What if American athletes...

Played football instead of American Football, basketball and to a lesser extent baseball. This is something me and my mates talk about all the time. Guys with the athletic ability of a NBA Point Guard or an NFL Cornerback, but with the technical ability of top footballers. And what if instead of playing basketball in the inner city ghettos, they all played football. Scary what the possibilities could be

 

This has often been a supposed upon back home in Australia, where there the talent pool is getting divvied up between AFL, rugby & league... and that football is down the list, yet have still managed to qualify for the past 2 world cups etc with a considerably smaller talent pool.

 

Well the U.S qualifies for basically every World Cup, but that's more because there in CONCAF which is absolute *. I just think the U.S. could be one of the best footballing nations in the world if football was the main sport.

 

I think football in the US has so much potential. Looks to me like they have the resources and finance to make it big but most people prefer the big 4 US sports which is a shame.

Don't a lot of people in America play football at a young age then swith to the other sports when they are more physically developed?

Looks like you have to be a real athlete to play those sports.

 

I think technique and tactics matter more. Just look at Spain... the most valued physical traits are balance and endurance, not necessarily size, speed, and strength. Obviously we'd be better, but only from the standpoint that we'd have more of a knowledge base and more kids would grow up with a good understanding of the game.

 

I almost agree.I dont think these guys would make it in football if they werent in their own sport.Maybe a few centre halfs and the odd big striker, but as you said regarding Spain....size means nothing.Barca....Messi Xabi Villa Iniesta....end of argument.Football is a different game entirely and speed and balance and tactics as you said, are far more important than size.I think Ronaldo is a freak having so much skill and balance for a man of his size, and he is only about 6'2'' i think.
(actually, having re-read your post, i think i did agree entirely didnt i?D'oh!)

 

It's the raw ability. I think what the point of the OP is - certainly how I interpereted it when raising the point about Australia, is that, given the infrastructure of many of the European nations have with football, where technique & tactics do come into it, as does positional sense etc, if that is on roughly the same level as exists then woulf the natural athletes that have gone into various other sports be able to be equally successful had they been raised in a culture where such talent is nurtured.

 

I think Russia has a similar population to the US, so it must therefore have about the same amount of big physically strong guys as the US, and is a football country, but they dont necessarily produce any more great bigger stature players.It is just raw ability with a ball at your feet, as you say.

 

I was referring more to America's ability to produce athletes (ex: NFL, NBA, Olympics) rather than population. If you just went by population than we should be talking about China.

 

Russia has less than half the population of the US and the discrepancy is growing, not getting smaller.

 

Almost every person who has played a sport in the USA has played football when they are young but its when they are really young and people are just kicking the ball about and being taught nothing about the tactics of the game.

Now that said for the overall debate well athlatisim matters alot in football but what matters alot more is haveing a football brain and technical ability. If football was number one idk but i can tell you alot of the players in the other sports if they where raised playing football whouldnt be that big

 

Spain can be countered by large amounts of running, which Americans are conditioned for. And their lack of size can hurt them defensively. But yes, football is a sport that American children start with, as a gate to other, more physical sports. So Americans have to play with people that are left over, but have still developed as good athletes. This is reflected in the playing style.

 

Of course it has.....i still think in terms of the USSR.

 

Ahh... that damned generational gap. Old man. :icon_mrgreen:

 

Just imagine for me...Lebron James, all 6'8 250 pounds of him, obviously a dedicated athlete but lets say instead of playing with a basketball from the age of 2 he was instead kicking around a footy. What you could have is a striker with the height of Peter Crouch, fast and direct as Gareth Bale, twice as strong as Drogba and with jumping ability far superior to any footballer. Scary

 

Lacina Traore is 6'8" and only a little slimmer, very athletic as well, but it takes more than size and athleticism. Also, LeBron is not as fast as Gareth Bale, not even close.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNaLIhzSYDI

Aye hes a snail

And does Lacina Traore look like this:

 

No, because he'd absolutely die if he ran 90 minutes with a physique like that. Just look at Jozy - that kid can't make it a full match because he's too muscular yet people salivate over his physique and talk about how we finally got an "athlete" to play soccer instead of another sport. In my high school we had kids who played football, got super ripped during that season, but then straight-up couldn't finish matches the first few weeks of soccer season until they were able to shed muscle. And I didn't say he was slow, just that Bale is faster, or quicker I should say.

It's just such an annoyingly simplistic diagnosis of why we've never produced a world class player and it hurts development when people think like this. Our problem isn't that we don't produce athletes that play soccer, our problem is that we don't produce soccer players that play soccer. Most of our soccer players (Edu, Onyewu, Altidore, Clark, Rogers, Hejduk, etc.) are actually really good athletes, they just didn't get the technical and tactical training they needed as kids. A muscled up Lebron who would have a mediocre understanding of the game and be gassed by the 60th minute isn't going to be a world-class player.

We also seem to be under this weird assumption that we have a monopoly on producing great athletes, but look at the track athletes from Jamaica (would they be world class if Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell et al had chosen soccer as well?), or basketball players from Europe, etc. I guess if all of them had chosen soccer, their athletic ability would have magically made all their countries the best in the world as well.

Anyways, I'm off to watch NZ and Australia play some Rugby. I'll weep for the poor nation of New Zealand... if only all those just insane Maori athletes (who would make Lebron * his pants tbh) had played soccer instead of Rugby they'd have won at least 3 World Cups by now...

 

A lot of footballers have similar physiques to LeBron, Onyewu and Drogba instantly pop to mind, and I think there might be a difference between your high schools athletes and a man like LeBron. And I guarantee if Lebron and Bale ran a 40 yard dash the only way Bale would win if it was by a milisecond.

And about atheletes and technique, my original thoughts were more about what if football was the main sport in America, so there is no baseball, basketball or gridiron. Then you have kids like LeBron and Wade, and instead of playing countless, countless hours of basketball year round, they instead spend all of that time on the football pitch.

And we do have a monopoly on athletes :icon_mrgreen: Okay, so Jamaica produced a few sprinters, Kenya can produce a few long distance runners and China has some * awesome ping pong players. But the U.S. can spread its talent out over dozens of sports.

And Lebron * his pants He's 6'8 250 and from a rough upbringing in Akron, I think he could handle himself. Oh and by the way I don't even like LeBron that much, I've spent my whole life playing basketball and it's hard being a 6'3 white kid and trying to appreciate what a giant, behemoth of a man is doing on the court. Steve Nash all the way (and Ricky Rubio)