If more black americans played soccer we would dominate everyone like basketball
- Thread starter Redeem87
- Start date
where the fukk are you from
i've been to west africa and you can find street games on every corner
when i went back home to my town in nigeria there was a huge street match that was going on, that had the entire city there
Street matches can you ready for the World Cup?
Now who in that country is in actually training? The rich Africans
Damn you can easily tell this is an american board, really thinking if you are an elite athlete you will run the sport , Pogba and Ibrahimovic (the 2 examples used here) are beasts because of their supreme skill and talent, and they aren't even elite athletes, the fact that they are actually tall is a plus, not the reason why they are good.And I'd advise to watch some games before you magnify your NBA ballers, then when you'll see THOUSANDS soccer players flying for headers and sprinting olympics type times (VERY common) you'll realize that it takes WAY MORE to be elite at the most difficult sport, which takes 1000 times the skill you need to play basketball and american football.
Every country has a dozen of divisions, the skimming is unreal.
And returning to the entire athlete thing, there are thousands of european and african players who are world class athlete like your NBA PG/SF, it's a very common thing, you really be thinking that europeans and africans are like your average cac redneck who drinks beer all day and probably will even make it to the NFL or the NBA if he's tall enough
Soccer is ALL about TALENT AND SKILL.
No offense but a lot people in here completely clueless.
And most importantly, the slavery american school system will never work with soccer, and remember americans are the only one who care about basketball and american football and put them as 1A and 1B sport.
I didn't know the education system in Toronto was so poor
No shyt the US would need training, the point is that right now the US has neither the training nor the athletes, if Handegg and Basketball didn't exist you'd have more money devoted to training in Football. It's like reading comprehension just goes out the window in threads like this, so you know more than Klinnsman?
I don't even understand why you keep mentioning Ocho Cinco, no where have I said you can take an athlete that grew up playing one sport and expect him to transition over to Football @ 30 years old and be good. Kind of dumb ass shyt is that? And miss me with that "little to do with athleticism" nonsense when Messi has the agility & balance of a cat and Ronaldo is hailed as the best athlete in the world.
Dont @ me with some dumb shyt breh
I am sure this has been pointed out before but the NCAA college system does not work in a global sport like soccer because it just hamstrings the players. Real Madrid reportedly pays some 16 year old Norwegian kid 80K per week when that Stanford kid could not even accept a man of the match prize sponsored by Budweiser. The way teams play is just vastly different to pin down some uniform traits needed to be a good player. Pogba and Yaya can play in a similar position to players like Modric and Veratti and their respective teams can still find success. Hell Dunga and Makelele were probably better DMs than bigger players in their position.
And I'd advise to watch some games before you magnify your NBA ballers, then when you'll see THOUSANDS soccer players flying for headers and sprinting olympics type times (VERY common) you'll realize that it takes WAY MORE to be elite at the most difficult sport, which takes 1000 times the skill you need to play basketball and american football.
Every country has a dozen of divisions, the skimming is unreal.
And returning to the entire athlete thing, there are thousands of european and african players who are world class athlete like your NBA PG/SF, it's a very common thing, you really be thinking that europeans and africans are like your average cac redneck who drinks beer all day and probably will even make it to the NFL or the NBA if he's tall enough
Soccer is ALL about TALENT AND SKILL.
No offense but a lot people in here completely clueless.
And most importantly, the slavery american school system will never work with soccer, and remember americans are the only one who care about basketball and american football and put them as 1A and 1B sport.
Why is it hard for yall to realize what people are talking about?
These threads are always the same, the point is that African Americans are 13% of the population in the US, 70% of the population in the NBA/NFL and our US soccer team is majority white. The point is that African Americans are not involved in Football here in the US, and if we were our US national team would be better, that is an undeniable fact because our US national program is desperately trying to get the sport into places with African Americans.
Basketball is played globally, they find players all over the globe, the most athletic players are African Americans by a wide margin, the most skillful players are African American. Why is it such a huge leap to believe that if African Americans played Football and got world class training the US would be better? It's like logic just gets tossed out the window, as though some of these freakishly athletic and driven people wouldn't end up good if they got the right training.
Julius Skrrvin
I be winkin' through the scope
Only tall leggy striker we acknowledge is Giroud 
Street matches can you ready for the World Cup?
Now who in that country is in actually training? The rich Africans
You really are dense aren't you. I know reading isn't your specialty so I bolded and highlighted the required reading.
Yuri Zhirkov
For Yuri Zhirkov, football was initially a way to escape a cramped life at home that saw the six members of his family crammed into a one-bedroom apartment in Tambov. As a youngster, Zhirkov would stay out kicking a ball around in the alleys between buildings in his neighborhood, waiting until his family had gone to sleep to return home. He slept on a folding bed and would miss training during the summer months to aid his parents growing food to sustain them during the winter. Zhirkov’s first payment for his footballing services was also in food, and not until he was signed by CSKA Moscow as a 20-year-old did Zhirkov have the financial means to watch the sport he played on television in his own home.
Alexander Hleb
First things first, Alexander Hleb is still kicking around in football. He’s only 33 still and finds himself with Turkish outfit Genclerbirligi – say that 10 times fast. The Arsenal cult hero has a true tale of hardship behind him, having grown up in the shadow of the Chernobyl disaster as a youngster in Belarus. Hleb’s father volunteered demolishing houses left uninhabitable due to radiation, something that would later contribute to health complications. A young Hleb was limited to a single pair of worn-out boots and spent his time playing on concrete pitches in Minsk, building a reputation that earned him an opportunity with Bate Borisov – opening the door to later adventures with Arsenal and Barcelona.
Dante
Tight spaces and unconventional surfaces are often credited for the development of future Brazilian stars, and Dante was no different from his peers. As a youth, Dante spent his time with a ball at his feet in the car park of the supermarket where his mother worked as a cashier. Despite his persistence growing up in the Federacao neighborhood of Salvador, Dante’s appeals for a chance with a Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro based club fell on deaf ears. Instead, his opportunity would arrive in the form of Matsubara – located over 1,000 miles from his home in Salvador. When Dante discovered nobody had the means to buy him a bus ticket, he took matters into his own hands – selling his video games to purchase a one-way pass to chase down his ambitions far from home.
Yaya Toure
It wasn’t until the age of 10 that Yaya Toure had his very own football boots, having spent years knocking a ball about without shoes in the streets of his native Cote d’Ivoire. “Boots were very expensive,” Toure told The Guardian in 2011. “And when there are seven in your family and you say you want to buy a pair your father wants to kill you.” But in the Manchester City midfielder’s own words: “I just had a normal African childhood. Life was a struggle when I was growing up.” Toure clearly took his opportunities as they came. He used his distinguished youth career at ASEC Mimosas as a springboard to Europe with Belgian outfit Beveren – from where he has gone on to ply his trade in Ukraine, Greece, France, Spain and England.
Carlos Tevez
Carlos Tevez, became known as El Apache, after the crime-ridden Buenos Aires neighborhood of Fuerte Apache from which he emerged to become a beloved man of the people. Tevez has recounted tales of a childhood blighted by crime and deprivation, of walking to school in the morning past the bodies of slain neighbors in the street. He credits his dribbling ability to having to weave around shattered glass and syringes in an effort to avoid disease, all the while wearing boots so outgrown his toenails became stunted. The Argentine has called football “the best thing that can happen to you” – and it was his focus on the sport, rather than the life of crime others around him fell into, that allowed him to take advantage of his innate, unique ability.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic
What ingredients went into making the stew that is one-man show Zlatan Ibrahimovic? They certainly weren’t the sweetest available. Ibrahimovic was raised in the Rosengard district of Malmo, a place more renowned for swallowing youngsters whole than spitting out brilliant footballers. The Swede’s Bosnian father was an alcoholic, his Croatian mother something of a hard case – the pair split when a young Zlatan was two. Ibrahimovic was left to steal what he needed – at times, a bike to ride to training – developing his technical skills by playing a brand of street ball on a makeshift pitch in Rosengard with friends. Not until Ibrahimovic was 18 did he truly see his own potential as a footballer – and as they say, the rest is history.
Luis Suarez
Beloved in Montevideo, Luis Suarez spent the first years of his life instead in Salto, playing shoeless football in the streets. Not until he was seven – driven by his father’s unemployment – did the former Liverpool striker move along with his six siblings to the Uruguayan capital. Suarez’s family was often unable furnish him with boots to play with, while his father left the family behind when the Barcelona star was twelve. He struggled for focus during formative days at Nacional after falling in with a rough crowd – but Suarez has credited the hardships he faced as a youngster for fueling his desire to succeed in football.
It would appear as if playing in the streets can get you the training you need to be successful.
Knowledge is power folks.i always thought nate robinson would be a beast at soccer if he trained at a young age
Robert Trejo
Rookie
Van Basten, Luis Nazario Da Lima, Ruud Gullit, Bergkamp, Henry, Patrick Vieira, Zidane, Cristiano, Batistuta, Kaka, Kluivert, all of them are 6' and up, all of them were offensive players, all of them were beasts on the field
that jerry rice thought was too huge of a leap. for the simple fact, football = basketball travelling.You aren't WPOTY20116. But your thoughts on why Lebron, Durant, Westbrook would dominate are very flawed.
Yes, Lebron and Westbrook are athletic freaks. Soccer is a sport that combines athleticism with a skill that very few people can obtain at a high level. Being able to use and control the ball using only your feet is so much harder then being able to control a ball with your hands.
You equate dribbling the basketball down the court and making a shot as serious agility. Which it is. Try doing the same thing dribbling around and past defenders with your feet. It's so much tougher. Our hands and fingers are used as everyday tools. Our feet aren't. Thinking that being able to do one is as simple as the other is foolish.
You imagine Lebron and Durant just heading the ball down the field to each other without it touching the ground while all the smaller players do nothing? Meet Nigel de Jong.
And if your theory is that tall players have an advantage Peter Crouch who stands at 6'8" should be winning all the major awards because he's taller and can win headers over the smaller players. Yes, Peter Crouch isn't as athletic as Lebron, but his height has only helped him ever score 12 goals in an English Premier League season.
Thinking Westbrook would be the best soccer player ever. Come on. That's like thinking Jerry Rice would be an All-star in the NBA just because he's a GOAT at football doesn't mean he'd be able to do the things that make an All-star NBA player good. Two very different and unique skill sets are required. No different then soccer or baseball or golf.
*This post is from someone who grew up playing AAU Basketball and select soccer. Take what you want out of this post, but I have the background to know what I'm talking about.
yes you need agility in football and you need good hands to catch. but what you dont need is the ability to chew bubble gum while twerling a stick at the same time. thats what basketball is in comparison to football.
you're dribbling while weaving thru the defense. not just weaving thru with the ball under your arm pit. the only times football is 1:1 example with hoop. is defense, when someone makes a pass(like the QB), when someone catches a pass(like a receiver), or right before the catch when a player without the ball can move freely without being called for travel just like football. he will make cuts prior to catching the ball.
Jerry may have been a solid to great nba player. but i dont know if jerry could handle the ball while also making those moves. jerry could however been jj reddikk if he had a sweet jumper. meaning he could run his routes and cuts the same. and get open. that ability is the same regardless of the sport. he could catch. so no butterfingers for jerry. assuming he was wet. then he could have been JJ off the curl. but thats about it from what we know of jerry.
i know what you're saying. our feet are not like our hands in the sense we dont use our toes to pick up things and shoot, we have on normal shoes when playing sports. not those separated toe shoes(maybe they should use them in soccer..lol).
But i'm saying. we dont know if a bigger guy thats just as agile as a 5'9 guy with large feet. could be better or as good as the regular smaller guys/smaller hands.but we wont know that until those guys are in that scenario to be measured.
R.E.N. Spells Ren
Veteran
I always find it hilarious when people try to downplay the role of athleticism needed to play soccer. These guys are phenomenal athletes and absolutely use their athleticism. Obviously they have to develop the skills particular to soccer to succeed, but that's true of any sport.
"Dirt fields with a flat ball"?
Only people you see on those teams are the rich Africans. The others are trying to help their family pay for food and play on some dirt fields with a flat ball on their free time only. Welcome to real life
You been to Africa or only see what they show on tv?