Quote:
Originally Posted by travric
Re: 'can't compete on international level yet'
You know if it's winning the 'big one' I 'd agree with that. ... I think it just goes to show that at the level we played it there's kind of thin line between winning and losing....One day it will be the US to raise that Cup.....
|
I'm here to concur. The US Natl team has shown that they can more than compete with international teams. Also Brian yep you're not a troll. But I'll disagree with your opinion that our team is somehow inferior to international teams. They can and will beat ANY national team, and I'll try to show evidence at the end of the post.
We Surpassed at FWC
TeamUSA did much better than many of the other team who went home early. England and Portugal, for instance. In the game that knocked us out, we lost in OVERTIME and only by one point. This is important to me because our team had basically been jet lagged and playing hard in sweltering heat for the
entire group round.
Even relatively fresh Germany only beat us by ONE POINT. Weren't they supposed to destroy us like they did Portugal? One point was all they could manage after playing in good conditions for the whole tournament while team USA had been suffering.
...Despite Significant Hardships
We had THE hardest group round in the entire FWC this year. We had ALL our games in the North...hot and humid. We had long flights for each game. I'm not an athlete, but whenever I have a flight, I need to sleep for like a day afterwards, but our guys got up and PRACTICED and PLAYED. Then they got on the plane and did it again.
So they were very beat up and maybe not as sharp and got hurt... These conditions can kill even a fit person. But they survived.
And not only survived and gave us some good games..but they also managed to beat some a$$. And as far as their last game. It disappointed me, but frankly FIFA made sure with the draw that our guys were half dead by the time we crawled out of the group stage. The Belgas were fresh, and our team was fried, boiled and pickled.
Our Overall Record is Good
I'm responding because God Forbid there are other people who saw our performance this year and who think the team "cannot compete on an international level." How many MORE people does Team USA have to beat? Before FWC, who did our team beat in 2013 and 2014?
Germany 4-3 June 2013
Guatemala 6-0 July 2013
Belize 6-1 July 2013
Cuba 4-1 July 2013
Costa Rica 1-0 July 2013
El Salvador 5-1 July 2013
Honduras 3-1 July 2013
Panama 1-0 July 2013
Bosnia 4-3 August 2013
Republic of Korea 2-0 Feb 2014
Azerbijan 2-0 May 2014
Turkey 2-1 June 2014
Nigeria 2-1 June 2014
Ghana 2-1 June 2014
We did pretty well. Before FWC we won 68% of our games. If you add ties, our success percentage was 84%. That's pretty respectable.
I'm just wondering if FIFA was scared that we would rock the boat at the World Cup. I'll agree that all the players may not have been physically at their best for every World Cup game. But what do you expect? Flying 9000 miles, and playing in the hottest and most humid locations for EVERY one of our games. I'm surprised we lived, much less only lost by one point in the semis.
MNT Matches - U.S. Soccer
BTW even if I'll disagree and try to refute opinions on this thread, I'm loving that people participate. Please feel free to voice your opinion even if you want to flame the team. I'm not promising I'll be nice to you, but you have a right to write what you want. This is a free country.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Good luck, Seattle!
