19 teams you mentioned are only debatable. The US has a bad manager. That may give some of those team an edge, but I would take our players over at least 4-6 of those teams especially Korea who only has like 3 good players. Italy is calling up strikers from Serie C. They aren't your father's Italy. Morocco is close to the US level. Had a brilliant manager at the world cup. Senegal has no creative midfielders. Colombia is pretty close. I like the US over Poland and Denmark too on overall depth of players. The others I'll hand to you though. They are clearly ahead of us.
@@jdredwine7224 FIFA ranking is based on the team performance in their own continent, but teams do not play each other in different continents until a world cup, sure USA can compete with some of these teams on a good day, but there is easily 15 teams that USA is simply outclassed in every way. USA ranking is only so high cause they play in a weak continent and they have no competition. If USa played in Europe, they would struggle to make it to a Euro cup, let alone a world cup
Im both a fan of football and football and the disrespect given by americans to soccer/football sucks but the disrespect from Europeans to american football is even worse they dont even try to understand it and think its just a violent game when there is beauty in both sports
No one that has tried to play both sports competitively holds a dismissive attitude to either one. You can always tell ignorance speaking when they mock one or the other.
American football is way too slow especially when they need to stop the play just for ads. It takes all any potential fun away from the game. Its about money, not passion, and while Football itself is a huge money generator, the history in some of the clubs go back a hundred years or more. US teams pack up and move on a whim, so whats the point in staying loyal to a team? In Football we have a thing called 'relegation' where if you perform badly in your league, you get relegated to a lower league at the end of the season, and the top 3 teams in the league beow you get promoted to your league. the NFL has nothing like this, so if a player is unhappy with the team they play for there is no incentive for them not to play badly. The entire basis for the NFL is not about the passion or the fans. It is about money. And i will not deny there are huge amounts of money in football, there is also fan loyalty and even fan owners of some clubs. there is history in those clubs. There is nothing truly like that in the NFL. these are core fundemental differences in how the sports are managed. In the NFL is is all about money. In Football, it is a religion.
American Football is Derived from Rugby and Rugby is Derived from Football( soccer) that's why they are called American FOOTBALL and Rugby FOOTBALL. Baseball is Derived in many ways from a game called Rounders which was invented in the UK and 1st referenced in 1744 meawhile Baseball evolved over a 100 year period from 1749 onwards starting off in the UK when it was called Bass Ball and eventually making its way over to the US through Imigration. The 1st of a game similar to basketball was in 1591 in Germany. generally speaking the sports americans played are not invented in the US but codified instead from sports invented elsewhere.
@@scubasteve6175 Did you watch the video? If so, did you miss the part in which he explained how immigrants came to America and how and why they assimilated themselves to American culture, thus dropping a lot from their own culture?
The reason Detroit City is my favorite club and team to watch of any professional sport is because it is community grown like the soccer clubs of England. We started in the lower leagues and while there's no pro/rel system, we moved up slowly to the USL-C where we play today.
Sucks is reserved for like Mozambique or China. Us is actually pretty decent at soccer. Not a world power of course but hardly a doormat. I would say they are okay with chance to be very good
Thank you for such an informative video!!! 🙏🏻 Growing up in southeast Europe, I was accustomed, from a very young age, to the pyramid-like league system (local amateur leagues leading up to the professional ones, all the way to 1st division, all connected via the relegation/promotion process), academies and younger teams competition (children, teens). As years went by, I found out that this is how all team-sports are structured in my country-more or less-and that it's the norm in Europe. College sports was a completely foreign concept that I only saw in films and TV series and I first heard of a closed league and draft when I was introduced to the NBA. I still couldn't wrap my head around it...🤔😕 The closest thing we have to that is Euroleague, and although it was founded by professional clubs, it's only a semi-closed league. So thank you for explaining the sports culture in the US. 🧐 It makes much more sense now!!! 💡😮
I'm from Brazil, and the thing I like the most about football( or soccer for you guys) It's this capacity to unite everyone. Everyone has a place in football: the elderly can form a team to play some sort of " easy" competition to enjoy a better health. Football does wonders for kids who have too much energy left, It's so fckng interesting to them and helps develop social skills because even if It's a contact sport, there is not much, and also good individual or team plays are equally admired. Football also helps people as a form of comunication and to travel around the world because... Everyone knows the rules. I can play with 20 people form various countries, If everyone understands It's football, I would need just a ball, a judge and a timer. Even the place to play is accessible because we can made It in 10 minutes. Sorry my english btw. longe text. Welcome to the best sport in the world my friends.
It seems Anglophone nations or those influenced from it are not destined for football unless they invested for it. Canada, Australia, NZ, Kenya, India, Japan, Dominican Republic (brief American rule), Tanzania, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc, all are similar.
England is fundamentally a multisport nation so its actual colonies ended up either as multisport nations or adopting some other English sport other than soccer. Soccer is merely subverted all the nations that didn't have their own sporting traditions. Although you could argue that Italy had it's own brand of soccer and it basically just agreed to play England's way because of the similarity.
Football is 2nd most popular sport in india despite they're not good at it. Most watch European clubs and leagues. If they were actually good at playing it then cricket would be 2nd tier sport.
To make your point even better, the one area where we have a similar culture and similar passion, college football. It maps onto European football culture so well.
Yet if an American said they were Italian, Serbian, Scottish, or German to you, you'd pull the whole, "Why do Americans think they're European because their great grandfather was-" etc 💀💀💀
@@guruxara7994"fatty sports" What are you? 12? You're also a part of the reason why Americans don't like soccer. Soccer has one of THE most toxic fanbases out of all sports followings. You wanna talk about "fans" throwing shit at that Italian player who plays for Fiorentina and making the back of his head bleed? You guys are awful to each other.
That is an amazing video. I'm brazilian-american who actually grew up in Brazil, and I've always felt this cultural difference around soccer very closely. What you pointed out about the formation of the franchises vs local clubs with their own identity has been my main focus of analysis whenever trying to understand why american soccer doesn't feel the same. The details about how college sports influenced that is news to me. Great work.
This is a fascinating story about US football and I’m glad my dad’s best friend, Jeff, is part of it. Jeff is my dad’s best friend, lived on the next street in Southampton and was his best man at my parent’s wedding. Jeff moved to the US in the 90s and he worked futsal and woman’s football in St Louis and Kansas City- really big cities full of futsal and female football heritage. He was called by USSF as ‘One of the best grassroots founders beyond the Mississippi River’. In 1999, he was part of the coaching staff for US female football team’s World Cup campaign, that was are inaugural World Cup; and he would work for FC Kansas City being part of the coaching team to win both NWSL Championship 2014 and 2015 before they dissolved in 2017 and become Kansas City Current. Now he works with futsal groups across the United States, Mexico and Canada - Helping develop the sport while also using the sport to help create a community centre for all people: male or female, old or young, new migrants or American people. He also works with KCFutsal and works with Sporting Kansas. So please US football fans respect the grassroots of Female football and futsal which massively helped your football history and continues to develop the game
I think a video about the history of us soccer without mentioning the USL even once is not a complete picture. The USL predates MLS and is still going and will play a huge roll in providing soccer to everyone who doesnt live in an mls city.
historic team, love their stadium too. always thought they were really cool. judging by your profile pic im assuming you’re scottish? which is really crazy to see foreigners watching lower division us soccer
Probably the history of franchise-based football around the World would be interesting topic to make a video. MLS is well documented, but the history of the A-League and the Indian Super League are basically scattered everywhere, and along with that it could be brought the current situation of these leagues.
It almost feels like a lot of Americans wilfully ignore or even rail against the rampant success of their womens' football team? At least from what I've seen online? And let's not get into the disgraceful squealing and screeching around the last WC when they got knocked out in the quarters- for all the American patriotic fundamentalism I've seen, to see some gleefully celebrate their team losing because of crap they themselves politicised was... really disgusting??
We actually celebrated the USWNTs success for a while but then some of the players went "woke" (literally just existing) so now they, ESPECIALLY Rapinoe, are seen as America hating feminists who deserve their downfall
Historically, they didn't really rail against the success of the women's soccer team, e.g. during the Mia Hamm era (think 1999 Women's World Cup). They were actually pretty popular. That being said, it was seen as the "Girl Power!" sport as a result, which might've made it a bit harder for the boys who played at the time. I would say the last generation of USWNT players, which is now retiring but definitely made their mark on the reputation of the USWNT, did get a reputation for far-Left activism and--in the perception of non-Leftists--for being really loud and annoying about it: Kneeling in protest during the national anthem (which furthered soccer's image as a sport for anti-Americans), demanding that their pay be equal with the men's team (even though they had the option of selecting the men's contract and instead went for a contract with more guaranteed pay that wasn't dependent on winning), or--in the case of their brightest star Megan Rapinoe--now advocating for trans athletes to be allowed to play on the women's team. These kinds of things basically alienated the proportion of the country that _doesn't_ see their country exclusively as the villain and feel like their American-ness should make them "uncomfortable," or sympathize with multimillionaires' complaints about being underpaid (with more guaranteed pay than they'll see in their lifetime), or think that people who went through male puberty should be allowed to play women's sports. In particular, within the context of American political discourse, the kneeling during the national anthem sent a message that said, _"We may have to play for this team as a condition of playing international soccer, but we do not support this country or want to represent it."_
No, people don't care about women's sports. Grow up and accept this reality. Women's team gets stomped on by 15 year old boys who are barely developed, so what do you want? You winning a women's world cup is insignificant, women don't watch that, men don't watch that. No, it's not disgusting. What is disgusting is politicising the national team. I'm Croatian, let me explain this to you, our football team represents our nation, not left wing politics, not right wing politics. When they play, everyone is together, it doesn't matter whom they voted for, what their political conviction is. But in the US you hate a person based on whom they voted for. You are creating this hateful atmosphere. Football is supposed to unite people, not divide them. If you bring ideology into it, you're to blame, and they're rightfully booed. They wanna moan about "not being paid what men are paid", when really they're paid disproportionately more. Constantly bringing gender wars into the sport, guess what, people won't like you, you're a divisive koont. Keep your ideology to yourself. Patriotism is not supposed to be blind patriotism. If the people who represent my nation act shamefully, they're not getting applauded, they're not getting a hero's welcome. This is just a reflection of the toxic American culture, that is not to be blamed on "patriotic fundamentalism" but on your toxic far left rhetoric that has taken hold on your culture. Identity politics are everything, everything revolves around gender, race or sexual preferences. Truly disturbing.
I think the one thing you might overestimate a bit is the role of academies in the development of Soccer in the rest of the world, because those academies are a relatively recent thing. For example the Pro clubs in Germany weren't expected to have a Youth academy up until when DFB started program for the promotion of talents in 2002/3. I think what the real difference is is the club culture we developed that has (as far as I know) no equivalent in the U.S. Basically every tiny village around here has it's own soccer club (according to DFB data that equals 24.000 clubs and is playing in the German league system with the possibility of promotion and demotion, so even really small clubs have the chance to go pro, if they have the necessary success (the latest success story being Elversberg that got promoted to 2. Bundesliga for this season, Elversberg being a small town of around 8000 inhabitants.) And even before academies became a thing, it was that league system that created international class players very reliably, so Germany had already won 3 world championships before those happened (basically as a consequence of our consequtive failures in the 1994 and 1998 wc quarter finals; *sigh* how times change; would love if we could make it to a quarter-final anytime soon^^). I still remember that when we lost the 92 european finals to Denmark, one way we got mocked about that loss was with pointing out that DFB had more members than Denmark had inhabitants at that time; btw. how Danish Dynamite got that title is one of the best stories in all of world soccer history, and if there's one title loss I can't really be sad about it's that one. Not saying the academies aren't a good thing (see WC 2014 as a direct result of that), but they weren't as crucial in the development of european and south-american football as high-schools and universities were for the U.S. counterparts. Oh and by the way, I always have fond memories of the likes of Paul Caligiuri (HSV), Tom Dooley (FC Homburg) and Eric Wynalda (FCS, though playing for that club made him our enemy at that time :D). And I really hope that my boy Reyna can stay healthy and return to make a difference at Dortmund. Really shows how far U.S. soccer has come when they didn't really have need of such a high-caliber talent at the 2022 WC.
But every little town, every neighborhood, every school have their own teams and these feeded them as if they were the academy. This doesn't happen in the US.
Trust, if the presidents of several clubs weren’t a bunch of asshole beggars for money México. Yeah fuck this shit not gonna waste a bible speech for this stupid deadass federation 😤
Growing up here in the US I can speak from experience. I loved playing futbol. So much I played for indoor clubs as I was only in the 8th grade. I went to a D1 Highschool but the problem arrived was with the academies. Academies here in the U.S. no matter if you are recruited or not there’s a fee you have to pay yearly per season. Unless your family has $1,500-$2,500 to spare depending if you are on the traveling team or not then how else are you going to get this money?. South America or Europe neither of them charge their kids to join academies, they welcome all talent regardless of their wallets. It’s one of the main reasons why US will never compete with the greats. It’s sad but the truth, it’s also the reason why I stopped playing futbol competitively & I stuck playing American football which is what I play in college now
The womens league and the universities are still there. The womens national team will be back up. They will face stronger competition in the future since Europe pro clubs have started taking their female sections seriously, but the US team will still be competing for everything after the needed generational change.
Young US athletes just have so many more choices than other countries. Between baseball, basketball, NFL-style football, ice hockey, etc., our best athletes generally don't often play soccer. But I think it is significant that the internet became widespread not long after the formation of MLS. If you had an interest in soccer and weren't satisfied with the (lack of) coverage of the sport in local and national media, you could go find the info you wanted on your computer.
considering the athletic prowess americans has showed though the years and the willingness to invest in infrastructure and youth development, I believe that, as soon as you guys put on the effort of creating leagues and try to change a little the whole "franchise" perspective, you'll become a top contender right away
While I'd like for soccer to be more popular in the US, I'm really happy that the US has more than 1 sport. Countries that only follow soccer are extremely cringe.
By the 2050 USA will win the FIFA Worlc Cup, trust me. The next generation is super talented, and it will probably even be better with the ones coming after that, especially with all the immigration from Latin America and other parts of the world where football is the main sport.
That's true American confidence. Meanwhile in the real world the Netherlands have been deserving it since the 70s and still haven't got one. Winning a World Cup is really, really difficult.
It would be interesting to make a comparison with the development of football in Japan. I think they started almost at same time during the 90's, but now they're some steps ahead
When I was in high school in the early 1970's I was lucky that soccer was just starting to become popular in the US. The NASL had attracted a lot of interest by bringing Pele to New York, and my high school had started to organize a team. I loved American football, baseball and basketball but was too small to play any of those sports competitively. One day I was getting ready to walk home after school when I saw a bunch of classmates playing soccer on the football field, and I decided to join them. We had several foreign exchange students plus kids whose parents were immigrants and knew how to play, so I learned quickly and went on to play on my high school and small college teams. It's not an exaggeration to say this was life-changing for me. I knew about everything he talks about in this video, but no one had presented them to me in a cohesive way like this video, well done!
Even though im hispanic which is normally stereotyped into liking soccer I never really felt a love for that game and for people who might say I didnt watch enough of it growing up, let met just tell you I know the voice of the commentator for telemundo games like the back of my hand. The sport I really fell in love is American football because it was so cool to me because of how crazy the game was and at that point I hadnt really watched any other sport so I immediately fell in love with it ( GO TEXANS BABYY! ) I feel like people dont understand that even though it might not be a small town team were going for it doesnt take away the fun from the game and connecting with other fans and arguing whos team is better. Also I agree that the NFL has way to many adds, but what I feel like people forget is that after a while you just zone it out and get on your phone while you wait for it to end. One last thing about the NFL is gonna be my OPINION on whether it failed or not. At a international level maybe but in America to call the NFL a failure is the dumbest thing you can do like imagine calling the most profitable league in the world and probably one of fairest at times due to salary caps a failure. But to be honest im happy soccer is growing especially for my friends who are super into it here and if any foreigners have questions or opinions about the NFL please tell me them because even though im probably not the most qualified to represent US football to the rest of the world I can maybe show it from a fans point of view.
Baseball and its initial structure is pretty damn similar to Euro football. Btw it’s not just the minor leagues a lot of these MLB teams have created youth academy’s just not many in the US. Vast majority of them being in Latin America/Carribean islands.
Well, maybe, but it's modern structure is nothing like European sports. Modern baseball the big teams own all of the tiers on the pyramid below them. Europe has a few affiliate type programs with affliated teams playing on the lower levels, but nothing like the American "farm" system.
They just won concacaf Nations League a day ago-are into Copa, they aren’t like-the worst lolol. MLS has top 10 attendance for league worldwide and is the fastest growing league too. Lots of countries are far worse at football.
Not Surprising that China and USA attitude toward football club is just as a money making machine , Two of them forget about the importance of junior athlete talent scouting and the grass field training because the success of football team is not something instant and even Japan and Korea football team take a junior athlete talent scouting across the nation and grass root field training instead a concrete building seriously Also in China , its quite challenging to do talent scouting properly since kids in China are demanded to pursue academical achievement more seriously Speaking about a successful sports club , You can't make a successful sports club , if there is a corruption inside , Although there are tons of successful sports club in China , Only the football club are fail cause there are corruption inside the football club ecosystem
They've won the 2 previous CONCACAF as well. You put too much prestige on North American football (soccer). That doesn't matter unless they perform well, not just in the regional stage, but on the international stage as well.
@@theophilussogoromo3000 that the opposite. Before drooling in front of the golden trophy of the world cup they should aim for the local trophy first :)
@Lostouille I mean For like Football jr Owning the region/division aint a bad step for a country that overall doesnt care for the sport Plus Yk triple every other country combined in Olympic medal totals(total, golds and I think Silvers or Bronzes but Im not sure on the last one) is prolly enough bragging rights for now But yeah in all seriousness its not a good region However Its America And their sports prowess is nearly unrivaled when they start to care and develop people
@Lostouille the entire point of the video is that America would do much better if they took it seriously. The comment implies that USA dominating North America somehow is a checkmate against the point of the video.
Interesting how the four offshoots of England-the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia-are also the four countries which have historically been the most resistant to football
Ah, Alexi Lalas. My father was a huge fan, when he played in Serie A. He was not super good, but he was down to earth, appeared on italian satirical tv programs where he also played the guitar.
Too bad he’s like our worst pundit now lol. He’s America’s loudest and least reasonable talking head when it comes to soccer, but for some reason he still gets these big jobs, like the World Cup coverage.
0:06 "Least talented sport on earth." Mate, YOUR bloody NBA players study footballers' footwork to improve their own game. Hakeem Olajuwon was as great as he was BECAUSE of his football foundation. I can't imagine saying something so horrifyingly ignorant. Football fan or not, calling it untalented is fucking blasphemous.
@@arthropod-doctor that still doesn't make your comment any better actually it makes it worse because you just lashed out in anger over one comment🤣 also your comment isn't true, players that have a soccer background did tend to have better footwork but the players aren't "studying footballers footwork" you are actively lying
@@maxmichaels5593 Appreciate your response! I'm not sure if you're entirely correct, however. Demar DeRozan and the late Kobe Bryant have both gone on the record stating that they have studied footballers' footwork to improve their own play. Hakeem Olajuwon has also attributed his football background to his success in the NBA, and he has trained many NBA players to improve their footwork.
Great work on this video -- It's very well researched, you actually pick at the historical 'why' behind the subject. A lot of people on this platform wouldn't do that. It fascinates me how quickly the sports hegemony became crystalized in the early 20th century.
i mean, to be fair, as a 9 year watcher of the NFL, Soccer players faking injuries for penalties is jarring when we watch NFL players shrug off hits that looks like it should've given them concussion. When soccer players act like nothing happened if they didn't get any penalties, they just look soft AND goofy.
@alorienorio What I don't understand is why act like it's the end of the world after collision, and then once the penalty is assessed, they act like nothing happened. Is it the end of the world or not? pick a lane. These players oversell their injuries only to act like nothing happened a few seconds later. even worse when they're supposed to be in extreme pain, then switch up to being aggressive to the refs after not getting what they want. goofy.
@@kevineusebioIt isn't really the players fault. It's the refs. The players see that the ref falls for it, so they do it. Thirty years ago, the refs wouldn't have fallen for these antics. It has nothing to do with being soft. You see flopping in other sports too, like basketball and hockey.
@alorienorio U can definitely say that soccer/football takes more endurance/stamina while American Football is the more explosive sport. I know you guys hate it when americans exaggerate about the flops from soccer/football players, but thats the same thing yall do when yall say American football players are weak because they wear pads. I also hear many ppl from outside the US hate on the commercial breaks, which I do get. Its annoying, but the purpose of the stoppages on the field is for the teams to strategize. Believe it or not, American Football actually is a strategically complex sport. Without the commercials u would just see more strategizing from both teams before the play begins. Many American Football fans just ignore the commercials and anticipate whats going to happen the next play
@alorienorioI've watched a few Premier League and MLS games the past few months. That happening once is already too much. Multiple times in one match? Maybe your brain learned to tune it out because you're used to it, but it's very apparent to a casual watcher. I wouldn't have pointed it out if I've only seen it once every now and then, lol
@@kevineusebio "These players oversell their injuries only to act like nothing happened a few seconds later" You are confused by an (usually) honest reaction. Players collect bruises on their ankles and shins. If you have a bruise on top of a bruise on top of a bruise, the pain from even a "love tap" can be absolutely unbelievable for several seconds. The worst pain I have ever felt as a soccer player was not from the hardest kicks, it was from minor bangs on existing injuries. In fact, the few times I was kicked genuinely very hard, I was able to bounce back up and be back in the play in a second or two -- I had the luck of receiving the new bruise on an uninjured part of my leg.
The thing is you are playing against mediocre opponents. If the US played in the Euros you would struggle to get into the quarters. Its a whole different caliber you just don't get to see save once every 4 years. And how does it go for you then? You bump up against an actual European or south american heavyweight and get knocked out. yoou need to stop comparing yourself to the likes of Mexico. They are an Average team, above average on their day, but average nontheless. If you want to consider yourselves a 'heavyweight' team you need to be able to beat the likes of Portugul, Germany, England, Spain, Argentina, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Croatia, Belgium and Brazil.
Soccer COACHING at the youth level in the USA in the 1970's - 1980's was remedial at best. I played baseball & soccer in southern California through most of the '70s & '80's and could get lots of high-quality baseball training from ex-pros (Clyde Wright Pitching School, for example). The soccer coaches were almost all well-meaning but untrained Dads. The first real soccer coach I ever met was an escapee from Communist Croatia when I was 14 (8th grade), a bit too late for me to develop quality technical skills.
This is a good video on why as Americans we don't care about world Football, but the reason we suck at it is because our coaching is moldy dog shit from top to bottom. We learned Football from watching Pele's direct style so that is how we still coach today. There is no body that gives coaching qualifications so our youth coaches don't know what they are doing. So we are stuck in an ever growing tactical gap that we can not close down.
As an American who LOVES watching European clubs (Go Arsenal!) that's the most glaring problem to me, the product on the pitch doesn't even resemble the proper game. I despise MLS because of its substandard tactics and its closed league style.
You would think that with no fear of relegation that MLS would be a science lab of coaching innovation and out of the box thinking. Like if losing REALLY doesn't matter then just go for it, but MLS coaches are just as terrified of losing as coaches in every other league which makes no sense...
@@flpndrox I am a big NFL fan so I know coaches get fired regularly for losing in a league with no relegation. That is because serial losing reflects badly on the owners more than anything, so I guess that dynamic works the same in MLS, which is a shame.
There's a great scene from The Big Bang Theory in which Sheldon tries to explain American-rules football to Leonard, and Wolowitz asks him, "How did you learn so much about football?" Sheldon explains that growing up in Texas, you cannot help but learn about football-- you're surrounded by NFL, college, HS, pee wee football, which makes it like a religion (or at any rate it would have done, in the 1990's), "...but curiously, they seem to think 'Original Football' is some sorta Commie plot..."
This is actually a perfect way to describe part of this video
@@ZealandonYTI reckon USA can make the quarter finals but that's it.
@@ZealandonYT I’m happy that you made this video
@😂😂😂😂ichangedthename
We suck because we don’t care…🤷🏻♂️
"English Zealand is not real, it can't hurt you"
That voice will now be my nightmare fuel, I can’t believe he was lowkey pulling it off.
Zedland
😂😂😂
@@ralv As a Brit, his accent was perfect lmao. He actually fooled me.
I feel like his accent is better than most American actors' attempts at an English accent
We have the exact same thing here in Australia. Instead of football and basketball, we have to compete with Cricket, Australian Rules Football, Rugby League and Rugby Union.
Don't get me started on all the crap the AFL keeps pulling.
I flipped through channels once and caught a glimpse of Aussie Rules. It's surreal.
And Austalia are still nothing to laugh at in football, the usa however….
But it's getting bigger. The Australian media meat rides afl but as someone from Western Australia I can tell football is getting more and more popular
@@darraghoshea3821 Have you actually tried to watch an A-League game? Because the standard of that league is worse than the MLS
growing up loving soccer in America wasn't always easy. I would get bullied a lot and never really understood why people would hate a sport that was so fun to me. It was really refreshing to go to college and finally find a community that appreciated footy
Foot fairy😂
How old are you and where did you grow up? I'm 45 and grew up in So Cal and soccer was by far the biggest sport amongst the youth until High School when American Football overtook it at school.
I think you would be glad to know that it has changed, you will get an occasional remark. But so many people play it now, more than baseball for sure. It is growing massivly
I get bullied from both sides of the aisle lol. A lot of Americans make fun of me for liking soccer, while non-Americans find me weird for liking soccer while American.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Sometimes I wonder why I even follow this sport to begin with.
@@jmal I feel like people keep misusing 'bullied' in this thread, lol
It’s amazing how similar the story is to us over here in Australia. Very much the sport played my migrants and too soft compared to AFL and Rugby league. When the Matilda’s had their run to the semi final last year it was amazing to see how many people were invested in soccer/football. It’s slowly coming along
The problem now is that best young players are all going to Europe instead of hanging around the A-League
@@martynhunter6083 A move for a talented A-League or NPL player will eventually happen, wanting it or not, as it would happen in any franchise-based league with a salary cap. The player demands a salary proportional to his ability, and this surpasses the league cap, so the only way is to offload the player.
India, Australia and the US would have trouble to be near their current football state if not for the franchising system to safeguard a platform to invest resources to develop the game, even if those three have flaws that range from minor to critical. Also, some attention to continental club competitions would make a difference, in which Australia seems to be better than the USA despite having only the Wanderers as champions.
if the infrastructure in your home country isn't that great then it is inevitable that the youngsters would seek the top academies elsewhere. maybe when Australia does create a strong academy system and a competitive pro league they would want to stay.@@martynhunter6083
@@martynhunter6083As a Viking fan I can only say thank you very much for Patrick Yazbek and Nick D'Agostino, keep them coming please
@WhyAreAllTheGoodUsernamesTaken How is Daggers doing? I meant to keep up with his career but completely forgot. He used to play for the team I follow Perth Glory. He was sadly underused. He always got the fans going but manager always used him as a last 20 minute sub.
Only thing he missed is that HS sports in rural areas replaces the local club sports structure.
And the colleges become the highest sporting level reachable in the early 20th century.
This is true, but the level at which hs sports can be compared to an professional team youth setup has to be understood. Hs sports ,unless it’s a top 1% school in the nation in a certain sport or it’s a football state, like Texas, or Georgia, Can’t have the money and infrastructure comparable to a professional teams you set up it’s just that simple
@@brianngure151 Actually HS definitely have more money to work with in a lot of cases, and there are a shit ton more American HS than Every Soccer Academy in Europe combined, in just Texas alone.
@@brianngure151 just seeing this reply. You are correct for the current environment, but my perspective was historical and why the US doesn't have the same structure.
I also think the "Soccer War", the 1928-29 internal war between the US Football Association (later the US Soccer Federation) and the American Soccer League, had an interesting impact of the development of football in the United States.
Essentially, it removed the most popular football club in the United States from the United States' top league due to the ASL wanting to be more "franchise" like. That club being Bethlehem Steel, not to be confused with the modern version of the club now called Philadelphia Union II, ugh (While MLS Next Pro is beneficial for developing players, I really loathe MLS' hatred of the history of this sport in this country).
And when I say "popular", they weren't on par with baseball but they were certainly no slouches either. Bethlehem Steel match results were printed in Philadelphia newspapers and Bethlehem Steel would also travel outside the United States like their tour of Scandinavia in 1919.
International friendlies would occur in the U.S. prior to the Soccer War. For example, some friendlies included the likes of Rangers and Celtic. Real Madrid played one of their first matches outside of Europe in the U.S. on September 25, 1927 (although fun fact, they needed players from Athletic Club and Osasuna to fill out the Real Madrid squad for that match). Sparta Praha would play a series of friendlies in the US in 1926. Hakoah Vienna, who played a match at the Polo Grounds in New York that set the U.S. attendance record for football that would last until Pele. The Corinthian, a London club that would actually be the namesake of Brazil's famous Corinthians, played a massive set of friendlies in the US.
The decision essentially caused multiple teams to leave the league either due to disagreement or concern about regulations. This destabilized pretty much every club around this conflict regardless of decision, and *all* of that right before the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
While it is unclear if semi-pro/pro football clubs in the U.S. could have survived the Great Depression, the "Soccer War" certainly helped to kill clubs like Bethlehem Steel, the New York Soccer Giants, Fall River F.C and Pawtucket Rangers in a more rapid pace. Also, off topic, but the successor American Soccer Leagues (yes, plural) are an interesting story too. The United States has a bizarre history in this sport.
Essentially to sum everything up since this post is kinda long: The Soccer War basically took the U.S.'s small grassroots infrastructure and destroyed it basically in the span of a year.
I also feel like the Cold War impacted the growth of Association Football in the U.S. and its perceived "unamerican"-ness. Especially as nations in the Eastern Bloc such as the Soviet Union, Hungary, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia were some of the most successful football powers during the Cold War. Some of the few football matches that aired on TV in the U.S. until cable television were World Cup or Olympic matches.
The real reason the great depression happened
Yeah, back then, asoc was more popular than American football, at least the early attempts at the professional level. The early NFL in the Midwest had no real chance until the teams started to spread out. You aren't gonna have much draw with the Portsmouth Lions, but you move them to Detroit and you start to get fans. If only we had forward movement back then, we would be in a different place now, with teams that were created organically like the ones in other parts of the world. Bethlehem Steel. They would have been the OG Steelers.
@@de132 also other Eastern Bloc Countries that you forgotten to mention which are both East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Albania & Romania were also very strong in their football as well too of course.
What's not mentioned here is that soccer has always been a sport children played in the US. When I was a kid everyone's first organized sport was soccer. You usually started playing at 5 or 6 years old and most kids played for a few years before quitting and moving on to more popular sports that they would go on the play in high school and maybe college like football, basketball, and baseball. Because of this, it was very heavily associated with children. I think the stigma against it where I lived was basically, "soccer is a game for small children, grow up and play a real sport." Also, there basically was no high level soccer to be watched anywhere at the time. I very well may have stuck with it if I could watch the best players in the world on TV every weekend like I could with any other sport. I literally did not know what a good soccer player looked like until I was in like high school and ESPN started carrying some PL and Champions League matches.
Where "always" means less than fifty years.
Youth soccer didn't become a big thing until the 1980s.
The stigma of soccer as a sport for children and women have an entirely different origin.
Always .... ? NO..... Baseball was the first organized sport played by US kids. - since 1930s
@@csnide6702and that lasted about 20 years, kids haven't gotten together to play a pickup baseball game since the late 50s. You know what his point is and he's correct.
@@celebrim1 it started when NASL became popular, so the mid to late 70s. I was playing in 77.
Knowing Dana White hates football makes me love football even more.
No wonder people started getting bored watching ufc
Dana white is a billionaire, he's already won. Why tf does he feel compelled to be such a hateful prick? He can never just have a slightly negative opinion
saying is the least talented sport is mind blowing..the guy has the brain of a fly..
He loves football now, as he tried to go international with the ufc he realized he can't be beefing with football
Idk I think it's all the fake crying and fake falling in soccer 😂
I recall being excited for the 94' world cup back when I was stationed in Hawaii and talking to my fellow Marines about it. They looked at me like I was a traitor. They statements like "If we cared about it, we would pull athletes from the real sports leagues and just win the whole thing, you know if we cared about it".
It seems like the American attitude is "If I can't compete at the highest level, I'll simply berate it and say it's beneath me". I'm so happy to see that mindset die out. Long live football. World football.
Ur friends have a point tho. After the main american sports have taken most of the top atheletes, whats left over is taken by soccer. So until that changes USA will never win the world cup.
well, your national champions are getting called world champions so it doesn't come from nowhere.
@@xFurashuxTo be fair, a lot of them are. The only American sport that Non-Americans are better at is maybe Baseball, only because Japanese baseball culture is insane.
@@psvmjohn no they are not. You can't be a champion of the world if teams from only 2 countries can participate. Giving titles without competition defeats the whole idea of tournaments.
I can give them that in American football they are the world champions because only they play that.
@@xFurashux Americans are the best at Baseball and Basketball too. Either way, it’s just a cool title to have, not really worth getting mad over.
As an American, this video helped me understand a lot of hate for soccer here. As a woman, it also makes me a bit emotional and proud to know that women’s soccer kind of led the way.
Its football not soccer
@@piebit101 man who cares? you all know what we are talking about and you're being annoying just because we're american
@@piebit101wrong
@@piebit101 Believe it or not, different places use different words to refer to things. Stop with that.
@@FentanylAbuser bro you're based the other people here are shit
I'm just imagining that tweet in the thumbnail being real.
It is. This post has been fact checked by real FIFA patriots
It's worth noting that a lot of American sports media influencers are old. All of the top names are Sports journalists and ex-atheletes in their 50's-70's with backgrounds in the traditional American sports: MLB, NFL, NBA, and the college specific version of those three sports. They grew up in that generation that was actively taught to hate soccer. There is a big lack of soccer specific mainstream media voices in ESPN, Fox Sports, and other traditional American sports outlets. That colors the perception of soccer and MLS in America a lot. No one outside the soccer bubble covers soccer.
So many old people! Geesh.
Not sure how old Pat MacAfee is, but he has been commenting on football a bit. And Jomboymedia. So while traditional media is behind the curve a bit, on social media football is definitely being talked about.
You could argue that English people were naturally taught to hate American sports.
@@sidneyryan1291Beyond the memes and bants, it's more of a disinterest, in my experience anyway. That said, I know a lot of people who like basketball here.
I remember for years, Bob Ley, was the only guy on ESPN that cared about football in the U.S. Ley even pushed for the 1990 FIFA World Cup to have highlights on SportsCenter, which basically made him ESPN's permanent football host from 1990-2016. He got to cover pretty much every World Cup (men's and women's), and most European Championships for ESPN in that span.
It certainly helped a lot that, as host of Outside the Lines, Ley was among ESPN's most intellectually respected personalities up there with the likes of John Saunders and Dick Schaap.
He publishes this on THE SAME DAY we beat Mexico for the 3rd straight time in the Nations League. We aren't England, France or Holland but we're on the up!
I hate to break it to you.But you guys are not on the up.Beating a less competitive Mexico isn't the same flex as before.
mexico is going through a downfall right now so dont celebrate too much
@marktheshark7588 It's the same Mexico bro. Same literal power. The lamestream ain't hiding that little fact from me.
@@morverdeAnd with their system, it will never be up again.
Mexico, a team that's - at best - a round of 16 participant at the World Cup. Very much like the US, so you guys are beating teams of a similar calibre. There ain't a great deal to celebrate there.
Ok, this is probably up there as one of your best videos. I've been playing, watching, and following soccer my entire life and I learned some new things. The history and development of the US game versus foreign leagues and clubs was particularly good. And I did catch you shamelessly plugging in some UVA shots. Go Hokies!
Paul Caliguiri played for my club SV Meppen and I've never heard the story^^ He was also chosen as one of 72 greatest personalities in the club's history in 2012
Can we just take a second to admire how well researched and well written this essay was?
Well written yes. Whether the research is accurate, I guess we just have to take Zealands word for it.
I have played soccer since I was 5 years old. I received a scholarship to play at a US college (I am Canadian). I believe the principle knock on soccer in North America is the “flopping.” We grow up with hockey and football where you get stitched up in the tunnel to the dressing room and get back to the bench without missing a shift… and then you play against a guy who falls down if you breathe too hard on him. There is a cultural chasm that might be impossible to overcome.
One aspect that’s definitely overlooked is HS Soccer. It’s not taken as serious as other HS sports from Pro Scouts but if you really look you can find a lot of good players. It’s crazy to me because a lot of the best players that can’t play club due to costs are playing HS. That’s the most local team most in the country will play for and schools do have Freshman/JV/Varsity teams.
USSF abandoning high school and college play as a path to professional soccer was an absolutely massive mistake. We'd have been much better off trying to get states to adopt two seasons a year for High School soccer and working on creating better high school coaches than basically anything we did do except create MLS, and even then we still need to be investing in HS soccer.
The problem with HS soccer is NHFS thinks they can make better rules than the rest of the world.
How good they are is pretty relative. I know 2 British teenagers who went over to America and played football there. One of them was a big talent at one point, released from a premier league academy and then released from a non league club in Englands 7th tier of football. Has since made loads of apps for 2nd tier American teams.
Another played in goal for a local team in England, went to HS soccer and became their star striker, breaking the record for most goals ever scored for them and helping them make a state final. I watched that final live and the best player on the pitch by a long way was a winger who was very good at dribbling but nothing else. Poor awareness and never released the ball at the right time. There are so many prospects in the UK who never quite make it due to the level of competition but could play in the US and be a top tier talent.
The gulf is so wide because of youth coaching, England made massive strides on that front (copying the Spanish model a decade or so ago) and are reaping the rewards now. The US have to implement the same thing while battling against their other three main sports for talent, attention and money. This post isn't hating btw, the US will keep getting better as the sport is reaching more and more people and I welcome that, good luck to them. But until there's elite coaching from young ages (under 10s at the absolute latest, all the way through to under 18s) the US won't be able to catch up with major footballing nations.
This video (and comments like yours) did give me a better understanding of how broken up coaching is for football in your country and I appreciate that.
@@zHawkC The quality of High School coaching in the USA is generally dismal across the board. At 1st division college level it is much better, but at this point it's rare for a school to have a coach that played at that level and so was exposed to quality coaching. Most of them only know what they learned from other bad coaches.
It also varies widely across the country. The level of coaching in say a Maryland or in a wealthy district of a big Northeast high school is vastly different than the level of coaching in say Oklahoma or Mississippi where soccer is still very much a marginal sport seen to be primarily a girl's sport.
As such, whether or not a British teen comes over here and makes a big sensation depends not just on the British teen but where he ends up playing. I finished High School in Alabama in the 1980s for example where soccer was very much not a respected sport and most high schools had only had a team for less than 5 years, and sure an average British male student would have been one of our best players because no one really had a clue. But our best player was a kid from Ohio who had been a good player in Ohio but who was by Alabama standards then the best ever to have played the game in the state.
@@celebrim1 Yeah that's a good point.
It's easy to forget how different the states are, coming from the UK where things like education and sports are so standardised nationwide.
From what I've heard the high school coach had a background in american football and next to no knowledge of football. Based on what you've said that must be pretty common in the South.
Lots of kids must miss their chance to be good players if the coaching doesn't get good until college level. I often hear about people who've never played American football converting and doing well even in their 20s. But this doesn't work for football, building technique from an early age is so incredibly important. By the time you're at college it's usually too late to catch up on a missed football education.
They don’t suck at football, India sucks at football, China sucks at football, the US has a pretty decent team well within the 15 to 20 best in the world. They don’t dominate tho, they aren’t a serious contender to win a World Cup, but they aren’t bad by any measure. They dominate their own conference in North and Central America, they always beat Mexico (a country that loves football a lot more).
In the US there’s this mentality that if you’re not the best you suck, that ain’t life, you can be good and not be the best. There are levels to this.
I don't think dominating our region matters much anymore. Mexico was like the only competition but now they are at their worst. Then about 3 teams like Jamaica, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama who kinda just thug it out.
@@Deeznutz29828 Canada is becoming a good team too, but yeah Concacaf ain’t nothing to write home about. In South America the US would be at the level of between Colombia and Ecuador
@@hugomarquez3189 Canada improved, they have some good players but idk if they're a good team yet.
The US on paper is probably on the level of Colombia or Ecuador but Im pretty confident the US would lose if we played each other.
“If you ain’t first, your last” - Sir Ricky Bobby, 4th August 2006
the US has a good team when playing other coutnries of the same caliber.
If you took a US team at its best and pitched it against a Spanish, German, French, English, Portugese, Argentine or Brazillian team at it's best you would find the gap pretty big.
If the US wants to truly compete with the best it needs to stop using nations like Mexico as the comparison. If you are setting the bar that low then no wonder the US cant get far in the world cup.
Thank you for this video, Zealand. As a Gen Zer growing up in the American Football culture of Texas, I too often heard what you spoke about, in that all my nonsoccer-loving friends (which was about 95%) viewed soccer as a sport for primadonnas and women. In fact, my friends who did enjoy soccer were mostly all women. Soccer was so ostracized by the high school football culture in Texas, that it actually discouraged me from ever playing any organized soccer myself at any level. Too many times did I hear the exact verbiage you mentioned growing up from my American football and baseball coaches, "Get up! Be tough! No crying! This isn't soccer!" Even the 2014 WC (in which I personally watched almost every match) was not enough to garner the attention of my peers. But now, with the rise of American youngsters in Europe, the Pulisic-Mckenie era, and the 2022 WC campaign, I can see that soccer is finally breaking through with my countrymen. And man is it beautiful to see.....
But they're not wrong, soccer players would die playing Am football lol.
@@valantheflame0193and American football players would get blown away by soccer players if they were playing soccer...
@@tabletbrothers3477 Of course they would. Neither player would be good at the other. But AFB players could at least play the game. Neymar taking a dive handoff towards Fred Warner at a full head of steam would result in national mourning in Brazil. Same goes for rufby and aussie rules.
@@valantheflame0193 AFB players wouldn't be able to play because they don't have stamina but we know you are just trying to facetiously brag about how physically big they are.
@@valantheflame0193They are two different sports that generally require two different physiques, why are you making a comparison? That requirement does not make one better than the other. What is the point of your comment?
Fantastic content Zealand!
So basically, American football fans look at soccer the same way rugby fans look at American football.😂
Yep
Facts. Take off the pads you fucking pussies. Love to watch them run it straight at some Māori boys
No, not all. Americans like soccer.
Or how American football fans view the patty cake rugby with 1 or 2 American style football hits a game. The rest of it is just mud wrestling. Pads and helmets make the game much more violent on every play not just some plays when everything works out.
@ericciaramella1984 Well, that depends on which rugby you're referring to. If you're referring to a union, then I agree that American football has slightly more frequent big hits, but if you're referring to league then every hit is bone crushing and there are harder hits than American football.
The sport of American football is a waste of good athletes that would be much more utilized in rugby. Just compare the skillset of the rugby league forwards to the skillset of the offensive linemen.
Rugby league forwards skillset:
- run
- catch
- tackle
- hitup
- fend (stiffarm)
- pass
- offload
- sidestep
Amercan football offensive linemen skillset:
- blocking
Waste of athletes!🤦🏿♂️
Immigration is why baseball became popular. Baseball became a way to integrate into American society, it was a way for people to interact with their neighbors who came from other countries. They had no prior ties to the Yankees or Red Sox, like they had with soccer teams.
You are my favorite UA-camr and I love all of your content. Love from Tampa Bay. Also you played for Tampa Bay FC, one of friends plays for them now!
Brilliant Video Zealand & fascinating to see how game has developed in US
Canada also isn’t a great football country, but I’m English and just moved to Canada and I was surprised when most people said they preferred football in a survey I did for a math project 😂
Did u have "football" or "soccer" as the option?
@@Deeznutz29828 soccer, if i say football theyll think american football
@@Hazlem235 In Canada we play Canadian Football, which is a similar but different variation of Gridiron Football. Skills translate between Canadian and American Football, and many have played both, but they are key differences between the two sports.
Great video. Being from Canada, I think a lot of what you said here applies similarly to football culture in Canada (or lack thereof.)
Fun fact: the 1950 American World Cup team had five players from the same city and four players from the same neighborhood in St. Louis.
St. Louis, while always being a baseball first city has a rich history in soccer culture in America. There were semi-professional leagues that are believed to have started in the 1890s and 11 teams from St. Louis have won the U.S. Open cup.
There’s also the rivalry between St. Louis University and Southern, Illinois University, Edwardsville. The rivalry began in the 60s when SIUE came into existence, the team started playing each other in one game competition for the bronze boot, which is a trophy. Both of the universities have had success at the national level St. Louis University, 10 national championships in the 60s and 70s while SIUE won two national championships one was in division two and one in division one. The rivalry was at its peak in the 80s and still the record for the highest attended college soccer game was the 1982 edition of this rivalry when 22,000 people came to Bush stadium to watch the teams play.
The rivalry took a hiatus from the 90s to 2018 when SIUE moved to division two. However when SIUE returned to division one the rivalry began back up and is now in the St. Louis MLS stadium, this past year 8000 people came to the rivalry game and I’m hoping more come in the future , SIUE also won the bronze boot for the first time since 1982.
St. Louis also had one of the best supported major indoor soccer league teams the St. Louis steamers, which, during its peak, saw higher average attendances than the St. Louis Blues our hockey team. St. Louis is an underrated soccer city.
Edit: hahaha I used text to speech to type this out and realized just now that there were a few errors…SLU did not win 110 national championships as I accidentally put.
Well get a Pro Team then. The Rams have long gone.
@@joso7228 ? What’re you taking about? We have an MLS team and we have the Battlehawks (we’ll see how long that league survives). Many people in STL don’t want the NFL back.
@@javiojeda521 I hope kaw continues to be the law.
If u could have named the st louis mls team, what name would u have recommended? Instead of st louis city?
@@brando7266 only just now seeing this, I would have named them the Steamers if the name was available.
Who’s here after the nations league final. Dos a cero baby!!
And the way that people knew Pelé was because of ABC's Wide World of Sports, who showed the final of the World Cup live on ABC. With Pelé and Brazil being in a bunch of those finals, people knew of Pelé, which is why he was such a significant signing
Im just getting into the sport at 22 years old personally. I started playing fifa and learning about the sport and really enjoy it. Baseball is still my favorite sport, but I’ve been enjoying watching MLS games. I live right near the NE revolution and the new Rhode Island FC so I’m probably going to go to some games as well.
Great video! Your explaining is plain objective and well articulated, very nice watch Z!
Another thing hampering growth here in the States is pay to play. I live in a mostly middle to upper class area and even those kids can't afford the eye-popping fees to play soccer here which makes you wonder how aspiring players who aren't so well off can even touch the field in this system
It can't be any more than what we pay for our hockey and football gear and equipment, as well as fees. My parents would spend 5 figures a year for hockey.
I'd argue parent and grand parent preference plays the biggest part. They going to push their kids to play hockey, football, baseball or basketball? Or soccer?
@@Nolan-55Tbf since hockey and American football require so much gear, the costs make a little more sense(still ridiculously expensive). For soccer you need barely anything, so paying hundreds if not thousands for a kid to play a 12 or 13 game season make 0 sense
Hockey is maybe the most expensive team sport to play though. Cost of rinks, sticks, equipment... it's low-key a rich person sport.
Soccer really shouldn't have to be that way. It's not some kind of accident that lots of the best players in other countries come from impoverished or working class communities. But centering the sport around pay-to-play and higher education makes it near impossible for those Americans to gain access to the sport. The academies are going to have to play a huge role in overturning this.
Pay-to-play has definitely got to be a factor in developing soccer in the US; it's really easy to have a kid on a travel team cost their family five figures once you've paid for the league fees, transportation, lodging, food on trips, etc. That, and the perception of a lack of professional opportunity compared to basketball and football, means that a kid with a lick of athletic talent is pushed to play them instead of soccer. Imagine an alternate timeline where Tyreek Hill (who obviously has world-class speed and eye-foot coordination) is an offensive midfielder rather than a wide receiver!
@@BonaFideBC It is expensive if you do not live in the right areas of the USA (and Canada) where there is a tradition of turning a backyard into a rink over the winter, and kids come home from school and play hockey with each other every afternoon for the winter months. (Unfortunately climate change is putting a crimp in this tradition some winters.)
I'm from India, imagine what I'm going through 🥲
Ha! Even worse! Though I keep wondering if you'll be able to turn a bowler into a baseball pitcher at some point. Look what the Aussies have done with the punting position in the NFL.
@@r2dad282 Stranger things have happened.
Although I do remember English cricketer Harry Brook played with the St Louis Cardinals for a short stint in believe.
Bro, I feel your pain.
India could use a similar tactic. Get football players from colleges wnd Universities.
I only imagine that footballers can't eat cows and respawn.
A pretty accurate rundown of the situation, but I think you miss the fact that the open league structure seen in soccer and other sports outside the USA at one point did exist in the USA and as a result of economic factors, the closed leagues dominated over the open leagues and in every sport drove the open leagues out of business. One factor in this was that from a very early era, revenues in professional sports were driven in the USA primarily by mass media. The USA is just so big that neighborhood rivalries as seen in Europe were rare to non-existent in the USA. Your rivals were cities hundreds of miles away. The closed leagues were better able to negotiate for mass media contracts, in parallel to trade unions with their collective bargaining agreements. Pro soccer in fact in the 1920s and 1930s was quite popular in the USA, but because it adopted league structures inspired by Europe and never developed a closed league system in the 1930 "Great Depression" all of its clubs folded while baseball was enjoying a golden age driven by radio.
The rise of soccer in the USA corresponds precisely to the development of a professional closed league system that works within the US sporting landscape and its unique challenges.
The thing to understand is that the USA along with Australia are almost uniquely multi-sport nations. As such, the real rival of a team like the New York Yankee is not the Brooklyn Dodgers or the Boston Red Sox, but rather the New York Giants, or the New York Knicks. The real competition isn't between clubs in the same sport, but rather clubs in different sports because if your local club is not entertaining people will change the channel or buy the jerseys of a different sporting team in the same community. People who love sports are almost never in the USA fans of a single sport, but have a whole sporting calendar and multiple teams that they support each playing different sports.
This is important for a lot of reasons, including the reason that the NASL folded which came down to the fact that the league didn't have enough rules to govern its member clubs. Again, the open system failed. The individual clubs, trying to act like European clubs in a completely different landscape didn't have salary caps or revenue sharing rules, so they all tended to overspend and collectively never developed a lot of revenue once the first and second year novelty wore off.
I’m 43, American playing soccer since I was a kid (should’ve played in college cause was all area goalie but was so scared of failing to run 12 min 2 miles or some run test). I played full games as freshman as left fullback, best shape ever but my body was never good at continuing long distance running. That quick break helped.
I’m from western Pa, heart of American football. Love soccer, football, baseball, basketball and hockey. Played all of them. Soccer, baseball and basketball the longest.
I understand sports, respect these games and others because I get what’s going on. The deeper inside of what’s happening.
I could play any position in soccer. Knowing the field, flow, where to play the ball, guide my teammates. My uncle was HS coach and needed a goalie, put me there.
It’s gotten bigger because more immigrants coming. Plus people understanding the game better. That’s the key to any sport. One reason NBA I lost interest in and nfl new rules pushing me away each year.
I went to 94 WC and plan on going to 26 WC. USA I believe will have its best team ever there. I don’t think we will win but never know, 80 hockey team did.
Great video as always. I think something that wasnt mentioned that is helping the sport grow is 2 other things.
1. The amount of elite clubs coming over for friendlies is growing. I hope that changes to a weekend of actual league matches or a super cup. Like in FM24 I just played an italien super cup at the big house in january. Now that isnt realistic as its the big house in january. But itd be amazing to see the spanish or italian super cup played over here. Spain just played theirs in Saudi Arabia so maybe one day.
2. Just the ease of watching leagues. I can watch england, dutch, spanish, german and italien soccer on TV. My latino friends watch mexican league soccer. Its super easy to watch whatever league youre in to.
Americans spend absurd amounts of money on sports compared to almost anyone else in the world. Soccer is still not quite a sport that has broken through, but each of the 30 MLS teams would likely cost as much as a mid-table Prem team if you wanted to "buy" the franchise. And excitingly, this has gone BOTH ways. Americans are definitely warming up to soccer, and Europeans are definitely warming up to the NFL. The NFL plays a few games in Europe every year, and they sell well and people seem to enjoy them.
It's not an either-or thing. Both sports can be fun. And America certainly has enough money spent on sports to fully fund both. The NBA, for as big as it is, is nearly an order of magnitude less popular than the NFL. Yet the NBA has somewhere in the range of 20-30 players that get paid a yearly salary that would be almost prohibitive in soccer outside of the Saudi Pro League.
This is why lots of European clubs are doing friendlies in the US. They can make ABSURD amounts of money playing friendlies in front of US audiences. It's one of the reasons that a lot of people think it's only a matter of time before American soccer becomes a worldwide powerhouse at the club level: the amount of money that Americans casually throw at sports is insane.
I looked into this a lot while doing an alternate history timeline. There were various leagues attempted over the years, it would have been very possible for any of them to have continued and steadily grown the sport in the USA.
I was one of those rare kids that grew up playing soccer, in part thanks to growing up in the shadow of an Air Force base where kids who had spent time at bases in England, Germany, and Italy would be rotated back and enjoyed playing soccer much more than American Football. I played until the costs of traveling for teams got too much, but the love of the sport and how it helped me in other sports will not be forgotten.
When I was growing up, soccer was the sport kids played until they figured out which sport they REALLY wanted to play. You moved on to football, basketball, baseball, etc. Soccer was simply a sport that introduced you to the concept of athletic competition.
Super interesting insight into football in America. And interesting hearing it from an American. Loving these essay style football Z!
Soccer may not be HUGE in the US but it is still very popular
what I noticed in my area I live in Chicago is kids seem to both want to play soccer and football but there the same season
@@FlashGotdin-ky3ui exactly most kids just have to choose between 1 or the other great point
Excellent summary, though I am surprised you did not touch on the USL, which helps promote soccer on a broader level.
We're too diluted as a nation to make USA soccer a powerhouse. This creates this unfortunate decision for most young people as they take the next step in school sports (high school then college). As a former dual sport athlete, having to decide between soccer & lacrosse scholarships was hard enough and that's two different sports played in different seasons (fall & spring). Being that soccer shares the same season as football, you have too many exceptional athletes choosing football as their path early on knowing this ultimatum always arrives. Its the same reason why I had to quit baseball even though I loved it (just because I loved lacrosse more). In many cases, football is just a more popular & attractive option (as its considered more "masculine" as a physical sport, has a larger roster that accomodates any body build/type, and oh .... cheerleaders decorate your locker before every game day). Its even those little factors that legimitately get some people to say I'd rather be a kicker/punter than a backup goalkeeper.
Not true as the women's team has shown.
Many other immigrant nations have done well.
Brazil for example is made of Africans, Indigenes and Portuguese
It's (arguably) not true for the women's team because they don't have to pick between soccer and Am. football.@@Timbone07
The USA is not going to be a powerhouse like Brazil, Argentina, France any time this century, no, but there is enough athletic talent available to squeak into the top dozen or so.
Part of the beauty of soccer is it is not so discriminating about body type. If you are not at least 5'11" you have to be an obvious one in a million athlete for any college to give you a serious look for the football team. Ditto basketball. Many of the best soccer players to ever lace on boots are ballpark 5'9" or less (Messi, Maradonna, Xavi, Iniesta, just off the top of my head).
So literally half of our young males would be far better off focusing on baseball & soccer and ignoring football or basketball entirely, if they want a chance of even playing at the college level. More so if they have dreams of a professional career.
I think it does discriminate with respect to body type on some level; I can scarcely see someone like Ryan Crouser or Jason Kelce being successful at it, even if they were to try to cut as much body fat as possible and avoid strength training as a way to decrease their muscle mass. Even DK Metcalf, who clearly has lower body fat than either of the two I just mentioned (and better fits European notions of athleticism, having once even participated in the Olympic trials for the 100m dash), would likely struggle to play soccer at a high level due to his large lean muscle mass.
With a few obvious exceptions such as Micky Quinn, soccer really does require someone to be built very skinny, so that he can put on a little bit of muscle without becoming the least bit bulky--basically it's only open to people whose body type is at least passably capable of being trained to specialize in distance running rather than sprinting or strength events. IMO this is one strength of Am. football or baseball; they have different positions that lend themselves to different body types.
On the other hand, while American sports do allow for a bit more variety in body type, they perhaps don't do as well for those who _are_ more light and skinny, so soccer probably would serve them better. @@ComradeOgilvy1984
@@philipmcniel4908 I think your points are not wrong, but very exaggerated. There are a portion of players on most soccer teams that could easily have bulked up to play American football -- mostly keepers and defenders. Not everyone on the top teams looks like they are ready to run a marathon. Kelce could easily have been a soccer player if he trained for it from age 15, instead of bulking up for explosive power. While you have to be mobile to play soccer defense, it is simply not true that every defender covers a lot of ground in a game -- those that charge forward to attack do, and others (especially CBs) do not.
It might seem obvious that soccer would select for fast players, but it is not so simple. The best teams have often had players on the pitch that were not fast. Prime Iniesta and Prime Xavi were actually pretty slow, and they were not merely on the same squad but first choice to be on the pitch at the same time.
We're not bad though. We're actually pretty decent. Stop perpetuating this idea and recognize how far we've come in 30 years and the potential we have.
Cope. US sucks
This is what gets me. What arbitrary metric do people require to accept that we do love the sport here?
My local club Cincinnati has a beautiful downtown stadium if 25k+ that regularly sells out to enthusiastic crowds and yet I still hear "why don't Americans care?"
These people are stuck in 1994.
xD
Fight and Winnnn❤❤❤❤ 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂@@SJPace1776
@@SJPace1776 It's not arbitrary lol. It's pretty easy to tell. Here in Croatia, everyone will know if Croatia's playing, what the score is, even the women will watch the game if national team is playing. How's that for a metric? You just know it, you can see how important it is to people by their attitude.
We no longer suck at football and are clearly the best team in CONCACAF, which yes does suck. We still got a long ways to go to catch Spain, Brazil, Argentina, France, etc, but we are closing the gap fast. The fact we are 13th in the world is pretty good considering 85% of Americans really don't care much. MLS has made a huge impact as has the USL. I would love to see college soccer in the US Open Cup and would love to see an open system. Maybe one day.
America is not 13th in the world lmao, USA's real rank is somewhere in the 30's.
@@tomatoisnotafruit5670 opinion ranks aka "Real" ranks do not exist. This team is way better than the 30's. We got players that don't even play that start in La Liga and the Bundlesliga.
@@jdredwine7224 I looked through Fifa teams ranking and USA is not a top 20 team.
Argentina, France, England, Belgium, Brazil, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Uruguay, Morocco, Columbia, Germany, Senegal, Japan, Switzerland, Denmark, Poland, Korea.
All better than USA.
USA was the weakest team to make it to RO16 in 2022 World Cup.
@@tomatoisnotafruit5670 you might want to check again. FIFA has us 13th. The truth is about 5 of those 19 teams you mentioned are only debatable. The US has a bad manager. That may give some of those team an edge, but I would take our players over at least 4-6 of those teams especially Korea who only has like 3 good players. Italy is calling up strikers from Serie C. They aren't your father's Italy. Morocco is close to the US level. Had a brilliant manager at the world cup. Senegal has no creative midfielders. Colombia is pretty close. I like the US over Poland and Denmark too on overall depth of players. The others I'll hand to you though. They are clearly ahead of us.
@@jdredwine7224 FIFA ranking is based on the team performance in their own continent, but teams do not play each other in different continents until a world cup, sure USA can compete with some of these teams on a good day, but there is easily 15 teams that USA is simply outclassed in every way.
USA ranking is only so high cause they play in a weak continent and they have no competition.
If USa played in Europe, they would struggle to make it to a Euro cup, let alone a world cup
Im both a fan of football and football and the disrespect given by americans to soccer/football sucks but the disrespect from Europeans to american football is even worse they dont even try to understand it and think its just a violent game when there is beauty in both sports
No one that has tried to play both sports competitively holds a dismissive attitude to either one. You can always tell ignorance speaking when they mock one or the other.
It's not Europeans, it's every other country in the world 🤣
@@jal051I mostly Europeans
American football is way too slow especially when they need to stop the play just for ads. It takes all any potential fun away from the game. Its about money, not passion, and while Football itself is a huge money generator, the history in some of the clubs go back a hundred years or more. US teams pack up and move on a whim, so whats the point in staying loyal to a team? In Football we have a thing called 'relegation' where if you perform badly in your league, you get relegated to a lower league at the end of the season, and the top 3 teams in the league beow you get promoted to your league. the NFL has nothing like this, so if a player is unhappy with the team they play for there is no incentive for them not to play badly.
The entire basis for the NFL is not about the passion or the fans. It is about money. And i will not deny there are huge amounts of money in football, there is also fan loyalty and even fan owners of some clubs. there is history in those clubs. There is nothing truly like that in the NFL. these are core fundemental differences in how the sports are managed.
In the NFL is is all about money. In Football, it is a religion.
banger, glad u came up on the feed
I’m American and I realized long ago that American’s do not seem to care for team sports that were not invented on this continent.
Same thing with cars, music, movies... That's American exceptionalism for ya
American Football is Derived from Rugby and Rugby is Derived from Football( soccer) that's why they are called American FOOTBALL and Rugby FOOTBALL. Baseball is Derived in many ways from a game called Rounders which was invented in the UK and 1st referenced in 1744 meawhile Baseball evolved over a 100 year period from 1749 onwards starting off in the UK when it was called Bass Ball and eventually making its way over to the US through Imigration. The 1st of a game similar to basketball was in 1591 in Germany. generally speaking the sports americans played are not invented in the US but codified instead from sports invented elsewhere.
America is a melting pot it's not really like that. A lot of people love soccer
Who cares, if you like it just enjoy it.
@@scubasteve6175 Did you watch the video? If so, did you miss the part in which he explained how immigrants came to America and how and why they assimilated themselves to American culture, thus dropping a lot from their own culture?
The reason Detroit City is my favorite club and team to watch of any professional sport is because it is community grown like the soccer clubs of England. We started in the lower leagues and while there's no pro/rel system, we moved up slowly to the USL-C where we play today.
Sucks is reserved for like Mozambique or China. Us is actually pretty decent at soccer. Not a world power of course but hardly a doormat. I would say they are okay with chance to be very good
Thank you for such an informative video!!! 🙏🏻
Growing up in southeast Europe, I was accustomed, from a very young age, to the pyramid-like league system (local amateur leagues leading up to the professional ones, all the way to 1st division, all connected via the relegation/promotion process), academies and younger teams competition (children, teens). As years went by, I found out that this is how all team-sports are structured in my country-more or less-and that it's the norm in Europe.
College sports was a completely foreign concept that I only saw in films and TV series and I first heard of a closed league and draft when I was introduced to the NBA. I still couldn't wrap my head around it...🤔😕 The closest thing we have to that is Euroleague, and although it was founded by professional clubs, it's only a semi-closed league.
So thank you for explaining the sports culture in the US. 🧐 It makes much more sense now!!! 💡😮
Title: Why the US sucks at football.
Canada: Knock, knock. We are even worse than you Americans.
Perhaps, but you more than make up for it in hockey 😁
but hey, they have one big player playing as a regular for a big club, alphonso davies
hockey is superior to soccer so you guys are set lol
@@nickb2049absolutely no soul outside America knows hockey.....TF you mean superior?💀
@@thatoneguywholovesthena-4529 really? Finland
I'm from Brazil, and the thing I like the most about football( or soccer for you guys) It's this capacity to unite everyone. Everyone has a place in football: the elderly can form a team to play some sort of " easy" competition to enjoy a better health. Football does wonders for kids who have too much energy left, It's so fckng interesting to them and helps develop social skills because even if It's a contact sport, there is not much, and also good individual or team plays are equally admired.
Football also helps people as a form of comunication and to travel around the world because... Everyone knows the rules. I can play with 20 people form various countries, If everyone understands It's football, I would need just a ball, a judge and a timer. Even the place to play is accessible because we can made It in 10 minutes.
Sorry my english btw. longe text. Welcome to the best sport in the world my friends.
It seems Anglophone nations or those influenced from it are not destined for football unless they invested for it. Canada, Australia, NZ, Kenya, India, Japan, Dominican Republic (brief American rule), Tanzania, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc, all are similar.
Japan is an asskicker in AFC
And has the best Asian league competed only by the K-league(Korean League)
@@3dcomrade Japan didn't go to football until 1990s. Before that, it was a baseball country.
England is fundamentally a multisport nation so its actual colonies ended up either as multisport nations or adopting some other English sport other than soccer.
Soccer is merely subverted all the nations that didn't have their own sporting traditions. Although you could argue that Italy had it's own brand of soccer and it basically just agreed to play England's way because of the similarity.
damn us aussies should quit if we’re on the same level as fucking india 😂
Football is 2nd most popular sport in india despite they're not good at it. Most watch European clubs and leagues.
If they were actually good at playing it then cricket would be 2nd tier sport.
To make your point even better, the one area where we have a similar culture and similar passion, college football. It maps onto European football culture so well.
Americans hate soccer because it's "foreign".
Also Americans: I'm 3% Italian 6% Serbian 11% Scottish 25% German how do you do fellow Europeans?
Americans don't hate soccer bro. Most of them just don't care. But honestly, there are a lot that love it.
@@wifi961 The world doesn't care about their fatty sports either, so I would say that it's fair enough.
Yet if an American said they were Italian, Serbian, Scottish, or German to you, you'd pull the whole, "Why do Americans think they're European because their great grandfather was-" etc 💀💀💀
@guruxara7994 What do you mean "fatty" sports, bro? Every sport has athleticism and skill to it. Not everyone has to like "football".
@@guruxara7994"fatty sports" What are you? 12? You're also a part of the reason why Americans don't like soccer. Soccer has one of THE most toxic fanbases out of all sports followings. You wanna talk about "fans" throwing shit at that Italian player who plays for Fiorentina and making the back of his head bleed? You guys are awful to each other.
That is an amazing video. I'm brazilian-american who actually grew up in Brazil, and I've always felt this cultural difference around soccer very closely. What you pointed out about the formation of the franchises vs local clubs with their own identity has been my main focus of analysis whenever trying to understand why american soccer doesn't feel the same. The details about how college sports influenced that is news to me. Great work.
This is a fascinating story about US football and I’m glad my dad’s best friend, Jeff, is part of it. Jeff is my dad’s best friend, lived on the next street in Southampton and was his best man at my parent’s wedding. Jeff moved to the US in the 90s and he worked futsal and woman’s football in St Louis and Kansas City- really big cities full of futsal and female football heritage. He was called by USSF as ‘One of the best grassroots founders beyond the Mississippi River’. In 1999, he was part of the coaching staff for US female football team’s World Cup campaign, that was are inaugural World Cup; and he would work for FC Kansas City being part of the coaching team to win both NWSL Championship 2014 and 2015 before they dissolved in 2017 and become Kansas City Current. Now he works with futsal groups across the United States, Mexico and Canada - Helping develop the sport while also using the sport to help create a community centre for all people: male or female, old or young, new migrants or American people. He also works with KCFutsal and works with Sporting Kansas. So please US football fans respect the grassroots of Female football and futsal which massively helped your football history and continues to develop the game
I think a video about the history of us soccer without mentioning the USL even once is not a complete picture. The USL predates MLS and is still going and will play a huge roll in providing soccer to everyone who doesnt live in an mls city.
Paul Caligiuri Hansa Rostock legend!
When I was growing up soccer was for three groups of people. Little kids, women, and foreigners.
i've recently became a fan of the the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the USL due to the ex Hearts manager being the new coach
historic team, love their stadium too. always thought they were really cool. judging by your profile pic im assuming you’re scottish? which is really crazy to see foreigners watching lower division us soccer
This is the best explanation I've seen about the history of the sport in the US. Kudos
We don't hate soccer, we just don't care, as much
Probably the history of franchise-based football around the World would be interesting topic to make a video. MLS is well documented, but the history of the A-League and the Indian Super League are basically scattered everywhere, and along with that it could be brought the current situation of these leagues.
It almost feels like a lot of Americans wilfully ignore or even rail against the rampant success of their womens' football team? At least from what I've seen online?
And let's not get into the disgraceful squealing and screeching around the last WC when they got knocked out in the quarters- for all the American patriotic fundamentalism I've seen, to see some gleefully celebrate their team losing because of crap they themselves politicised was... really disgusting??
We actually celebrated the USWNTs success for a while but then some of the players went "woke" (literally just existing) so now they, ESPECIALLY Rapinoe, are seen as America hating feminists who deserve their downfall
Historically, they didn't really rail against the success of the women's soccer team, e.g. during the Mia Hamm era (think 1999 Women's World Cup). They were actually pretty popular. That being said, it was seen as the "Girl Power!" sport as a result, which might've made it a bit harder for the boys who played at the time.
I would say the last generation of USWNT players, which is now retiring but definitely made their mark on the reputation of the USWNT, did get a reputation for far-Left activism and--in the perception of non-Leftists--for being really loud and annoying about it: Kneeling in protest during the national anthem (which furthered soccer's image as a sport for anti-Americans), demanding that their pay be equal with the men's team (even though they had the option of selecting the men's contract and instead went for a contract with more guaranteed pay that wasn't dependent on winning), or--in the case of their brightest star Megan Rapinoe--now advocating for trans athletes to be allowed to play on the women's team.
These kinds of things basically alienated the proportion of the country that _doesn't_ see their country exclusively as the villain and feel like their American-ness should make them "uncomfortable," or sympathize with multimillionaires' complaints about being underpaid (with more guaranteed pay than they'll see in their lifetime), or think that people who went through male puberty should be allowed to play women's sports. In particular, within the context of American political discourse, the kneeling during the national anthem sent a message that said, _"We may have to play for this team as a condition of playing international soccer, but we do not support this country or want to represent it."_
Pretty sure the Women's Team politicized things themselves. They can't blame anyone else for that.
No, it’s just certain lowlife players who care more about personal success and padding their ego than bringing glory to the nation
No, people don't care about women's sports. Grow up and accept this reality. Women's team gets stomped on by 15 year old boys who are barely developed, so what do you want? You winning a women's world cup is insignificant, women don't watch that, men don't watch that.
No, it's not disgusting. What is disgusting is politicising the national team. I'm Croatian, let me explain this to you, our football team represents our nation, not left wing politics, not right wing politics. When they play, everyone is together, it doesn't matter whom they voted for, what their political conviction is. But in the US you hate a person based on whom they voted for. You are creating this hateful atmosphere.
Football is supposed to unite people, not divide them. If you bring ideology into it, you're to blame, and they're rightfully booed. They wanna moan about "not being paid what men are paid", when really they're paid disproportionately more. Constantly bringing gender wars into the sport, guess what, people won't like you, you're a divisive koont. Keep your ideology to yourself.
Patriotism is not supposed to be blind patriotism. If the people who represent my nation act shamefully, they're not getting applauded, they're not getting a hero's welcome. This is just a reflection of the toxic American culture, that is not to be blamed on "patriotic fundamentalism" but on your toxic far left rhetoric that has taken hold on your culture. Identity politics are everything, everything revolves around gender, race or sexual preferences. Truly disturbing.
I think the one thing you might overestimate a bit is the role of academies in the development of Soccer in the rest of the world, because those academies are a relatively recent thing. For example the Pro clubs in Germany weren't expected to have a Youth academy up until when DFB started program for the promotion of talents in 2002/3. I think what the real difference is is the club culture we developed that has (as far as I know) no equivalent in the U.S. Basically every tiny village around here has it's own soccer club (according to DFB data that equals 24.000 clubs and is playing in the German league system with the possibility of promotion and demotion, so even really small clubs have the chance to go pro, if they have the necessary success (the latest success story being Elversberg that got promoted to 2. Bundesliga for this season, Elversberg being a small town of around 8000 inhabitants.)
And even before academies became a thing, it was that league system that created international class players very reliably, so Germany had already won 3 world championships before those happened (basically as a consequence of our consequtive failures in the 1994 and 1998 wc quarter finals; *sigh* how times change; would love if we could make it to a quarter-final anytime soon^^). I still remember that when we lost the 92 european finals to Denmark, one way we got mocked about that loss was with pointing out that DFB had more members than Denmark had inhabitants at that time; btw. how Danish Dynamite got that title is one of the best stories in all of world soccer history, and if there's one title loss I can't really be sad about it's that one.
Not saying the academies aren't a good thing (see WC 2014 as a direct result of that), but they weren't as crucial in the development of european and south-american football as high-schools and universities were for the U.S. counterparts.
Oh and by the way, I always have fond memories of the likes of Paul Caligiuri (HSV), Tom Dooley (FC Homburg) and Eric Wynalda (FCS, though playing for that club made him our enemy at that time :D). And I really hope that my boy Reyna can stay healthy and return to make a difference at Dortmund. Really shows how far U.S. soccer has come when they didn't really have need of such a high-caliber talent at the 2022 WC.
But every little town, every neighborhood, every school have their own teams and these feeded them as if they were the academy. This doesn't happen in the US.
USA went on to win another nations league title on a rival. With that same score line. #DOSACERO
Trust, if the presidents of several clubs weren’t a bunch of asshole beggars for money México. Yeah fuck this shit not gonna waste a bible speech for this stupid deadass federation 😤
Growing up here in the US I can speak from experience. I loved playing futbol. So much I played for indoor clubs as I was only in the 8th grade. I went to a D1 Highschool but the problem arrived was with the academies. Academies here in the U.S. no matter if you are recruited or not there’s a fee you have to pay yearly per season. Unless your family has $1,500-$2,500 to spare depending if you are on the traveling team or not then how else are you going to get this money?. South America or Europe neither of them charge their kids to join academies, they welcome all talent regardless of their wallets. It’s one of the main reasons why US will never compete with the greats. It’s sad but the truth, it’s also the reason why I stopped playing futbol competitively & I stuck playing American football which is what I play in college now
True that, Pulisic had to lean into his slavic roots and train abroad.
Women's game has been actually decent for a long time. The current women's team may have fallen off a little bit, but they have some nice players.
The womens league and the universities are still there. The womens national team will be back up. They will face stronger competition in the future since Europe pro clubs have started taking their female sections seriously, but the US team will still be competing for everything after the needed generational change.
thank you for another amazing video, love this content. PLEASE keep doing more
Young US athletes just have so many more choices than other countries. Between baseball, basketball, NFL-style football, ice hockey, etc., our best athletes generally don't often play soccer. But I think it is significant that the internet became widespread not long after the formation of MLS. If you had an interest in soccer and weren't satisfied with the (lack of) coverage of the sport in local and national media, you could go find the info you wanted on your computer.
considering the athletic prowess americans has showed though the years and the willingness to invest in infrastructure and youth development, I believe that, as soon as you guys put on the effort of creating leagues and try to change a little the whole "franchise" perspective, you'll become a top contender right away
While I'd like for soccer to be more popular in the US, I'm really happy that the US has more than 1 sport. Countries that only follow soccer are extremely cringe.
By the 2050 USA will win the FIFA Worlc Cup, trust me. The next generation is super talented, and it will probably even be better with the ones coming after that, especially with all the immigration from Latin America and other parts of the world where football is the main sport.
the only way America will ever win a world cup is is it's rigged for them.
That's true American confidence. Meanwhile in the real world the Netherlands have been deserving it since the 70s and still haven't got one. Winning a World Cup is really, really difficult.
It would be interesting to make a comparison with the development of football in Japan. I think they started almost at same time during the 90's, but now they're some steps ahead
When I was in high school in the early 1970's I was lucky that soccer was just starting to become popular in the US. The NASL had attracted a lot of interest by bringing Pele to New York, and my high school had started to organize a team. I loved American football, baseball and basketball but was too small to play any of those sports competitively. One day I was getting ready to walk home after school when I saw a bunch of classmates playing soccer on the football field, and I decided to join them. We had several foreign exchange students plus kids whose parents were immigrants and knew how to play, so I learned quickly and went on to play on my high school and small college teams. It's not an exaggeration to say this was life-changing for me. I knew about everything he talks about in this video, but no one had presented them to me in a cohesive way like this video, well done!
Even though im hispanic which is normally stereotyped into liking soccer I never really felt a love for that game and for people who might say I didnt watch enough of it growing up, let met just tell you I know the voice of the commentator for telemundo games like the back of my hand. The sport I really fell in love is American football because it was so cool to me because of how crazy the game was and at that point I hadnt really watched any other sport so I immediately fell in love with it ( GO TEXANS BABYY! )
I feel like people dont understand that even though it might not be a small town team were going for it doesnt take away the fun from the game and connecting with other fans and arguing whos team is better. Also I agree that the NFL has way to many adds, but what I feel like people forget is that after a while you just zone it out and get on your phone while you wait for it to end.
One last thing about the NFL is gonna be my OPINION on whether it failed or not. At a international level maybe but in America to call the NFL a failure is the dumbest thing you can do like imagine calling the most profitable league in the world and probably one of fairest at times due to salary caps a failure.
But to be honest im happy soccer is growing especially for my friends who are super into it here and if any foreigners have questions or opinions about the NFL please tell me them because even though im probably not the most qualified to represent US football to the rest of the world I can maybe show it from a fans point of view.
We consistently get to the knockout stages of the WC... many "footballing countries" would kill for that kind of performance. I'm happy with that.
Baseball and its initial structure is pretty damn similar to Euro football. Btw it’s not just the minor leagues a lot of these MLB teams have created youth academy’s just not many in the US. Vast majority of them being in Latin America/Carribean islands.
Well, maybe, but it's modern structure is nothing like European sports. Modern baseball the big teams own all of the tiers on the pyramid below them. Europe has a few affiliate type programs with affliated teams playing on the lower levels, but nothing like the American "farm" system.
They just won concacaf Nations League a day ago-are into Copa, they aren’t like-the worst lolol. MLS has top 10 attendance for league worldwide and is the fastest growing league too. Lots of countries are far worse at football.
Not Surprising that China and USA attitude toward football club is just as a money making machine , Two of them forget about the importance of junior athlete talent scouting and the grass field training because the success of football team is not something instant and even Japan and Korea
football team take a junior athlete talent scouting across the nation and grass root field training instead a concrete building seriously
Also in China , its quite challenging to do talent scouting properly since kids in China are demanded to pursue academical achievement more seriously
Speaking about a successful sports club , You can't make a successful sports club , if there is a corruption inside , Although there are tons of successful sports club in China , Only the football club are fail cause there are corruption inside the football club ecosystem
Going by size and power the USA and China should be the football giants, but both countries have culture problems against it.
That was an excellent English accent attempt at the start of this video. Probably the best I've ever heard from an American.
What a wrong timing, USA just won the CONCACAF Nations League by beating Mexico 2-0 in the final
They've won the 2 previous CONCACAF as well. You put too much prestige on North American football (soccer). That doesn't matter unless they perform well, not just in the regional stage, but on the international stage as well.
@@theophilussogoromo3000 i mean they did pretty good during the World Cup and even tied against England which is one the best teams out there
@@theophilussogoromo3000 that the opposite. Before drooling in front of the golden trophy of the world cup they should aim for the local trophy first :)
@Lostouille I mean
For like
Football jr
Owning the region/division aint a bad step for a country that overall doesnt care for the sport
Plus
Yk triple every other country combined in Olympic medal totals(total, golds and I think Silvers or Bronzes but Im not sure on the last one) is prolly enough bragging rights for now
But yeah in all seriousness its not a good region
However
Its America
And their sports prowess is nearly unrivaled when they start to care and develop people
@Lostouille the entire point of the video is that America would do much better if they took it seriously. The comment implies that USA dominating North America somehow is a checkmate against the point of the video.
Interesting how the four offshoots of England-the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia-are also the four countries which have historically been the most resistant to football
Ah, Alexi Lalas. My father was a huge fan, when he played in Serie A. He was not super good, but he was down to earth, appeared on italian satirical tv programs where he also played the guitar.
Too bad he’s like our worst pundit now lol. He’s America’s loudest and least reasonable talking head when it comes to soccer, but for some reason he still gets these big jobs, like the World Cup coverage.
@@pjkerrigan20 Donovan is the best American player ever!
@@pjkerrigan20why do you hate him so much?
Nice shout out to Bert Patenaude from my hometown of Fall River, Mass. First ever World Cup hat trick.
0:06
"Least talented sport on earth."
Mate, YOUR bloody NBA players study footballers' footwork to improve their own game. Hakeem Olajuwon was as great as he was BECAUSE of his football foundation.
I can't imagine saying something so horrifyingly ignorant. Football fan or not, calling it untalented is fucking blasphemous.
The guy who said that (Dana White) runs the UFC, not the NBA
@@clipcoug1139I know. I meant "your" in the sense of "your country's"
Yanks take a lot of pride in having the world's greatest basketball league.
@@arthropod-doctor: Ah ok. I thought you were implying that the NBA was his league.
Dana White does say ignorant things often.
@@arthropod-doctor that still doesn't make your comment any better actually it makes it worse because you just lashed out in anger over one comment🤣 also your comment isn't true, players that have a soccer background did tend to have better footwork but the players aren't "studying footballers footwork" you are actively lying
@@maxmichaels5593 Appreciate your response! I'm not sure if you're entirely correct, however. Demar DeRozan and the late Kobe Bryant have both gone on the record stating that they have studied footballers' footwork to improve their own play.
Hakeem Olajuwon has also attributed his football background to his success in the NBA, and he has trained many NBA players to improve their footwork.
Great work on this video -- It's very well researched, you actually pick at the historical 'why' behind the subject. A lot of people on this platform wouldn't do that. It fascinates me how quickly the sports hegemony became crystalized in the early 20th century.
England couldn’t even beat us at their own sport 😬
And to this day, have never done so in the World Cup.
"United States and Football don't mix."
St. Louis City SC: Are we a joke to you?
Man United: OI! Is that really a question?
i mean, to be fair, as a 9 year watcher of the NFL, Soccer players faking injuries for penalties is jarring when we watch NFL players shrug off hits that looks like it should've given them concussion. When soccer players act like nothing happened if they didn't get any penalties, they just look soft AND goofy.
@alorienorio What I don't understand is why act like it's the end of the world after collision, and then once the penalty is assessed, they act like nothing happened. Is it the end of the world or not? pick a lane. These players oversell their injuries only to act like nothing happened a few seconds later. even worse when they're supposed to be in extreme pain, then switch up to being aggressive to the refs after not getting what they want. goofy.
@@kevineusebioIt isn't really the players fault. It's the refs. The players see that the ref falls for it, so they do it. Thirty years ago, the refs wouldn't have fallen for these antics. It has nothing to do with being soft. You see flopping in other sports too, like basketball and hockey.
@alorienorio U can definitely say that soccer/football takes more endurance/stamina while American Football is the more explosive sport. I know you guys hate it when americans exaggerate about the flops from soccer/football players, but thats the same thing yall do when yall say American football players are weak because they wear pads. I also hear many ppl from outside the US hate on the commercial breaks, which I do get. Its annoying, but the purpose of the stoppages on the field is for the teams to strategize. Believe it or not, American Football actually is a strategically complex sport. Without the commercials u would just see more strategizing from both teams before the play begins. Many American Football fans just ignore the commercials and anticipate whats going to happen the next play
@alorienorioI've watched a few Premier League and MLS games the past few months. That happening once is already too much. Multiple times in one match? Maybe your brain learned to tune it out because you're used to it, but it's very apparent to a casual watcher. I wouldn't have pointed it out if I've only seen it once every now and then, lol
@@kevineusebio "These players oversell their injuries only to act like nothing happened a few seconds later"
You are confused by an (usually) honest reaction. Players collect bruises on their ankles and shins. If you have a bruise on top of a bruise on top of a bruise, the pain from even a "love tap" can be absolutely unbelievable for several seconds. The worst pain I have ever felt as a soccer player was not from the hardest kicks, it was from minor bangs on existing injuries. In fact, the few times I was kicked genuinely very hard, I was able to bounce back up and be back in the play in a second or two -- I had the luck of receiving the new bruise on an uninjured part of my leg.
I have to say, this is a brilliant video. Thank you.
Good English accent at the beginning as well!
We're not bad at football. We're pretty good at it. We're undefeated football world champions...
We just aren't very good at soccer.
It's easy to be the world champions at a sport only your country plays. xD
Only americans would call a game played with their hands and upper bodies 'foot'ball
@@billysanchez8773then why do they call it that in Canada too?
@@georgehenan853 So they don't have to put up with you lot whining in their ear about how they are 'getting it wrong'...
We’re not bad? We have won CONCACAF 7 times and got into the round of 16 two years ago.
The thing is you are playing against mediocre opponents. If the US played in the Euros you would struggle to get into the quarters. Its a whole different caliber you just don't get to see save once every 4 years.
And how does it go for you then? You bump up against an actual European or south american heavyweight and get knocked out.
yoou need to stop comparing yourself to the likes of Mexico. They are an Average team, above average on their day, but average nontheless. If you want to consider yourselves a 'heavyweight' team you need to be able to beat the likes of Portugul, Germany, England, Spain, Argentina, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Croatia, Belgium and Brazil.
The U.S actually don't suck at football, they just have the worst attitude towards it.
Soccer COACHING at the youth level in the USA in the 1970's - 1980's was remedial at best.
I played baseball & soccer in southern California through most of the '70s & '80's and could get lots of high-quality baseball training from ex-pros (Clyde Wright Pitching School, for example).
The soccer coaches were almost all well-meaning but untrained Dads.
The first real soccer coach I ever met was an escapee from Communist Croatia when I was 14 (8th grade), a bit too late for me to develop quality technical skills.
This is a good video on why as Americans we don't care about world Football, but the reason we suck at it is because our coaching is moldy dog shit from top to bottom. We learned Football from watching Pele's direct style so that is how we still coach today. There is no body that gives coaching qualifications so our youth coaches don't know what they are doing. So we are stuck in an ever growing tactical gap that we can not close down.
As an American who LOVES watching European clubs (Go Arsenal!) that's the most glaring problem to me, the product on the pitch doesn't even resemble the proper game. I despise MLS because of its substandard tactics and its closed league style.
You would think that with no fear of relegation that MLS would be a science lab of coaching innovation and out of the box thinking. Like if losing REALLY doesn't matter then just go for it, but MLS coaches are just as terrified of losing as coaches in every other league which makes no sense...
@@Veaseifylike all American sports, losing doesn't matter to the team but it matters to *you*. Teams aren't pro/rel, *people* are.
@@flpndrox I am a big NFL fan so I know coaches get fired regularly for losing in a league with no relegation. That is because serial losing reflects badly on the owners more than anything, so I guess that dynamic works the same in MLS, which is a shame.
I agree that the lack of good High School coaches is the biggest thing holding back American soccer.
Beyond that, I don't agree.