Slovenia is a country with about 2 million people. That's like playing the greater Houston all-star team.

How can Appalachian State beat Michigan, at Michigan?

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How can Appalachian State beat Michigan, at Michigan?

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uhhhhh, by scoring more points?

They're not playing our best athletes - they're playing our best soccer players.

I prefer sports that only Americans play, but call "world championships."

Umm, because it's soccer. Do you really think they would stand a chance against us in football, baseball, basketball, etc? Look people in the USA just don't really care about soccer. I know some like it but more people follow golf and tennis than soccer in this country. We just don't put the emphasis on creating great soccer players like we do with the other sports.

probably because America's best athletes don't typically choose a futball career.

I don't know what other competitive sports options that Slovenia has, but I would guess not many.

[This message has been edited by Lefty Ag '89 (edited 6/18/2010 1:05p).]

For the most part amaerican's don;t pay much attention to soccer. But if soccer would catch fire over here, we would start to dominate with out athletes. Imagine a lebron James or Michael Jordan, what about Barry Sanders or Bobby Hayes, Randy Moss, Andre Johnson, Wes Welker.

If those guys grew up dreaming of being a soccer star for the USA, things would be much different. All we need is 1 USA born Superstar to spark interest in our youth, and then we start making huge progress.

I don't think the rest of the world wants to see this happen very much.

In Texas I notice kids try the usual baseball/football/basketball route and if they can't stick in one of these sports they then give soccer and golf a try.

Then as the kids get into high school, some of the standout soccer players get invited to try out as kickers for the football team and usually do VERY well... an example of that just happened at our high school... committed to Navy:
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Pablo-Beltran-98617

[This message has been edited by Lefty Ag '89 (edited 6/18/2010 1:10p).]

uhhh... america's best athletes play in the nfl, nba, college football, then track in that order. soccer is irrelevant.

1) Football - Adrian Peterson, Andre Johnson, Wes Welker, Randy Moss
2a) Basketball - Lebron Jameson, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul
2b) Baseball - ARod, Derek Jeter, Craig Biggo
4a) Hockey
4b) Soccer

Soccer gets 4th best athletes from the south. Imagine if all of the above played soccer instead of their respective sports. We would be completely dominate on the world stage. As it is, our 4th tier athletes go against everyone else's best. Even the US can't win against that kind of competition.

Is there another team out there in the world that could beat our Superbowl Champions in NFL style Football?

Soccer isn't a sport that is high on our best athletes priority list growing up so we aren't fielding our best possible team. It's not even close to it.

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"Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of their women."

Same with Golf and tennis. Also stuff happens. Also ask the hockey and Dream team teams.

I compare Soccer with Basketball. To the opposing sides, International play is messing with our dominance and the USA is messing with the international soccer dominance. At least with soccer the best show up at a tournament every 4 years that is not tainted by the Olympic rules.

Also please see Germany and Spains losses. Those HURT.

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Lebron Jameson

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I heard he's pretty good.

"Is there another team out there in the world that could beat our Superbowl Champions in NFL style Football?"

I would have liked to see the Olympics add American football to the list and give the russians 4 years to prepare (especially during the cold war years). Would have been interesting to see how well they would have done.

Well I ask this because I keep hearing from the rabid soccer fans, that these players are some of the best athletes in the world. I'm in full agreement that there is probably only one or two countries that could field a team of athletes that could compete with the New England Patriots.

The best thing about the world cup is that we have the chance to destroy something the rest of the world is passionate about with something we are semi-indifferent about.

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Well I ask this because I keep hearing from the rabid soccer fans, that these players are some of the best athletes in the world. I'm in full agreement that there is probably only one or two countries that could field a team of athletes that could compete with the New England Patriots.

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zero countries could field a team that could compete with the patriots.. the only country that football is a major player is the US.

And you think about it.. most of our athletes focus on football, basketball, baseball, etc. whereas in countries like slovenia the people solely focus on soccer.

Oh, and btw, it was a 3-2 win for the US.. not sure which game you were watching

I thought the Chicago Blackhawks just won the World Cup??

It's *soccer* people. Who cares?

Sabreman '92

Great athletes. Jr. College second basemen at best.

1) Football - Adrian Peterson, Andre Johnson, Wes Welker, Randy Moss
2a) Basketball - Lebron Jameson, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul
2b) Baseball - ARod, Derek Jeter, Craig Biggo
4a) Hockey
4b) Soccer

Soccer gets 4th best athletes from the south. Imagine if all of the above played soccer instead of their respective sports. We would be completely dominate on the world stage. As it is, our 4th tier athletes go against everyone else's best. Even the US can't win against that kind of competition.


Wow, to think that muscular meaty guys could compete in a finesse sport is a joke. And to include Craig Biggio with your baseball list is hilarious, you put him in the same company as A-Rod and Jeter. Open your eyes outside of the South and realize that soccer is played nationally. Not to the extent of other sports obviously, but I am pretty sure that overall numbers in youth sports soccer tops the list.

Oh yeah, blame Title IV for not having soccer as a collegiate sport outside of the north and northeast. Then you will realize that a lot of players really have no path to continue their progress and choose to play baseball, darts, foosball and drinking idiotic soccer post kool aid.

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Oh, and btw, it was a 3-2 win for the US.. not sure which game you were watching

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Unfortunately, America's best athletes all go to;

Football
Baseball
Basketball
Tennis
Hockey
Track & Field
Extreme sports
Swimming
Fighting
Long distance running

Before soccer. I'm glad soccer seems to be catching on in the US, but it still has a ways to go before the top athletes start pursuing professional careers in it. I've played withe some great soccer player in HS, and none of them pursued college ball.

I know the networks supposedly paid out a lot of cash to broadcast the world cup here in the states (and I hope they lose money on the deal), but was it one or two world cups ago when the games were on ESPN2. What was on the main ESPN channel you ask, World Series of Poker re-runs.

I love how we don't give a **** what the rest of the world thinks. Plus, who knows how big the goal really is? What, it's fifteen meters wide by 3 meters tall? What the hell is that?

I always love the "we don't play our best athletes arguments" as if a ****ing a 6-7 SF is gonna be worth a shat on a soccer field getting the ball swiped from him every other second by a quicker guy closer to the ground, or a 250 linebacker is gonna suddenly lead to FIFA allowing guys to get tackled.

If we are so much better than everyone with "our best athletes" how did Argentina win the Gold in bball in '04? How did Spain hang with us in '08? Why do the Jamaican's, a tiny arse country, kick our arses in track? Why do pretty much ALL the little island countries routinely beat us in baseball?

The other dumbarse part of this argument is it fails to note that there are PLENTY of millionaire athletes in different sports from just about all of these other countries. There are pros from most of these countries in basketball, hockey, boxing, MMA, baseball, track, tennis, rugby, etc. Hell, basically everything but American football.

There are 5 Slovenian NBA players right now & one of the best players in the NHL is from there. Most of these other countries don't have all of their best athletes playing soccer either. Basketball & Winter sports are AT LEAST as popular in Slovenia as soccer is, but don't let that get in the way of bullshat fairy-tales.

[This message has been edited by Syd_X_Barrett (edited 6/18/2010 7:43p).]

6 billion people on earth...5.7 billion love soccer, but 300 million Americans think it's irrelevant, hmmmm...

For those who doubt the growing importance of soccer in the US, consider the following:

On the opening weekend, Algeria-Slovenia (which started at 9AM on a Sunday) drew higher ratings than afternoon baseball on Fox the day before...which was Phillies-Red Sox.

USA-England had roughly the same ratings as the LA-Boston game did the same weekend, and that's in a finals matchup with about as huge of a profile as you can get...No Salt Lake Cities or Sacramentos dragging down the ratings.

It's here folks.

That's impressive. I would not think it would be that high.

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How can Appalachian State beat Michigan, at Michigan?

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In the FIFA rankings they were 25 and we were 14, so it's more like West VA beating Nebraska last year in a bowl game, which wouldn't have been that big of a deal.

I think the athletes on our team are comparable or better (athletically) to Slovenia. The reason why we'll never be a soccer power is not because of inferior athletes (even our 3rd tier athletes are better than most countries' best), but rather beacause the entire country of Slovenia and most others in the WC was hanging on the edge of their seats during that game while most of our country had to read the result on page 3 of the sports section the next day. When you grow up eating, breathing, and sleeping soccer as a nation and have dads that played and coaches that know what they are doing and entire neighborhoods with their TVs outside watching games together, you have a pretty big edge over a country that has soccer as a sport of secondary interest.

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The other dumbarse part of this argument is it fails to note that there are PLENTY of millionaire athletes in different sports from just about all of these other countries. There are pros from most of these countries in basketball, hockey, boxing, MMA, baseball, track, tennis, rugby, etc. Hell, basically everything but American football.

There are 5 Slovenian NBA players right now & one of the best players in the NHL is from there. Most of these other countries don't have all of their best athletes playing soccer either. Basketball & Winter sports are AT LEAST as popular in Slovenia as soccer is, but don't let that get in the way of bullshat fairy-tales.

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Exactly correct. It really all comes down to the fact that most of our dads don't know anything about soccer...how are you going to compete with a country even as small as Slovenia, where a huge percentage of these players' dads played soccer competitively, have their kids playing from a young age, actually know what they are doing as coaches of youth teams, and most of all want their kids involved in the sport rather than just have them play it when they are young just for the social aspect of it but cant wait to pull them out as soon as soccer gets in the way of football, basketball, or baseball?

The bottom line is that the majority of this country does not "know" soccer and that's not going to change. Can you imagine a thread after a bad Aggie football result and someone posting, "who cares, it's just football?" and having the majority of Texags agree?...and that's just Aggie football! Imagine if we lost to Slovenia in the world championships of American football - not enough bandwidth in all of cyberspace for all the butthurt moaning we would have!

I do not think population of a country is any indication how good or bad its national teams in sports should be. India, for example, has more than 1 billion population ( about 1/6th of world's population) and they are not very good at sports. Even in the one game, which the whole country seems to idolize, cricket, they are not exceptional and haven't won a cricket world cup ( only around 8-12 countries participate at most!) in almost 2 decades. Oh yeah, the country does boast of current Chess world champion (1 champion in a billion!).

The poverty rate in India is 51%

could you imagine Dwight Howard in goal for the United States - no one would ever score

um the u.s. lose all three group play games okay done imagining dwight howard in goal. Face it he isn't fast enough.