Quote from southamerica:
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optionpro007: It is going to take at the very minimum a couple of generations of soccer loving fans in the US to come up with a team to compete, but I know it will take much longer.... if it ever happens.
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June 24, 2006
SouthAmerica: Reply to optionpro007
Donât get discouraged â there is a lot the US can do to improve its soccer team and become one of the elite teams in the world.
The US was in the right track when they created the league in the 1970âs with the Cosmos and other very good teams.
The league was not much before 1977 when they brought Pele to play for the Cosmos.
Pele opened the door and the other great players followed him.
Today the new US soccer league is completely in the wrong track.
I used to go to all Cosmos home games at Giants Stadium in New Jersey in the 1970's and early 1980's.
I never went to see a single game of the new league where the Metrostars play, and when I did try to watch them on television â I could not watch more than 10 minutes because they stink.
Today, the US has a third-rate soccer league and it is easy to understand why.
We have fools managing the new soccer league in the US and I donât understand why they canât figure out what the problem is regarding their league.
First, the league owns the players and they are allocated to the various franchises. It is like some kind of âcommunistâ soccer league with âno competitionâ among the teams for them to get the best players they can find.
Why the North American Soccer league (NASL) the league where the Cosmos played was an exciting league for the people to go to the games and also to watch on television?
Because the teams where owned by different corporations and investors with deep pockets and they were competing with each other and they were trying to bring to the US the best players in the world such as Pele, Frans Beckenbauer, Carlos Alberto, Alan Ball, Julio Cesar Romero, Johan Neeskens, Vladislav Bogicevic, Andranik Eskandarian, Teofilo Cubilas, Giorgio Chinaglia, Roberto Cabanas, Johan Cruiff, Gordon Banks, Eusebio, Ruud Krol, Bobby Moore, George Best, Gerd Muller, Francois Van Der Elst, and many others.
And during those days we did not have all the television cable channels that we have today â and today the new US league has to compete with the best soccer leagues in the world.
Some company from Europe paid a lot of money recently for the Metrostars soccer team and they changed the name of the team to the Red Bulls. (this new team will be better know in Brazil by their nickname âOs Cornudosâ)
The Brazilians who are reading this thread will get the joke and would understand what I mean by âOs Cornudosâ
The Europeans who bought âOs Cornudosâ for over $ 100 million dollars must be smoking something illegal.
But the US also has a new soccer league which is unrelated to the US soccer league were the âRed Bullsâ play. I just heard recently of this new US soccer league when the franchise located in Miami brought Romario (the famous Brazilian player) to play for them in the current season.
Maybe this new US soccer league â the one where Romario is playing will help improve the soccer in the United States. The more famous international soccer players they bring to play in the US â the more interest they will get not only inside the US but also around the world.
The US has lots of money - all that they need is the will to get the job done.
When the Black American kids see the money rolling into soccer in the USA â that will catch their attention â the black American kids from the poor neighborhoods of Newark, New York, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, and so on â when the US gets their attention then the US soccer team will improve rapidly â almost over night.
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