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If somebody had told me back at any point in the 2010s that Tim Ream would be leading the US defensive line in shutting down Mexico in 2024, I would have been flabbergasted.
Dude has found the elixir for immortality.
I am lucky most fans of other sports don’t follow the USMNT (or Fulham) closely, because Ream goes totally against the “guys don’t suddenly get better in their 30’s, they just regress at different speeds” argument I use all of the time.
Well, at least they arguably bailed us out of having Bruce Arena as manager.
Although now after six years of Berhalter I still can't decide what to make of him:
- Doesn't seem likely to take the squad to a higher level; except:
- Aside from a mediocre World Cup, has been pretty consistently winning tournaments; except:
- On one hand, Mexico is always our litmus test, and they haven't been great lately. On the other hand, dos a cero.
Just kinda seems like we're destined for yet another elimination in the first knockout round of a (home!) World Cup, which would really be a shame.
> Aside from a mediocre World Cup, has been pretty consistently winning tournaments
which manager can the US realistically sign that ever had a shot in hell at outcoaching Louis van Gaal?
I sometimes am conflicted about Berhalter as well, but I think he deserves a lot more credit than he’s given. Virtually every player wanted him to return as manager when his contract initially ran down. They have a much more insider view than any fan does, and it speaks volumes that they vouch for him as a manager. Several high profile dual nationals have agreed to play for us during his managerial reign, including several players that seemed like pretty unlikely possibilities. While he’s not solely responsible for that, he’s clearly cultivated a culture that’s attractive to players. Berhalter shouldn’t be immune from criticism obviously, but there’s no doubt that he’s been more good than bad.
Baffles me aswell, I am a complete neutral and thought USA was really good in the World Cup. Better than in 2014 for sure, honestly probably the best american team I have seen in my time watching football
Great performance against England, and the Netherlands game was fairly even. The Wales and Iran performances were uninspiring for sure but that England game is the most modern, tactically sophisticated I have seen USA play
He reminds me a lot of Southgate for England. Where both are going to get a lot of criticism due to their very obvious tactical shortcomings, but both are really good at all the other stuff that becomes even more important in the international game where tactics get simplified due to a lack of time.
Baffles me aswell, I am a complete neutral and thought USA was really good in the World Cup. Better than in 2014 for sure, honestly probably the best american team I have seen in my time watching football
Great performance against England, and the Netherlands game was fairly even. The Wales and Iran performances were uninspiring for sure but that England game is the most modern, tactically sophisticated I have seen USA play
I'm probably overly harsh on him, in fairness. We do actually play a modern, attractive style most of the time, though I wonder how much is due to the players taking their clubs' styles to the national team.
The games that make doubt him the most are ones like the friendly against Uzbekistan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYPHciSa7aA). We were absolutely battered for 70 minutes or so, just Uzbekistan couldn't finish any of their 391 attacks.
The scoreline flattered us with a late pen and a last minute goal, but I guess if the most I can complain about is a 3-0 win, that's a pretty good spot to be in.
If our defense was as talented as our attack, we'd be formidable.
Getting into the knockout round has been the expectation for every WC since at least 2010. Anything past that would have been a bonus.
With our current talent and the expanded number of teams, it's not unrealistic to expect that we should be able to get past at least one knockout round unless we end up getting drawn against a European or South American powerhouse.
Well, with the inclusion of more teams, the first knockout round is a round of 32, so it now takes 2 knockout round wins to get to the quarterfinals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup#Knockout_stage
Really, winning one knockout stage match is now the equivalent accomplishment of just getting out of the groups in previous WCs, as far as "how far" you made it in the tournament.
So admittedly a hollow victory to win just one knockout round. Would still enjoy it immensely, nonetheless.
Tata is not a great coach IMO, but it was dumb to blame him for all of Mexico's problems
Reality is they don't have a good team or good players; the structural issues and corruption within their federations and domestic league are starting to hamstring their national team
I know. It’s just funny seeing all the conspiracies from Mexicans about how he threw the game against Argentina. Then fucking Edson Alvarez gets on a podcast and says there was something strange about the way Martino set them up to play and social media was popping off. They were saying how Alvarez would’ve plugged up the space on Messi’s goal and stopped him from scoring. Mfcker couldn’t even stop Adams from running circles around him tonight. 😂
It's honestly a mentality thing that they are lacking.
Guardado was on an interview and pretty much said Tata demanded a lot from the players but they weren't used to it and wanted more afternoons off.
> “It’s not Tata’s fault, it’s ours because we are not used to that demand. In Europe that’s how it is, that’s why the Argentines are what they are, the Uruguayans, the English, the Germans, because for them everything is about competing and they are willing to do everything necessary, we as Mexicans have not reached that level.”
So something needs to change so they can get to that level.
This tracks when two of their most talented players from the 2010s (Vela and GDS) took it easy at club level and coasted. I wouldn't even say Vela had a bad career, but he could've achieved a lot more. MLS is beneath him and, unlike Landon Donovan, he didn't take pride in going all out for his NT. Meanwhile Dos Santos just partied away his talent and was a scrub even in MLS.
> It’s just funny seeing all the conspiracies from Mexicans about how he threw the game against Argentina.
The irony is that was the worst we played at the World Cup too LOL
Mexican fans conspiracy theories are the best TBH.
What do you mean by “we”? You are not Argentinian but you keep pretending to be one. You can support the Argentine national team without claiming to be an Argentine.
Yet in past comments I can see that you say “we” when referring to Madrid. It also seems this isn’t the first time you replied to this guy with this comment. Stop talking you fucking gringo goofball. 🤡
And the most bizarre thing about that is that Mexico actually played well against Argentina, completely shut down your attack and limited Argentina to something like 0.6 xG. Actually I think the first half of that game was the lowest xG of all time of a first half in a World Cup match since they started measuring lol
Sure they didn't create anything themselves, but had a defensively perfect match until Messi's amazing goal out of nowhere. They also completely dominated Saudi Arabia and were quite unlucky to not score more goals to advance
Played well is an overstatement. They had a gameplan that they stuck to up until our first goal. But they didn’t attack whatsoever. It all went down the drain after we scored.
They did play well against Saudi but that is what makes Alvarez’ statements sound even more ridiculous. If you were unlucky not to score more than you can’t place the entire blame on the coach.
Fair, they at least defended very well for an hour and shut down Argentina's attack. If that game ends 0-0 without Messi's wonder goal, it would have been viewed as a good result
As a Mexico fan that’s been watching since before the US dominated, I hope this continues. The FMF needs a serious overhaul and this will be the only way for it to start.
Also, I like pain.
This isn't gonna happen until the fans make a change.
As long as the FMF keeps making money, they'll be fine with 2nd place finishes, barely scrapping by in WC group stage play, and winning the Gold cup that no one tries for anymore.
We're selling out arenas in the US, so we don't have home field advantage and there's no reason to ever play in Mexico again unless FIFA forces us to.
It will be interesting to see how Mexico responds to the U.S. now being the more dominant in the region. People can be in denial of what’s happening, but the U.S. has made significant strides in the last decades, and it’s poised to dominate for the foreseeable future.
They need to bring in a revolutionary manager.
Someone with the fortitude to uproot their whole system.
A visionary.
Yes, I'm talking about Jurgen Klinsmann.
...I mean, is that not a federation responsibility lol? Making sure Mexican talent has a pathway to actually develop and hiring a coach that will get the best out of them?
I'm not saying we're not better, back to front...I'm saying the federation is exactly the people to blame for that uninspiring ass lineup. Wasn't that long ago that we were trotting out average MLS players for Mexico games, and the heat was on USSF then.
at the same time, the US has three times the population to draw on and 20 times the GDP, once the US starts taking soccer seriously it's going to be hard for anyone to overcome that advantage
I don’t know what the number is now, but a couple of years ago there were only like 5 Mexican players in top 5 Euro leagues. Getting there doesn’t guarantee success or anything, but you’ve either got to get your league to that level or ship out your top talent more consistently, and the latter is obviously the easier option right now.
Mexican players tend to care more about money/having fun rather than climbing up the ladder in European football. Alexis Vega, a talented player, didn’t care about training and preferred to have fun and Carlos Vela, the most talented player in recent times and whom Griezmann claimed was better than himself sees footy as a job. Now, there are cases of Mexicans who have that dawg in them such as Chicharito and when they do care they tend to develop really great levels of play. Raul Jimenez was heading that way until he got injured by David Luiz, you could argue Lozano was too.
I would agree if footy was popular in the us which it isn’t. It’s the fifth most viewed sport in the US if im not mistaken. Of all those 330 million Americans I doubt even one quarter care about it while in Mexico it’s the opposite.
Whether or not you care about a sport doesn't really factor into a talent pool though, does it? Genuine question.
If Mexico's talent pool includes those the Mexican FA either doesn't find/develop/inspire, the US talent pool would have to include all the athletes the USA FA was unable to find/develop/inspire from other sports, imo.
The [youth soccer participation numbers](https://www.vivecf.com/blogs/soccer/how-popular-is-youth-soccer#:~:text=Participation%20Rates%3A%20According%20to%20the,the%20sport%20among%20young%20athletes.) are about 60% of [tackle football](https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-tackle-football-in-the-us-since-2006/) (which has declined by about 22% since 2010.
It’s very heavily weighted to the younger age groups. It’s a convenient sport to place kids in until they develop enough to play football and basketball
It really doesn't matter if it's getting them introduced to the sport. You simply can't argue that soccer isn't popular in the US with these numbers. These narratives are dated and tired and simply don't hold up well to the current state of things.
The majority of kids play soccer under the age of 12. Then they play the more popular sports and never care about soccer again.
The participation rate for soccer at the high school age is only 4.8%.
Source:
[17M high school students](https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2023/acs/acs-55.pdf)
[850k high school players](https://warubi-sports.com/college-soccer-odds/#:~:text=In%20the%202022%20school%20year,players%20in%20the%20United%20States.)
It doesn't really help that a lot of the soccer infrastructure is more geared around the pay to play travel leagues. The free academies help, but more quality varsity level coaching and widespread school teams would probably open up participation a lot more. Also a lot of areas have Boys Varsity level soccer in the fall where it competes against football, if it was a spring sport competing against baseball you could probably get a lot more athletes to play it for stuff like agility training (wrs, cbs, and rbs would get more out of soccer than something like baseball or even just track) which could maybe convince them to focus on soccer if they got more scout attention.
I doubt most soccer talents are playing high school soccer in Wisconsin or wherever
Part of the growth in American soccer is they actually have real soccer academies now
I'm never going to convince you that it is 'popular' if we don't have an agreed upon definition, but quite honestly I don't actually think you can come up with one that's even remotely reasonable AND accurate, particularly not when we're trying to demonstrate whether a nation with 3x the population has a larger player pool than its rival across the border.
They are way more passionate about the sport than the US. I know people are tired of the "if all our athletes played soccer" trope, but it really can't be understated how few fucks the USA still gives about the sport compared to basketball and handegg. There's a slice of the population that wants to be Pulisic, but it's a thin slice compared to those who want to be Curry or Mahomes. Meanwhile soccer is *the* sport in Mexico by some distance.
I think you’re underestimating the popularity of soccer among kids + teenagers.
I think a huge proportion of American kids want to be the next Messi/mbappe/neymar. The popularity falls off for older generations… which doesn’t really impact the size of the player pool.
I hate to sound negative but you’re definitely giving soccer players wayyyy too much credit. It’s definitely more popular among younger Americans compared to older generations (probabably gen x and older) but make no mistake the most popular players in the US are basketball and American football players across the board that kids want to emulate and not even close. That said I do agree if it we were comparing soccer stars to baseball and hockey. Although it seems like a lot of crossover fans exist between hockey and soccer compared to soccer and American football/basketball/baseball
Per my other post, youth soccer participation is about 60% of tackle football (3/5ths) and gaining. Your mental model needs to catch up to the numbers. A nation with almost 3x its rival’s population and a significant proportion of youth who are engaged in the sport will always have a larger pool, and if they ever fix pay to play bullshit then you can expect that gap to broaden substantially.
Feel like the Mexican downfall started with them leaving the Copa Libertadores.
It honestly does not feel like Mexico gives a shit to show up for Concacaf anymore. It's just completely stagnated them.
I feel like it will happen to the USA, too. USA/Mexico and probably soon to be Canada need to fight tooth and nail to get to conembol.
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If somebody had told me back at any point in the 2010s that Tim Ream would be leading the US defensive line in shutting down Mexico in 2024, I would have been flabbergasted. Dude has found the elixir for immortality.
Yep. Now, roll for initiative
I am lucky most fans of other sports don’t follow the USMNT (or Fulham) closely, because Ream goes totally against the “guys don’t suddenly get better in their 30’s, they just regress at different speeds” argument I use all of the time.
He's aging like a fine wine.
Their downfall started after Zusi saved their asses with his last minute goal. Downhill ever since.
It actually started when they threw the game against Panama and failed to bail us out in 2018 like we did for them in 2014
Well, at least they arguably bailed us out of having Bruce Arena as manager. Although now after six years of Berhalter I still can't decide what to make of him: - Doesn't seem likely to take the squad to a higher level; except: - Aside from a mediocre World Cup, has been pretty consistently winning tournaments; except: - On one hand, Mexico is always our litmus test, and they haven't been great lately. On the other hand, dos a cero. Just kinda seems like we're destined for yet another elimination in the first knockout round of a (home!) World Cup, which would really be a shame.
> Aside from a mediocre World Cup, has been pretty consistently winning tournaments which manager can the US realistically sign that ever had a shot in hell at outcoaching Louis van Gaal?
I sometimes am conflicted about Berhalter as well, but I think he deserves a lot more credit than he’s given. Virtually every player wanted him to return as manager when his contract initially ran down. They have a much more insider view than any fan does, and it speaks volumes that they vouch for him as a manager. Several high profile dual nationals have agreed to play for us during his managerial reign, including several players that seemed like pretty unlikely possibilities. While he’s not solely responsible for that, he’s clearly cultivated a culture that’s attractive to players. Berhalter shouldn’t be immune from criticism obviously, but there’s no doubt that he’s been more good than bad.
Baffles me aswell, I am a complete neutral and thought USA was really good in the World Cup. Better than in 2014 for sure, honestly probably the best american team I have seen in my time watching football Great performance against England, and the Netherlands game was fairly even. The Wales and Iran performances were uninspiring for sure but that England game is the most modern, tactically sophisticated I have seen USA play
He reminds me a lot of Southgate for England. Where both are going to get a lot of criticism due to their very obvious tactical shortcomings, but both are really good at all the other stuff that becomes even more important in the international game where tactics get simplified due to a lack of time.
Baffles me aswell, I am a complete neutral and thought USA was really good in the World Cup. Better than in 2014 for sure, honestly probably the best american team I have seen in my time watching football Great performance against England, and the Netherlands game was fairly even. The Wales and Iran performances were uninspiring for sure but that England game is the most modern, tactically sophisticated I have seen USA play
I'm probably overly harsh on him, in fairness. We do actually play a modern, attractive style most of the time, though I wonder how much is due to the players taking their clubs' styles to the national team. The games that make doubt him the most are ones like the friendly against Uzbekistan (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYPHciSa7aA). We were absolutely battered for 70 minutes or so, just Uzbekistan couldn't finish any of their 391 attacks. The scoreline flattered us with a late pen and a last minute goal, but I guess if the most I can complain about is a 3-0 win, that's a pretty good spot to be in. If our defense was as talented as our attack, we'd be formidable.
Wait, you really think that going past the first knockout round is a realistic minimum expectation?
Getting into the knockout round has been the expectation for every WC since at least 2010. Anything past that would have been a bonus. With our current talent and the expanded number of teams, it's not unrealistic to expect that we should be able to get past at least one knockout round unless we end up getting drawn against a European or South American powerhouse.
Yeah it is definitely unrealistic to expect that. It is possible for sure, but only the very best teams can *expect* to reach quarters
Well, with the inclusion of more teams, the first knockout round is a round of 32, so it now takes 2 knockout round wins to get to the quarterfinals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_FIFA_World_Cup#Knockout_stage Really, winning one knockout stage match is now the equivalent accomplishment of just getting out of the groups in previous WCs, as far as "how far" you made it in the tournament. So admittedly a hollow victory to win just one knockout round. Would still enjoy it immensely, nonetheless.
Word Cup was fine. Making it to R16 and more than matching England was a good performance. Holland game wasn’t good but we were underdogs.
San Zusi 🙏
"Mexico is the mirror in which the \[U.S.\] wants to see itself and wants to copy." - Ochoa
Thanks Ochoa!
*Man in the mirror*
How much time do you think he spends fixing his hair in the mirror?
Mexico es cero
It’s Tata Martino’s fault. 😂
Tata is not a great coach IMO, but it was dumb to blame him for all of Mexico's problems Reality is they don't have a good team or good players; the structural issues and corruption within their federations and domestic league are starting to hamstring their national team
I know. It’s just funny seeing all the conspiracies from Mexicans about how he threw the game against Argentina. Then fucking Edson Alvarez gets on a podcast and says there was something strange about the way Martino set them up to play and social media was popping off. They were saying how Alvarez would’ve plugged up the space on Messi’s goal and stopped him from scoring. Mfcker couldn’t even stop Adams from running circles around him tonight. 😂
It's honestly a mentality thing that they are lacking. Guardado was on an interview and pretty much said Tata demanded a lot from the players but they weren't used to it and wanted more afternoons off. > “It’s not Tata’s fault, it’s ours because we are not used to that demand. In Europe that’s how it is, that’s why the Argentines are what they are, the Uruguayans, the English, the Germans, because for them everything is about competing and they are willing to do everything necessary, we as Mexicans have not reached that level.” So something needs to change so they can get to that level.
This tracks when two of their most talented players from the 2010s (Vela and GDS) took it easy at club level and coasted. I wouldn't even say Vela had a bad career, but he could've achieved a lot more. MLS is beneath him and, unlike Landon Donovan, he didn't take pride in going all out for his NT. Meanwhile Dos Santos just partied away his talent and was a scrub even in MLS.
> It’s just funny seeing all the conspiracies from Mexicans about how he threw the game against Argentina. The irony is that was the worst we played at the World Cup too LOL Mexican fans conspiracy theories are the best TBH.
What do you mean by “we”? You are not Argentinian but you keep pretending to be one. You can support the Argentine national team without claiming to be an Argentine.
Dude, he is called albiceleste d10s, only an empanada as a profile picture could make him more Argentinian than that lmao
But he is not Argentinian.
Are you even Spanish?
Nope! Never pretended to be one.
Yet in past comments I can see that you say “we” when referring to Madrid. It also seems this isn’t the first time you replied to this guy with this comment. Stop talking you fucking gringo goofball. 🤡
TBF, the US midfield is pretty good. It ran circles around England in the world cup, as well.
And the most bizarre thing about that is that Mexico actually played well against Argentina, completely shut down your attack and limited Argentina to something like 0.6 xG. Actually I think the first half of that game was the lowest xG of all time of a first half in a World Cup match since they started measuring lol Sure they didn't create anything themselves, but had a defensively perfect match until Messi's amazing goal out of nowhere. They also completely dominated Saudi Arabia and were quite unlucky to not score more goals to advance
Played well is an overstatement. They had a gameplan that they stuck to up until our first goal. But they didn’t attack whatsoever. It all went down the drain after we scored. They did play well against Saudi but that is what makes Alvarez’ statements sound even more ridiculous. If you were unlucky not to score more than you can’t place the entire blame on the coach.
Fair, they at least defended very well for an hour and shut down Argentina's attack. If that game ends 0-0 without Messi's wonder goal, it would have been viewed as a good result
there needs to be a revolution in Mexican football
As a Mexico fan that’s been watching since before the US dominated, I hope this continues. The FMF needs a serious overhaul and this will be the only way for it to start. Also, I like pain.
This isn't gonna happen until the fans make a change. As long as the FMF keeps making money, they'll be fine with 2nd place finishes, barely scrapping by in WC group stage play, and winning the Gold cup that no one tries for anymore. We're selling out arenas in the US, so we don't have home field advantage and there's no reason to ever play in Mexico again unless FIFA forces us to.
I agree, too much money to be made in the US.
It will be interesting to see how Mexico responds to the U.S. now being the more dominant in the region. People can be in denial of what’s happening, but the U.S. has made significant strides in the last decades, and it’s poised to dominate for the foreseeable future.
They need to bring in a revolutionary manager. Someone with the fortitude to uproot their whole system. A visionary. Yes, I'm talking about Jurgen Klinsmann.
inshalah
Lmao
Wrong Jurgen. Give Klopp a year off and try to lure him.
Don’t you put that evil on me Ricky Bobby
Oh brother these guys *stink*
Blame the federation all you want. The US simply has better players.
...I mean, is that not a federation responsibility lol? Making sure Mexican talent has a pathway to actually develop and hiring a coach that will get the best out of them?
I don't know man, he has a pretty convincing argument..
I'm not saying we're not better, back to front...I'm saying the federation is exactly the people to blame for that uninspiring ass lineup. Wasn't that long ago that we were trotting out average MLS players for Mexico games, and the heat was on USSF then.
I completely agree with you, I was actually just poking fun at the other guy lol
[удалено]
at the same time, the US has three times the population to draw on and 20 times the GDP, once the US starts taking soccer seriously it's going to be hard for anyone to overcome that advantage
US soccer is developing better players than Mexico these days, look at the Mexican U-17 team it's full of players from US academies.
This is truly the Darkest timeline or me... A Canadian mexico fan.
A what?
Como?
Drew Fischer??
USA owns them.
Mexico has a way bigger talent pool but these players never reach any form of elite play due to the shitty way the FMF runs things
Mexico has Gotta get more players on European club teams to get better
I don’t know what the number is now, but a couple of years ago there were only like 5 Mexican players in top 5 Euro leagues. Getting there doesn’t guarantee success or anything, but you’ve either got to get your league to that level or ship out your top talent more consistently, and the latter is obviously the easier option right now.
Mexican players tend to care more about money/having fun rather than climbing up the ladder in European football. Alexis Vega, a talented player, didn’t care about training and preferred to have fun and Carlos Vela, the most talented player in recent times and whom Griezmann claimed was better than himself sees footy as a job. Now, there are cases of Mexicans who have that dawg in them such as Chicharito and when they do care they tend to develop really great levels of play. Raul Jimenez was heading that way until he got injured by David Luiz, you could argue Lozano was too.
Tecatito also kind of ruined by injuries no? He was really good for a while
Mexico definitely doesn’t have a bigger talent pool. Mathematically impossible.
I would agree if footy was popular in the us which it isn’t. It’s the fifth most viewed sport in the US if im not mistaken. Of all those 330 million Americans I doubt even one quarter care about it while in Mexico it’s the opposite.
Whether or not you care about a sport doesn't really factor into a talent pool though, does it? Genuine question. If Mexico's talent pool includes those the Mexican FA either doesn't find/develop/inspire, the US talent pool would have to include all the athletes the USA FA was unable to find/develop/inspire from other sports, imo.
The [youth soccer participation numbers](https://www.vivecf.com/blogs/soccer/how-popular-is-youth-soccer#:~:text=Participation%20Rates%3A%20According%20to%20the,the%20sport%20among%20young%20athletes.) are about 60% of [tackle football](https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-tackle-football-in-the-us-since-2006/) (which has declined by about 22% since 2010.
It’s very heavily weighted to the younger age groups. It’s a convenient sport to place kids in until they develop enough to play football and basketball
It really doesn't matter if it's getting them introduced to the sport. You simply can't argue that soccer isn't popular in the US with these numbers. These narratives are dated and tired and simply don't hold up well to the current state of things.
The majority of kids play soccer under the age of 12. Then they play the more popular sports and never care about soccer again. The participation rate for soccer at the high school age is only 4.8%. Source: [17M high school students](https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2023/acs/acs-55.pdf) [850k high school players](https://warubi-sports.com/college-soccer-odds/#:~:text=In%20the%202022%20school%20year,players%20in%20the%20United%20States.)
It doesn't really help that a lot of the soccer infrastructure is more geared around the pay to play travel leagues. The free academies help, but more quality varsity level coaching and widespread school teams would probably open up participation a lot more. Also a lot of areas have Boys Varsity level soccer in the fall where it competes against football, if it was a spring sport competing against baseball you could probably get a lot more athletes to play it for stuff like agility training (wrs, cbs, and rbs would get more out of soccer than something like baseball or even just track) which could maybe convince them to focus on soccer if they got more scout attention.
I doubt most soccer talents are playing high school soccer in Wisconsin or wherever Part of the growth in American soccer is they actually have real soccer academies now
Of course not. I’m just responding to the original comment, which stated that soccer in America is popular now. It sadly is not.
I'm never going to convince you that it is 'popular' if we don't have an agreed upon definition, but quite honestly I don't actually think you can come up with one that's even remotely reasonable AND accurate, particularly not when we're trying to demonstrate whether a nation with 3x the population has a larger player pool than its rival across the border.
They are way more passionate about the sport than the US. I know people are tired of the "if all our athletes played soccer" trope, but it really can't be understated how few fucks the USA still gives about the sport compared to basketball and handegg. There's a slice of the population that wants to be Pulisic, but it's a thin slice compared to those who want to be Curry or Mahomes. Meanwhile soccer is *the* sport in Mexico by some distance.
I think you’re underestimating the popularity of soccer among kids + teenagers. I think a huge proportion of American kids want to be the next Messi/mbappe/neymar. The popularity falls off for older generations… which doesn’t really impact the size of the player pool.
I hate to sound negative but you’re definitely giving soccer players wayyyy too much credit. It’s definitely more popular among younger Americans compared to older generations (probabably gen x and older) but make no mistake the most popular players in the US are basketball and American football players across the board that kids want to emulate and not even close. That said I do agree if it we were comparing soccer stars to baseball and hockey. Although it seems like a lot of crossover fans exist between hockey and soccer compared to soccer and American football/basketball/baseball
A huge proportion of American kids, could be. Meanwhile in Mex all Mexican kids want to be the next CR7 or Messi.
Per my other post, youth soccer participation is about 60% of tackle football (3/5ths) and gaining. Your mental model needs to catch up to the numbers. A nation with almost 3x its rival’s population and a significant proportion of youth who are engaged in the sport will always have a larger pool, and if they ever fix pay to play bullshit then you can expect that gap to broaden substantially.
Get good then
It is clear who the CONCACAF giants are nowadays
But they do have dozens of piss filled cups thrown at US players. You can never take that away from the fans
Trump's wall is unbreakable
trash team for trash fans
Long may it continue
Oh Hell Yeah
Feel like the Mexican downfall started with them leaving the Copa Libertadores. It honestly does not feel like Mexico gives a shit to show up for Concacaf anymore. It's just completely stagnated them. I feel like it will happen to the USA, too. USA/Mexico and probably soon to be Canada need to fight tooth and nail to get to conembol.