The Blue Board

Ok congrats we have 9 out of 135... USA beat China 4-1 the other day fyi

Here are a few points. I am not a huge soccer guy so they may not be accurate but these are my thoughts.
- in the United States in the middle and upper-class play basketball, football, baseball and it now even hockey and lacrosse more or as much as soccer. However, that is not where the soccer talent is hurt. There are plenty of people in United States, but the problem is the lower-class. In the soccer successful countries the lower class plays soccer in the United States they are almost exclusively played basketball.

- you mention swimming and track being dominated by the United States. Once again it is a matter of means i would be willing to bet more developed countries excel and swimming. This is not due to a lack of pools as much as is as it is the technology involved with swimming. Track is the same way. The US dominates the technology advanced aspects of track which are short distance. Once we see long distance which is easier for less-developed countries to excel and then we see United States wins their damage.

- when it comes to women there are really only three or four sports they can play and most gravitate towards basketball or soccer. Volleyball and softball are there as well but I would be willing to bet they're a distant third and fourth. add in that there are still a great amount of countries where women are not included in the athletic landscape until much later in their lives if at all.

The men's game is every bit as top heavy. Going into the world cup everyone knows it will be one of 5-6 teams every time. No reason the US shouldn't be in that discussion on the men's side.

Flopping is part of soccer, but it needs to be removed. Refs need to pay more attention to it. If you're rolling around in pain then the ref needs to send that player off for 10-15 minutes. Maybe that'll force people to stop faking.

But, flopping is becoming a HUGE issue in basketball as well.

The problem with US soccer starts at the ODP level. There's so much politics that goes into who gets selected. Also it's not free program and in today economy not alot of families can afford it. Also the US drags it feet with helping non American get citizenship. A prime example is Raul Mendiola from so cal. Everyone knew about this kid since he was 10 years old. He was US soccer academy development MVP for two years playing with kids older then him. To make long story short the family tried to get US soccer to sponsor him for citizenship but US soccer said they wanted to wait a couple of years before they sponsor him to make sure it benefits them. He end up training with the under 17 Mexican national team and just came back from being on loan with Manchester City and Sevilla.

I would just like to know how Kyle Beckerman keeps getting called into game action?

It has already been said many times but to reiterate...we don't care enough about soccer in the U.S. to compete with countries where soccer is the #1 sport BY FAR and that's most countries. Soccer is what, the 5th or 6th most popular sport to play here? Football, baseball, basketball, hockey are more popular. Lacrosse is getting bigger and wrestling is up there too. As far as watching, more people watch NASCAR. We simply don't care about soccer enough to be world beaters. Our best athletes gravitate towards several other sports and there's a reason for that...soccer is a gay sport for little sissy men who like to flop but don't like using their hands.

Women's soccer is very popular here. We rule at it. Women's softball is big. We rock. It's simple. If we focused on soccer then we would dominate. Imagine our best athletes across all sports playing soccer...would be unfair. That will never happen though for one simple but very good reason...soccer blows.

That will never happen in our lifetime. The big three sports in this country are far too popular. Parents and coaches will push kids towards those big three sports. I know I will when I have kids. I don't want my son playing soccer because it almost always leads to a love of penis.

All these people calling soccer players gay are ignorant. Have you seen a lot of the stars' wives? They smoke the hell out of the wives our superstars have.

If America could win more consistently the fans and support would soon follow. With success brings more people wanting to play.

Yeah thats why I hate soccer. Those euros brought that crap over from europe and now its ruining the NBA

Soccer just sucks. It's boring to watch. I couldn't even watch the Olympics a couple summers back because of how much flopping occured. Those guys complain just as much as NBA players do it's pathetic and basically unwatchable.

Soccer is gay who gives a chit