World Cup

I think I'm on the right thread for unrelated rocket stuff.

You lot have improved at football!

Fantastic match so far, hope you get through.

SO.

WE LOST!!! :cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

Not Okay-USA.

I'm not quite sure what this "world cup" thing is, but it looks interesting:



There's also apparently some sort of sports event with a similar name.

Bummer.

Belgium played very well. It was an awesome game. The winner was not a sure thing until the final buzzer.

The record of our goalie will stand for a very long time. Small consolation., but it was a hard fought game.

Congratulations to belgium.

Now I have to cheer for Germany.

I just wish the US had passed as well in their earlier games as they did against Belgium.

This is the first game where I've been impressed with how the US played....and they lost.

-Kevin

I am soon to hit by 56th birthday and the pundits have been telling we in the United States that soccer is “Coming into its own” since I was in 7th grade. We’re still waiting.

Until/unless the best U.S. athletes stop playing American Football and Basket Ball and start playing soccer from kindergarten up, we are never going to be anything but second rate in the World Cup and soccer is going to have TV ratings somewhat less than a “Walking Dead” rerun.

I would comment except I've been informed that threads that mention politics are not allowed... :wink:

boomtube said:

I am soon to hit by 56th birthday and the pundits have been telling we in the United States that soccer is “Coming into its own” since I was in 7th grade. We’re still waiting.

Until/unless the best U.S. athletes stop playing American Football and Basket Ball and start playing soccer from kindergarten up, we are never going to be anything but second rate in the World Cup and soccer is going to have TV ratings somewhat less than a “Walking Dead” rerun.

Click to expand...

Even so, so many kids are playing soccer in the US that our level of play has been steadily improving. For years, the only way that the US could get into the world cup was if we hosted it (the host team gets and automatic spot), but lately we've been making it on our own and our performance has been improving. Other countries used to consider a game against the US to be an automatic win but that is no longer that case.

We move because of my employment. We have been in four school districts. The larger ones all have school supported soccer programs. In the smaller ones, each community had a community soccer program that fed into a statewide farm system for the kids with the skills (and time and money) to do so. But in those small schools, there were times when more kids played soccer than several other sports. since the schools didn't officially support soccer, most of the athletes shifted over to the football or cross country teams. In both systems there was some effort made to encourage the schools to officially support a school soccer team but in both cases, the established football program (and its traditional supporters) did all they could to kill any such effort as early as possible. They knew that once talented athletes had the opportunity to play soccer, the football program would cease to be competitive and in one case, might not be able to field a team at all. In both of those schools, the football coach considered the cross country team to be in competition for "his" athletes and actively tried to recruit them. They might even have done real damage to the cross country program except that the cross country team regularly advanced to regional and state competition and football rarely, if ever, did so.

Soccer continues to make advances. Years ago we heard it said that "when enough kids play soccer our soccer teams will get better." That happened. In another generation, when all these kids that play soccer are the parents, the schools (and the football coaches) are going to have a more difficult time keeping them out.