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[Wouter D]

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Carniveraux Vulgarry wrote: list the times the Dutch team have won a match in a knock-out game against teams like France, Italy, Argentina, Germany, Spain. I don't have the stats to hand but I'm willing to bet the Dutch have famous victories over all of those nations.

France: Euro 2008 group phase. Four-one. Total rout.
Italy: Euro 2008 group phase. Three-nil. Total rout.
Argentina: 1998 World Cup quarter final. That Dennis Bergkamp goal.
Germany: Euro 1988 semi final. Cathartic.
Spain: 2014 World Cup group phase. Concede a goal. Pull five back.
Brazil: 1974 World Cup second round. Totaalvoetbal indeed. That Johan Cruijff goal.

We also have famous defeats over all of those, and Italy and Germany are miles ahead in flexibility, I'll concede that.

[Reed John]

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The system that GdSC describes is actually the antithesis of both the "pay to play" ethos of US youth sport and the Pharonic nonsense of high school football in Texas.

The "pay to play" thing is more recent, and follows the trend of the economy and culture at large. The older tradition is access for all to sports through public schools (and, to be honest, the military).

Rich people couldn't tolerate the possibility of kids from the wrong side of the tracks beating their kids, so they've found ways to buy advantages, as they always do in all aspects of life. They've either spent more on coaches and facilities, or decided to focus on sports that only their class play, like lacrosse. It's not the model of sports that's the problem, it's our entire economy. Sports are still more egalitarian than just about anything else about America. I mean, kids from Harrisburg high school, to name one in our region, generally have a much better chance of getting to college playing sports than via any other route.

My other point was that many people from big cities don't seem to grasp what high school or youth sports mean to a small community. As EIM has said, football isn't about football. That's true of all kinds of football. The same can be said for ice rinks in Canada and the colder parts of the US or ballpark complexes in warmer areas. They aren't just places for sports.

I think we tend to swing from one pole to the next. Either there's too much fixation on "big shiny things," winning, making money, prestige, etc, in sports, or people go too far the other way and either piss on all of it or only accept the "every kid gets a trophy" model. The idea of as a platform for personal and social development process gets lost between those two useless ends of the spectrum.

Not always, of course. I've met good coaches and many level-headed parents in the US. But I don't know if they're the majority.

Also, when I was a kid, the message about sports - indeed, the dominant message about music and school and lots of other things too - delivered to kids was that you either had it or you didn't. The athletes were born that way and chosen by God to be our betters. Everyone else clear out. There wasn't much discussion about patient practice - 10,000 hours or otherwise - or training or getting better through hard work.

But now things are run by people who grew up with that, and the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Now the message to kids - or more to the point, their parents - seems to be that if the kids just practice enough and the parents spend enough money on coaching and facilities, that any kid can be an Olympian. And many coaches are finding that the kids joining "elite" traveling teams aren't very athletic - they've merely spent endless hours with their dad in the batting cage (or whatever, depending on the sport).

As I've said before, Hank Aaron learned to hit by hitting bottle caps with a stick. Talent plus effort.

We need to figure out a way to focus on development at all levels in conjunction with community-building. And not just developing the talented into superstars, but developing the completely uncoordinated into the not-so-uncoordinated. There are few greater joys in life than learning how to do something you once found impossible. That experience will serve a kid - or even an adult - in anything they do in life.

I don't think it's off topic. Obviously, something is very askew in English football from the ground up, and all of this is relevant.

[Reed John]

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Bruneau wrote: Agree with all that. The thing with American sports is that too many of them are predicated on freakish physical ability and talent to be competitive at. Once you're in junior high you're not a competitive football player unless you're bigger than the other kids. Ditto basketball obviously. Baseball is just weird and not really about athletics if you ask me.

Soccer is a vastly superior prospect for sport + community across the economic spectrum. I learned as a kid that the beautiful game was beautiful because you just needed a ball. You didn't need to be six foot eight, or be covered in muscles covered in padding, or to have a special frozen or rubber or wooden playing surface, etc. Pele learned to play in the dirt with a bunch of socks stuffed inside a sock, or something like that.

You don't know anything about baseball, apparently, or have an unusual definition of "athleticisism," but are otherwise correct.

Many of the best baseball players were dirt poor. To this day, many come from the Dominican Republic or similar and have stories equivalent to that of Pele's ball of socks or Hank Aarons bottle-caps. Despite all of the money affluent parents throw at travel teams, and camps, and expensive bats and Tom Emansky videos, there's no good inherent reason why a poor kid couldn't become a good ballplayer if he wants it bad enough.

The main problem is that there aren't many baseball fields (or soccer fields) in inner cities any more. The development patterns are to build huge multi-field complexes out in the sprawl, rather than tuck them in here and there in smaller neighborhood parks. Meanwhile, there are basketball courts everywhere. And for various ethno-cultural reasons, black kids in particular are fixated on basketball and football.

MLB is aware of that and has tried to combat it with the creation of some very nice RBI Baseball Academies in urban areas. And there are a number of very good African-American baseball players. But it's a hard battle. Baseball takes patience and a willingness to tolerate failure. Nothing in our popular culture supports that. So kids are far more likely to chose the game where somebody scores every 40 seconds.

[Reed John]

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Defensive minded wrote: I think we're missing the main point: in England people are not that interested in the national team.

It was mentioned that there is no culture in English football. The opposite is the case. In England people support their local team. In Germany that is completely different. Berlin-Wilmersdorf has a population of about 100,000. The local team play in the Verbandsliga (sixth tier) and we only have an attendance of about 40 for every home game.

In Germany the footballing highlight comes every two years. It is no question that an overwhelming majority of football fans prefer the national team to do well than the club they support. Even whern it comes to clubs, they would rather root for a different German club (even if it is a rival club) than for foreign opposition. National identity is almost everthing when it comes to football here.

It is therefore no surprise that the German national team is even relatively a great deal more successful than England. People will have a moan every two years, but things will not change unless actaul changes are made.

I'm not criticising the Englsih club culture. On the contrary, I prefer it. But we can't have it both ways.

That's a good point and, I think, in England's favor.

Whatever England's many flaws, one of the things it has traditionally done pretty well is support "small" football.

[Bored Of Education]

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Sometimes, you think "Why do I/we bother?". There has been a lot of brilliant analysis on here - not all that I agree with but still very informed, measured and intelligent - and, you go out in the real world and hear people just talking about having an English manager or one with PASHUN. We have talked here for years about how bad the English coaching system and, even though it has become a touch more progressive, it is still miles behind many countries. It used to be behind Spain, Italy and France but now it is behind Iceland and Wales and, probably, even more small countries.

Of course, the FA are a famously reactionary blinkered organisation who have not yet recognised what France, Spain and Italy realised when they instigated a Year Zero of their national coaching strategies and you wonder whether they ever will. I have no idea what is going on with St Georges Park but it isn't just about a venue, it is about an attitude and having a over arching connected strategy. As has been mentioned before on here, England have never had a strategy for the national team to play, let alone one that will run through coaching and playing throughout all age groups nationally.

Still, Wales seem to be addressing this and it is starting to bear fruit. We have a playing style that, hopefully, will be finessed and ingrained in our coaching system at all levels so that we aren't relying on players like Giggs and Bale turn up once a generation. As it goes, I think that we are starting to see that somewhat as Wales aren't relying just on Bale.

[Renart]

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I have come to rely on Joe Ledley's dance moves.

Is that really true that Germans don't support their club teams as much? Whenever I see video of Bundesliga matches, or even from clubs in lower leagues like Union Berlin (home of USA's own Bobby Wood!), the atmosphere seems fantastic.

Germany's recent success seems more to do with the fact that the DFB and the clubs have a more cooperative, less antagonistic relationship than in many countries. The national team's and the clubs' youth development system are on the same page and mutually reinforce each other.

Raphael Honigstein's Das Reboot is good on the way Germany improved its development and training system after their disappointing exit from the 2004 Euros.

(Funny enough, Jurgen Klinsmann, the man now regularly berated by US fans for not doing anything to improve our youth development system, was the one who pushed a lot of the reforms at the beginning.)

[Reed John]

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On the other hand, if England's coaching set-up weren't so shit, we wouldn't have this brilliant piece of short film, and the world would be far poorer as a result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggApvEPfhWI

[Reed John]

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Renart wrote: I have come to rely on Joe Ledley's dance moves.

Is that really true that Germans don't support their club teams as much? Whenever I see video of Bundesliga matches, or even from clubs in lower leagues like Union Berlin (home of USA's own Bobby Wood!), the atmosphere seems fantastic.

Germany's recent success seems more to do with the fact that the DFB and the clubs have a more cooperative, less antagonistic relationship than in many countries. The national team's and the clubs' youth development system are on the same page and mutually reinforce each other.

Raphael Honigstein's Das Reboot is good on the way Germany improved its development and training system after their disappointing exit from the 2004 Euros.

(Funny enough, Jurgen Klinsmann, the man now regularly berated by US fans for not doing anything to improve our youth development system, was the one who pushed a lot of the reforms at the beginning.)

The objection - or at least my objection to JK - is that he's told everyone that he's going to make all these massive reforms, but it's not really clear A) that he has the power to do that B) that the head coach of the MNT should be the one running all of that C) that, whatever the merits of his ideas for all of American soccer culture, that he knows how to run the current MNT.

Clearly, getting all the clubs on the same page as the national federation is critical. That's clearly facacta in England because so many of the clubs are run by rich assholes who don't care about anything other than their own self-aggrandizement, much less the English national team, and the FA seems to have the same disease as the Toronto Maple Leafs - no need for change as long as the money keeps rolling in.

The US is more complicated. MLS has some of the same kind of craven assholes running things, but also can legitimately argue that it needs to grow the popularity of the sport in order to survive long-term, and so far that has meant massive expansion/dilution. Allowing the talent to become concentrated onto just a few clubs might help the national team, but would be terrible for the league. Also, MLS teams are incentivized to care more about the league over any of the international things they're involved in. Clubs in Germany, for example, don't have these commercial issues.

[ursus arctos]

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Klinsmann claims the right to make reforms in his role as USSF Technical Director, not that of USMNT Manager.

I also happen to think that it is a better role for him. He's always been quite limited as a manager.

[Reed John]

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Bruneau wrote: Reed, I might know just enough about baseball to be dangerous, but far from nothing. I think a sport that's mostly standing around (or sitting in the dugout) isn't about athletics in the sense I prefer, which is more...active and aerobic. I'm aware of the daunting skills involved in throwing, pitching, catching, and hitting, and yes it helps to be fast around the bases. I'm not saying the players don't have to be athletes, but it's not a very "athletic" sport to me. It's pretty still overall, and that does make special demands on kids who want/need to be active and fully engaged. As you say, it requires an unusual amount of patience.

Well, yes and no.

It doesn't require aerobic fitness like soccer, but players who are out of shape struggle to maintain their skill as the summer wears on, because they're just really tired and sore all the time, so in a round about way, it requires a lot of fitness (Bartolo Colon notwithstanding). The everyday (or almost everyday) aspect of baseball is an important part of it that isn't always replicated at the high school and youth level.

A team needs some fast "athletic" players, especially in the outfield. This tends to be underappreciated, especially during the early Moneyball era when fat-assed homerun hitters were so highly valued, stolen bases were devalued, and the statheads mocked scouts who picked guys just based on their overall "look." But now that the statheads have begun to grasp the value of defense, fast players are finding a role again.

Beyond that, it's all about "skill" - reflexes, hand-eye-coordination, fast-thinking - rather than what gets called "athleticism" in other sports. There is a lot of patience and waiting for something to happen, but when it does happen, it happens, very, very, very fast, so that requires special skills.

But the upside of that is that any kid with the desire, time, and modicum of hand-eye coordination can learn to be a decent ballplayer. If nothing else, they can learn to be a relief pitcher and mediocre infielder on other days. Not every kid can be big or naturally fast enough to play football, basketball, or soccer.

Many kids just don't have the patience it takes to work on those skills, but in my experience, baseball practice is more fun than practice in many other sports. Lots of drills, but doing stuff with the ball and hitting practice. In American football, practice is mostly hitting things and standing around in the heat going overplays. Soccer training is a lot of mindless running. Hockey is a lot of boring skating drills - although that's still better than running laps. Lacrosse is a lot of running, but also a lot of skill work, which is one of the reasons why Jim Brown said he liked lacrosse better than football.

[Reed John]

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Bruneau wrote:

On the other hand, if England's coaching set-up weren't so shit, we wouldn't have this brilliant piece of short film, and the world would be far poorer as a result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggApvEPfhWI

Only 143 views so far!

My dog posted it to his facebook, so it's about to blow-up.

[Reed John]

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ursus arctos wrote: Klinsmann claims the right to make reforms in his role as USSF Technical Director, not that of USMNT Manager.

I also happen to think that it is a better role for him. He's always been quite limited as a manager.

Agreed. Maybe he should hire somebody else to be the manager, then.

[Renart]

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Just to be clear I wasn't defending Klinsmann, just pointing out an irony. According to Honigstein, he doesn't get proper credit in Germany. I certainly don't know enough about German football to say whether that's true or not, though.

The small but growing US soccer journalism field tends to put too much focus on senior team results. (Some of this is just American optimism, which can be good sometimes, but leads many US fans and reporters to believe that we're much better than we are. A lot of people were apparently shocked by Argentina's dismantling of us in the Copa America. They shouldn't have been, even if we could have played somewhat better than we did.) It's not easy to find good reporting on the U.S. development system, such as it is. (Howler had a good article on the subject recently, though.)

[Ray de Galles]

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This popped up on on my timeline today as it's the sixth anniversary of me posting it up following England's last but two embrasssing tournament exit :

There are 2.25 million players in England and only one Uefa-qualified coach for every 812 people playing the game. Spain, the World Cup favourites, have 408,134 players, giving a ratio of 1:17. In Italy, the world champions, the ratio is 1:48, in France it is 1:96, Germany 1:150 and even Greece, the Euro 2004 winners, have only 180,000 registered players for their 1,100 coaches, a ratio of 1:135.

I think Iceland's ratio is 1:27.

.

[Reed John]

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All of that is true.

It's also probably hurting US soccer as a whole that much of the the media and the public only pays attention to the World Cup and the USMNT's results there become a referendum on the "chances soccer will ever make it in America" even though soccer has already "made it" insofar as anything can be said to have "made it" in our increasingly fractured popular culture. Even not qualifying wouldn't be a huge disaster now.

[Reed John]

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Ray de Galles wrote: This popped up on on my timeline today as it's the sixth anniversary of me posting it up following England's last but two embrasssing tournament exit :

There are 2.25 million players in England and only one Uefa-qualified coach for every 812 people playing the game. Spain, the World Cup favourites, have 408,134 players, giving a ratio of 1:17. In Italy, the world champions, the ratio is 1:48, in France it is 1:96, Germany 1:150 and even Greece, the Euro 2004 winners, have only 180,000 registered players for their 1,100 coaches, a ratio of 1:135.

I think Iceland's ratio is 1:27.

.

Are the coaches in England certified/qualified by some kind of competing (and apparently inferior) FA system or are there simply not that many coaches and/or a lot of bad coaches who are nothing more than dads yelling "KICK IT HARD!!!!! GET IT UP TO THE BIG LADS!!!!!!!!" ??

[Bored Of Education]

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Ray de Galles wrote: This popped up on on my timeline today as it's the sixth anniversary of me posting it up following England's last but two embrasssing tournament exit :

There are 2.25 million players in England and only one Uefa-qualified coach for every 812 people playing the game. Spain, the World Cup favourites, have 408,134 players, giving a ratio of 1:17. In Italy, the world champions, the ratio is 1:48, in France it is 1:96, Germany 1:150 and even Greece, the Euro 2004 winners, have only 180,000 registered players for their 1,100 coaches, a ratio of 1:135.

I think Iceland's ratio is 1:27.

.

I wonder what Wales' is now.

[Limey]

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All this talk about the quality/quantity of coaching... about how overrated the PL is... about how rich/entitled/rubbish England's players are... about the weaknesses at grassroots...

What's being missed is this:

England qualified for Euro 2016 with a 100% record. They qualified for World Cup 2014 and Euro 2012 without losing a game. And they dropped only three points in qualifying for World Cup 2010.

Clearly, England do have good players and are capable of playing well as a team. The qualification record wouldn't be what it is if this were not the case.

What seems to be the issue in recent years is that when they have to play a high-pressure, must-win game - in a tournament, in other words - they completely go to pieces and collapse into a disorganised, every-man-for-himself rabble.

It's a psychological failing as much as anything, and I have no idea the cause or the solution. Answers on a postcard.

[jason voorhees]

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Limey wrote: All this talk about the quality/quantity of coaching... about how overrated the PL is... about how rich/entitled/rubbish England's players are... about the weaknesses at grassroots...

What's being missed is this:

England qualified for Euro 2016 with a 100% record. They qualified for World Cup 2014 and Euro 2012 without losing a game. And they dropped only three points in qualifying for World Cup 2010.

Clearly, England do have good players and are capable of playing well as a team. The qualification record wouldn't be what it is if this were not the case.

What seems to be the issue in recent years is that when they have to play a high-pressure, must-win game - in a tournament, in other words - they completely go to pieces and collapse into a disorganised, every-man-for-himself rabble.

It's a psychological failing as much as anything, and I have no idea the cause or the solution. Answers on a postcard.

They didn't lose at Switzerland or Slovenia. They didn't lose at Lithuania (I'm Lithuanian,) Estonia, or San Marino. They barely beat Wales in group, then lost to Iceland.

A fair point, but they really suck now.

[Ray de Galles]

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Limey wrote: All this talk about the quality/quantity of coaching... about how overrated the PL is... about how rich/entitled/rubbish England's players are... about the weaknesses at grassroots...

What's being missed is this:

England qualified for Euro 2016 with a 100% record. They qualified for World Cup 2014 and Euro 2012 without losing a game. And they dropped only three points in qualifying for World Cup 2010.

Clearly, England do have good players and are capable of playing well as a team. The qualification record wouldn't be what it is if this were not the case.

Or it could be that England are big fish in the small pond of qualifying groups.

.

[DCI Harry Batt]

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This result might be the best thing that ever happened. That is all.

[Ray de Galles]

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Defensive minded wrote: These statistics should be treated with caution as the quality of the traing programmes can vary considerably. I know plenty of crap coaches with qualifications and I also know a few excellents coaches who have no qualifications at all.

Maybe but you don't see a trend emerging?

[torres]

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TonTon wrote: This result might be the best thing that ever happened. That is all.

Let's enjoy it for a bit longer though.

[Limey]

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Ray de Galles wrote:

All this talk about the quality/quantity of coaching... about how overrated the PL is... about how rich/entitled/rubbish England's players are... about the weaknesses at grassroots...

What's being missed is this:

England qualified for Euro 2016 with a 100% record. They qualified for World Cup 2014 and Euro 2012 without losing a game. And they dropped only three points in qualifying for World Cup 2010.

Clearly, England do have good players and are capable of playing well as a team. The qualification record wouldn't be what it is if this were not the case.

Or it could be that England are big fish in the small pond of qualifying groups.

.

Sure, but the countries they are comfortably beating in qualifying are not much worse than the sides they've struggled against (Slovakia, Russia, Slovenia, Algeria, possibly Wales and Iceland, etc.) in the tournaments proper.

[Calvert]

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possibly Wales

You've done it now.