The Problem with the USA is that they have too many MLS players and from what ive seen its nothing too spectacular.

Ausrtralias whole lineup Plays in ALL of Europe’s top leagues that is why despite are no 44 ranking no one was surprrised to see us start so well. our Players are house hold names in My country as well as overseas especially in the english premier league.

Our record proves our calibre defeating the asian champions japan and euro champions Greece as well as goin through the tougher qualiying that the US.

I dont remember the last time the USA beat teams like uruguay
but they seriusly need to make sacrifices and give Europe a go cos nothing the MLS can compare.

USA 0 – 1 Iran

REPLY THE FIRST
Re: Dman’s posting and all the many other assertions about American arrogance.

Much of what Dman says a few postings above this one makes sense, but (and I say this as a dual national and with all love and respect) I’m not sure my Canadian brethren are in any position to be lecturing anyone on what it takes to build a world-class soccer program.

Still, it is true that a lot of people see the US men’s team as guys who act like poor winners before they’ve actually won anything. And a few of the players have encouraged that perception. But I’m not sure how much the actual US team is to blame for the stupid hype and boastfulness. It seems to me that most of the US’s players have said nothing worse than “We’re not going to cower before teams just because the (European) experts think they’re going to beat us.” That’s standard athlete talk. Sometime around 1972, some enterprising athlete patented the “While we respect X, we certainly think we have a chance to beat X or we wouldn’t be showing up for the game” line for pregame press conferences. And this year most of the US’s players have been following the formula and paying that guy his 3-cent royalty every time they do so.

Most of the stupid hype has been coming from advertisers and commentators. Stupid hype sells commercials. And there are a lot of American soccer fans out there exhausted by years in the wilderness and ready to provide and hear stupid-hype commentary. In particular, the ABC-ESPN analysis teams are laden with former American soccer players who endured long international careers with little success, and it seems to me like a lot of these guys are desperate to see an American team pay back some of that frustration. It’s understandable, but it’s embarrassing and unhelpful.

REPLY THE SECOND
Re: Andy from the UK (a country that could teach the US a great deal about building an international contender)

In response to your #7.

Yes, most teams will want to beat the US for political reasons (I assume you mean reasons like Iraq and Kyoto). Even more so, people will want to beat the US because at the moment we’re the world’s only superpower, and many people in other nations resent that (a privileged group of people in) America controls so much of what happens in the world. Even if we were the very model of sane, respectful, humane superpower (and we ain’t), a lot of people would still resent America and want American teams to fail.

I think that’s part of why so many people elsewhere are, like Dman, so ready to see the American team as arrogant and counter-factual; those people (rightly, IMHO) think our President is both of those, and they paint the national team with the same brush. (The historical irony of this, of course, is pretty amusing. The same nations whose press corps decry American arrogance and “imperialism” often end up playing one or more of their former colonies.)

As for the Americanization of the sport, I have a hard time imagining that any such thing is happening and, if it is, a harder time understanding why or how. I doubt that there’s any fundamental “Americanization” of soccer at any level of training and tactics. Sure, Klinsmann is taking some grief for living in California and insisting that his players come in fit, and, sure, some are calling that “American,” but the South Koreans run more and better than we do. And if he’s Americanizing German soccer, how much do we have to pay him to come Americanize American soccer?

Past that, what Americanization do you mean? Just the lingo? Surely we, like every other nation on earth, are entitled to our own lingo–to our “PK”s, our “CK”s, and our “tie games” and all those other innocuous acronyms and phrases that seem to so horrify English speakers from other countries. I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with them other than they aren’t English–in what way is “spot kick” objectively better than “PK”? (And when I listen to American coverage, our announcers mostly say “penalty kick” or “penalty” anyway. “PK” is rare anywhere but in the microscopic statistical summaries of soccer games that constitute American soccer journalism in non-World Cup years. Ditto “CK.”)

If English or Europeans in general are picking up our soccer idiolect, surely that’s your own fault. It’s hard enough getting American journalists to cover soccer at home; it’s not like they’re flooding the European market with their heathen terminology so much that you have no choice but to adopt it.

(And even if they were, it would just make us even for your having inflicted “at the end of the day” on our national speech.)