FIFA World Cup 2022

[The Kraig]

7 minutes ago, Meacon Keaton said:

It's a heat-of-the-moment devastation for me. It's never fun to lose when you just lost.

That said, I went in thinking 2-0 defeat. I came into the tourny thinking England and Wales would move out of the group and we'd already be home. So it hurts now, but yeah, we are a country that still isn't prioritizing our best athletes to the sport but I think it's clear it is getting closer. And I think we are definitely on the right track.

I think it's natural. USA have lost a winnable game (especially in this tournament). Especially after that exciting goal from Wright.

USA should be proud, they went undefeated in a tricky group.

[Bobfoc]

7 minutes ago, damhausen said:

Making it out the group stage is the expectation for us. It's what it is. My old coworker always would ask me why, with 330 million people, we don't have talent greater than countries with 5% of our population. And while it is the 5th most popular team sport (auto racing and golf are likely both higher on the pecking order if you include all sports), the World Cup is watched more than the World Series and Stanley Cup Finals. It's also level with the NBA Finals. So there's just so much attention on it, and our women's team is historically the best ever. More people play soccer as kids than they do nearly any other sport, but why is there not a world-class, generational player that we've ever produced on the men's side? So it gets somewhat annoying our men's team can't seem to get past this one particular hurdle.

I suppose, for me, it's like seeing a student who constantly gets top grades, plays several musical instruments and captains all the sports teams, but then doesn't get the main role in the school play. You can't really feel as sorry for them as you would for a socially awkward child whose only passion is acting.

[Captain Kirk]

16 minutes ago, Adam said:

A "toothless" England side which scored 9 goals in their other two games, and quite a handy Iran side whose two best forwards play for Porto and Bayer Leverkusen. USA did well in those games, multiple clean sheets are not easy to achieve at a World Cup.

9 goals against Iran and a Wales squad completely at the end of it’s lifespan.

I’ll give you Terimi, the lad playing for Leverkusen has 1 goal in 17 this season.

16 minutes ago, damhausen said:

Making it out the group stage is the expectation for us. It's what it is. My old coworker always would ask me why, with 330 million people, we don't have talent greater than countries with 5% of our population. And while it is the 5th most popular team sport (auto racing and golf are likely both higher on the pecking order if you include all sports), the World Cup is watched more than the World Series and Stanley Cup Finals. It's also level with the NBA Finals. So there's just so much attention on it, and our women's team is historically the best ever. More people play soccer as kids than they do nearly any other sport, but why is there not a world-class, generational player that we've ever produced on the men's side? So it gets somewhat annoying our men's team can't seem to get past this one particular hurdle.

For me it comes down to American sports focusing on physicality, Netherlands just waited it out for the right openings.

It takes generations to get up to a normal level and 10 years of bad coaching to destroy a whole countries youth. It’s not easy, plus look at Germany all the players they have and no truly elite class strikers.

Then you get issues like Scotland had when we have two elite players who both play in the same position, having a well rounded national side takes luck as much as preparation.

[Szumi]

Reasons to be excited if you're an American soccer fan: in 2026, Dest, Jedi, Adams, McKennie, Musah, Reyna, Aaronson, Weah, Pepi, and Pulisic will all either be their prime years or about to enter them.

America is finally producing great prospects. These kids are only going to get better, and there's another young crop of teenagers in America getting ready to come through again. 

[gunnar hendershow]

23 minutes ago, Bobfoc said:

I suppose, for me, it's like seeing a student who constantly gets top grades, plays several musical instruments and captains all the sports teams, but then doesn't get the main role in the school play. You can't really feel as sorry for them as you would for a socially awkward child whose only passion is acting.

This is definitely a good point and I have no delusions about the US as an overall sporting nation. And in all scenarios defeat for the Dutch fans would feel much, much worse than defeat for the US fans. I can already flip my calendar to tomorrow to watch my NFL team play, and there are other sports certainly popular in the Netherlands but truly understand none carry the same emotional weight as their national team does. 

The end of another World Cup for the men's team is definitely met more with disappointment and annoyance than devastation. Only in 2010 was I ever devastated by a defeat, because we felt like we could beat Uruguay and get to the semifinals.

[Matt]

2 hours ago, Bobfoc said:

I don't want to be patronising, but I can't imagine I'd be all that devastated by this if I were American. Football is the fifth most popular sport in the country and the national team is still reasonably competitive against teams representing countries that live and breathe the sport. Most other nations' fifth sports probably don't even have professional teams.

I don't even know what ours would be. Field or ice hockey I'd assume, depending on if you're going on participation or crowd attendance

[Chris2K]

Got to love Advance Australia Fair, surely the only national anthem to include the word "girt".

[The Lusophone]

2 hours ago, Captain Kirk said:

They played a toothless England, an old Wales and Iran. Scotland’s defence would do alright against that and we won’t even qualify.

Scotland are awful as evidenced by the constant failure to qualify for tournaments and by never getting past the first round of the very very few tournaments you do qualify for.

They would not, in fact, "do alright" against the 5th, 17th, 19th and 20th best teams in the world.

[Matt]

Anyone noticed how awful the pitch is? Disgraceful for a world cup knockout match

[Adam]

6 minutes ago, Matt said:

Anyone noticed how awful the pitch is? Disgraceful for a world cup knockout match

Good spot, not sure how many games it has had on it but with there only being so many stadiums, you'd think there's been a match every other day on each pitch at worst.

[Chris2K]

That was a lovely goal, and who else would score it? Finally scored in a knockout game as well.

[Naitch]

32 minutes ago, Matt said:

I don't even know what ours would be. Field or ice hockey I'd assume, depending on if you're going on participation or crowd attendance

Football, cricket, rugby (do league and union count as separate things?), tennis, motorsport, boxing. That was the order that popped into my head, although I'm fantastically uninterested in boxing, so the average person might think of it sooner than I did.

Participation isn't really a fair metric, in my opinion, as most of the above have different levels of team sizes and cultural significance. Does hockey get much mention outside of the Olympics and high school PE lessons? I certainly wouldn't put it on the same level as any of the others I mentioned, and I don't even particularly care for any of them except football.

[The Lusophone]

League and union do, in fact, count as separate things.

[Captain Kirk]

37 minutes ago, MadJack said:

Scotland are awful as evidenced by the constant failure to qualify for tournaments and by never getting past the first round of the very very few tournaments you do qualify for.

They would not, in fact, "do alright" against the 5th, 17th, 19th and 20th best teams in the world.

They got the same result against England 2 years ago…

[The Lusophone]

And lost both their other games in the group stage, conceding 5 goals. In this group Scotland would be going home with a maximum of 1 point, and would continue their perfect record of failing to progress past the first round in every tournament they've competed in.

[Captain Kirk]

2 minutes ago, MadJack said:

And lost both their other games in the group stage, conceding 5 goals. In this group Scotland would be going home with a maximum of 1 point, and would continue their perfect record of failing to progress past the first round in every tournament they've competed in.

Against an older Wales team and Iran, doubtful. 

Both sides they lost to(awful tactics from Clarke in both games) are better than those sides. 

[Matt]

13 minutes ago, Naitch said:

Football, cricket, rugby (do league and union count as separate things?), tennis, motorsport, boxing. That was the order that popped into my head, although I'm fantastically uninterested in boxing, so the average person might think of it sooner than I did.

Participation isn't really a fair metric, in my opinion, as most of the above have different levels of team sizes and cultural significance. Does hockey get much mention outside of the Olympics and high school PE lessons? I certainly wouldn't put it on the same level as any of the others I mentioned, and I don't even particularly care for any of them except football.

I assumed we were just talking team sports, otherwise yeah there's a bunch of things that would be way above (golf would probably be second).

 

Proper hockey has decent participation levels, I know 5-6 women and 2 men that play which is significantly more than any other team sport that isn't one of the main 4 (yeah, the two rugby codes are different). On the other hand I know a fair few people that go watch ice hockey at least a couple of times a year but I don't know anyone who plays it.

 

Actually it's probably netball, thinking about it. 

[The Lusophone]

14 minutes ago, Captain Kirk said:

Against an older Wales team and Iran, doubtful. 

Both sides they lost to(awful tactics from Clarke in both games) are better than those sides. 

Iran are much better than Scotland and its not really close.

[Chris2K]

Well that's not going to help. I believe the local expression would be "you flaming galah".

[The Lusophone]

2 minutes ago, Chris2K said:

Well that's not going to help. I believe the local expression would be "you flaming galah".

Awful. What were they even doing?