USA Soccer Wins in Major Upset!

The United States has long turned out world class athletes that have dominated their respective sports on the international scene. However, in the Sport of Soccer/Football/Futbol, or whatever you call it, the USA has long been lacking in putting together a team that can compete with the best in the world. I believe the problem lies with the lack of quality coaching, coupled with the lack of development teams that, in Europe and dominant Latin American countries, accompany every major team. While players are recognized for their talent at a young age here just as in other countries, often times the elite athlete is lured away to play American Football(which makes no sense because you do not even use your feet, but that is a whole other argument), or basketball, or even baseball. Why would they do this if they have the talent to play elite soccer for their country? It all comes down to Benjamins. The professional soccer league in the United States does not have the capital to lure young athletes into sport of soccer because they do not have the ability to pay the athletes the way the other major sports do, this even includes hockey. So why is the sport that is the most popular among children 12 an under in the United States so lacking among the rest of the world? There is no way of truly knowing, but I do believe that at some point the children are hearing whispers that if they want to make any sort of living playing sports in this country, they need to forget about soccer and move into one of the other four major sports. What they are not being told however, is that they can make just as much if not more playing for teams in Europe, especially England, Spain and Italy. This will be the only chance the United States will ever have to compete for a World Cup title, unless our country can finally embrace soccer, and give it the financial backing that it needs to keep elite athletes in the game.

Yesterday, the United States soccer team did something that they had only done once before in its history ; they beat the number one ranked team in the world. In a Confederations Cup semi-final match, the USA beat Spain 2-0 to advance to the final of the Cup to face the winner of the semi-final match between Brazil and host country South Africa. The United States showed flashes of brilliance in the match, but it was a couple of fortuitous bounces that enables the USA to score those two goals. The match was clearly dominated by the Spaniards, as they controlled the midfield, and created far more scoring chances, and the more dangerous ones. It was the stellar goal keeping of Tim Howard and the strong central defense of Oguchi Onyewu and Jay DeMerit that kept Spain of the scoring sheet. While this is not the World Cup, and if the two teams were to play again, I do not know that the result would be the same, but in a knock-out round, the better team does not always win, just the more opportunistic one. The United States showed that they have the athletes to compete, but they also showed that they lack the experience some other squads have, but the result remains the same, USA 2-Spain 0.

Have a great day, and Rock and Roll Sports Fans!!