oldtype

I'm sorry but this is a bunch of nonsense. Do Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina have healthy domestic leagues? Why do the Belgians and Dutch bother with their domestic leagues when a clearly superior product is just across the border? Its not about just about money. Its about having a football culture. We're getting there-- that takes time. My ten year old son plays football every day. When he's not playing football, he's playing futsal. He's all football crazy. And that's true of most of the young athletes in his school. (That was to the case when I was his age--we were all playing baseball and basketball all summer.) The World Cup is a big deal. Every four years it generates new fanatics. I saw something about that fool running around dressed as Teddy Roosevelt. Turns out he wasn't a fan until the 2006 World Cup -- had disdain for the game and US fans before then. I think there are a whole bunch of young athletes who are right now deciding to dedicate themselves to playing football/soccer instead of basketball, American football, baseball or whatever. We've missed a big opportunity by passing on playing in the Copa America in the past few decades. 2016 is going to be huge. And like this World Cup, it's going to create new fans and produce a larger pool of players. Those leagues are still healthy because they were built up ages ago when football was less international in countries which have long, rich footballing histories. You're trying to build something from the bottom up with the MLS in a world where every Premier League game is live on TV. The two cases are not even remotely comparable. Trust me, I've seen this movie before in Korea after 2002. Of course MLS has a much better shot given that they can throw around much more money, but if you think America's rise to a footballing superpower is some sort of manifest destiny you're liable to be grossly disappointed come 2018. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible. But it will be hard. The Premier League is the least of our worries. More people watch the Mexican League than English football in these parts. Obviously, I neglected to mention the changing demographics of this country. That's another factor-- its not quite manifest destiny In any case, I know people who watch the Premier League, and the Mexican League, and MLS and anything else they can manage to stream online. It's not one or the other. I'd say it's at least something of a concern given that the last day of the Premier League drew over twice the amount of viewers of the MLS Cup last year. Obviously there are junkies out there who will watch everything, but that's not what keeps a business afloat. Casual fans are, and they have limited mindshare to go around.

Odd stats for a midfielder, to say the least.

I'm sorry but this is a bunch of nonsense. Do Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina have healthy domestic leagues? Why do the Belgians and Dutch bother with their domestic leagues when a clearly superior product is just across the border? Its not about just about money. Its about having a football culture. We're getting there-- that takes time. My ten year old son plays football every day. When he's not playing football, he's playing futsal. He's all football crazy. And that's true of most of the young athletes in his school. (That was to the case when I was his age--we were all playing baseball and basketball all summer.) The World Cup is a big deal. Every four years it generates new fanatics. I saw something about that fool running around dressed as Teddy Roosevelt. Turns out he wasn't a fan until the 2006 World Cup -- had disdain for the game and US fans before then. I think there are a whole bunch of young athletes who are right now deciding to dedicate themselves to playing football/soccer instead of basketball, American football, baseball or whatever. We've missed a big opportunity by passing on playing in the Copa America in the past few decades. 2016 is going to be huge. And like this World Cup, it's going to create new fans and produce a larger pool of players. Those leagues are still healthy because they were built up ages ago when football was less international in countries which have long, rich footballing histories. You're trying to build something from the bottom up with the MLS in a world where every Premier League game is live on TV. The two cases are not even remotely comparable. Trust me, I've seen this movie before in Korea after 2002. Of course MLS has a much better shot given that they can throw around much more money, but if you think America's rise to a footballing superpower is some sort of manifest destiny you're liable to be grossly disappointed come 2018. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible. But it will be hard.

It's dangerous to assume that football will become mainstream just because the World Cup was incredibly popular this time around. The WC is more about nationalism than it is about football. For football to really take off you need a healthy domestic league, but it's difficult to sell the MLS when anyone who's into the game knows that a vastly superior product exists in Europe. Massive amounts of money helps, so I'm not saying it's impossible, but there are limits.

No split loyalties. The US ref should have dashed France at least one red card, so in my bitterness I withdrew all support from that country. Respect. I swear Baba has been markedly less friendly towards me since that day in 2010 and Yakubu WC is serious business, man. I still want the Swiss to lose every time because of a dodgy goal from eight years ago. Might be less bitter if senderos didn't look so punchable

No split loyalties. The US ref should have dashed France at least one red card, so in my bitterness I withdrew all support from that country. Respect. I swear Baba has been markedly less friendly towards me since that day in 2010 and Yakubu

oldtype, you live here. you know the country that affords you the opportunity that will make your life pretty fucking brilliant from now till you die? show some respect I'm going to quote this when I have to leave because they won't reissue my work visa in seven years time.

Oh we were very firmly in the third world as far as the World Cup goes this year.

I don't think anybody actually hates the US here. Although I admit I haven't been looking as hard.

Bah fak all of you people who even made it to the elimination rounds. First world problems.

What would you do if your agent just signed you for Newcastle?

Can only play as a #10 The King will LOVE that

He'll go into Shola mode now. Ever year we'll go into the season thinking "meh, not too bad as emergency backup" and then somehow he'll start 30 games.

That makes sense statistically though. In recent years we sell good players a whole lot more often than we buy them.

Why? People wank over the waffles and we had a beat up squad and our number one striker out - so yes we can be something in 4 years bc the majority of our squad are the most exciting big man. Belgium is one of the poorer European teams in the competition and you still had to defend for your lives for the majority of the game. The gap between Europe/South America and the rest of the world is humongous. In my mind there's never been a "contender" from outside of those two regions, at least not in any World Cup I'm old enough to remember. South Korea made the semis in 2002. We most certainly were not contenders though That's not even the best team we ever had. And that(4th) is still the highest an Asian/African/North American team has ever finished. US finished third once. Did not know that

Why? People wank over the waffles and we had a beat up squad and our number one striker out - so yes we can be something in 4 years bc the majority of our squad are the most exciting big man. Belgium is one of the poorer European teams in the competition and you still had to defend for your lives for the majority of the game. The gap between Europe/South America and the rest of the world is humongous. In my mind there's never been a "contender" from outside of those two regions, at least not in any World Cup I'm old enough to remember. South Korea made the semis in 2002. We most certainly were not contenders though That's not even the best team we ever had. And that(4th) is still the highest an Asian/African/North American team has ever finished.

Why? People wank over the waffles and we had a beat up squad and our number one striker out - so yes we can be something in 4 years bc the majority of our squad are the most exciting big man. Belgium is one of the poorer European teams in the competition and you still had to defend for your lives for the majority of the game. The gap between Europe/South America and the rest of the world is humongous. In my mind there's never been a "contender" from outside of those two regions, at least not in any World Cup I'm old enough to remember.

Apparently this was from a Dutch forum

Come on, I think you did alright. Let's just not get carried away with the contender talk. Plus, we all know that Putin will make sure you lot are stuck in Siberia for the group stages in 2018.

Let's not get carried away here Quality young squad at the moment, who'll only get better in four years (you'd imagine). That as well as a lot of other youngsters coming out of the woodwork and the MLS increasing in quality. A keeper fit to lace Howard's gloves and some strikers and I really think they're able to challenge. Not saying they'd win, but saying they'd be up among the contenders, yeah. Losing their two best players (Dempsey and Howard), and MLS has a ways to go. (There's no guarantee that the great level of support in this WC leads to more interest/money flowing into the MLS. I know this from firsthand experience.) For me a "contender" is a team that doesn't go into any match set up mainly to stop the opponent from playing. The gap with European teams is still massive and there's no way the US gets that good in four years time. Green, Mix, Johnson, Brooks, Jóhannsson and Yedlin will probably be playing for some top teams in Europe by then. You'll also always have Bradley around. Six players that'll seemingly be quite good in four years. It's a decent base to start from. In the next four years we'll see a lot more Mix, Greens and Jóhanssons come out of the woodwork as well given how much American semen has been spread around the world. I think Bill Hamid might step up as a competent keeper in the next four years as well. I don't think the 2018 US team will have much to be afraid of, as long as they get a proper striker, which is so, so, vital for the team to push on. There's no way of knowing for sure but you're putting a great deal of trust in players that've barely played this tournament. Mix I've watched play for years, man. But yeah, I do. Of course there's a chance it won't come to pass, but I feel I'm seeing a lot of quality in the youngsters (based on more than just this tournament). I think the US are experiencing a mini-Germany event at the moment, with tons of quality dual nationality players popping up choosing the US. They should certainly try to aggressively recruit diaspora players. You have to imagine that there's a lot of American spawn out there in the world. Hell, I could play for America.

Let's not get carried away here Quality young squad at the moment, who'll only get better in four years (you'd imagine). That as well as a lot of other youngsters coming out of the woodwork and the MLS increasing in quality. A keeper fit to lace Howard's gloves and some strikers and I really think they're able to challenge. Not saying they'd win, but saying they'd be up among the contenders, yeah. Losing their two best players (Dempsey and Howard), and MLS has a ways to go. (There's no guarantee that the great level of support in this WC leads to more interest/money flowing into the MLS. I know this from firsthand experience.) For me a "contender" is a team that doesn't go into any match set up mainly to stop the opponent from playing. The gap with European teams is still massive and there's no way the US gets that good in four years time. Green, Mix, Johnson, Brooks, Jóhannsson and Yedlin will probably be playing for some top teams in Europe by then. You'll also always have Bradley around. Six players that'll seemingly be quite good in four years. It's a decent base to start from. In the next four years we'll see a lot more Mix, Greens and Jóhanssons come out of the woodwork as well given how much American semen has been spread around the world. I think Bill Hamid might step up as a competent keeper in the next four years as well. I don't think the 2018 US team will have much to be afraid of, as long as they get a proper striker, which is so, so, vital for the team to push on. There's no way of knowing for sure but you're putting a great deal of trust in players that've barely played this tournament.

Let's not get carried away here Quality young squad at the moment, who'll only get better in four years (you'd imagine). That as well as a lot of other youngsters coming out of the woodwork and the MLS increasing in quality. A keeper fit to lace Howard's gloves and some strikers and I really think they're able to challenge. Not saying they'd win, but saying they'd be up among the contenders, yeah. Losing their two best players (Dempsey and Howard), and MLS has a ways to go. (There's no guarantee that the great level of support in this WC leads to more interest/money flowing into the MLS. I know this from firsthand experience.) For me a "contender" is a team that doesn't go into any match set up mainly to stop the opponent from playing. The gap with European teams is still massive and there's no way the US gets that good in four years time.

Let's not get carried away here

Marginally lower chance of relegation. That's good I guess.

Once again, OT support = Doom. I should move to new York and start following all of your teams What are they gonna do, get worse? At least Costa Rica are going to win it all now