Super lol at preseason football or basketball being compared with friendlies. First off, they just aren't the same thing. Totally different in every way and friendlies are much more meaningful and have strong impact on national teams. lolfriendlies in terms of results is fine and I'm on board with that, but they are still more important than preseason in US sports which are a total joke and anyone who doesn't understand why friendlies mean more is either trolling, European, or dumb. Maybe all.

Also on board with US not being 12 or 13 or whatever we are in FIFA rankings right now as I think it's fine to have us lower than that. Think it's also fine to say we aren't on a talent level as various teams, but we do make up some of it with WIM, team organization etc.

I am NOT on board with Eurotards who think teams like ICELAND and AUSTRIA are somehow on the same level as the US, or perhaps even better. Just lol at that. Please.

'k?

So, if those teams all have vastly superior talent, both historically over the last say 12 years and right now, why do they not achieve vastly superior results on any kind of a consistent basis?

Either results don't matter at all (which is LOL and I refuse to accept)
Or the team cohesion/chemistry/WIM actually matters (which is probably the largest part of it; calling it WIM is dumb but calling it good roster composition/players working well together is legitimate)
Or someone is overrating the roster differences (which is probably a small part of it)

Or some combination thereof.

Iceland have some good players in midfield and attack, defense sucks though so maybe slight edge to merrica overall but its not like theres a huge gap between those squads

seriously just stop, This is lol and obviously not true.

you do know H2H is much different than R16 even money swap, cmonseth.

Or it's far harder for a Belgium to qualify for a major tournament than it is for the US.

Also, "results" can be looked at who knows how many ways. But the fact remains that of the 4 "big" tournaments where we've progressed to knockout (94, 02, 10 and Confed 09) we've gotten pretty lucky - '94 we finished 3rd in our group but due to LOL FIFA making the tourney a dumb size, still advanced. In 2002, we needed help from the other match, in 2009 we got a MASSIVE break interms of the beat down Brazil gave Italy in the last group match and in 2010 we needed "distribution excellent..."

To put it another way, we've won exactly 2 matches over the last 3 WCs that weren't against Mexico, we're not exactly the bomb squad.

I'm just trying to measure the depth of the delusion.

YOU ARE MAKING OAFK, TUT AND BAIDS LOOK LIKE THE VOICES OF REASON.

Riverman thinks the pro-USA side is good.

If the USA argument was a mod it would be either Dids or Killa.

Yeah, too many bad draws. Would I consider taking the USA versus pot 3 at evens to win, push is a draw? Probably. That would seem more reasonable since those are the teams that many people think are ahead on roster talent (without being obviously ahead of the USA imo)

Sigthorsson>Altidore
Gylfi>Dempsey

Gunnarsson, Bjarnason and Gudmundsson are also no scrubs.

ARON JOHANNSSON>ALL

Vs. a blind draw of Chile Ecuador Ivory Coast Nigeria Ghana Cameroon and Burkina Faso you have to sell USA, we're clear sizable dogs to at least 3 (Chile, Nigeria, Ghana) , clear dogs to another 2 (IC, Cameroon) and maybe a fave vs. Burkina Faso.

We're not "clear sizable dogs" to Nigeria and Ghana. Get the **** out. "Maybe" a fave vs. Burkina Faso lolllllllllllllllll

what?

wtf now we've even lost my long time MB90 mancrush pal sethy to the other side

MAYBE FAVES VS MIGHTY BURKINA FASO

Alain Traoré > US squad

After seeing off the mighty Algeria in the 103rd minute, we're ready to beat the best the continent has to offer, obviously.

ETA: and I'm guessing wrt to Burkina Faso because I know nothing about them, and neither do you. But yeah, that's probably an overabundance of caution on my part. Fine we're clear faves vs. one of those teams and dogs vs. 4 or more, including massive dogs to Chile.

sethy: we were (slight) betting favorites vs. Ghana in 2010, and we're better now than we were then. We're clearly flipping and probably doing better vs. the Ghana/Nigeria/Cameroon group, out of which Ghana is probably the best team.

it's a shame that the Europeans have infected you with their shame and self-loathing.

Seems to me every World Cup year it's super trendy to be on the nuts of the African teams due to all their high profile talent and by and large they routinely do very little (yes yes Ghana and the refs counter with lolusa).

Africa blows.

I am really looking forward to the influx of random Euros in the WC threads that will endlessly make fun of Americans for things literally nobody said. It was rampant last time.

America keeps getting better and better at soccer. Popularity relentlessly increasing. They are trying hard to get their lulz in now before it's all over forever. The great rustling of our time will soon be upon us and they aren't psychologically ready for it.

I dunno, if we continue to boomcycle like we are now, this thread will prove a goldmine for nutpicking.

Since I'm now being cited as an authority in what at least one American believes, I should weigh in on the roster argument. It's no better for reasons already explained ad nauseum: too subjective, doesn't give us a view of how a team plays together (chemistry / WIM), etc.

So I'm pretty pessimistic about our ability to ever deem one team much better than another. I mean, I'm pretty sure we're not as good as Belgium, and pretty sure we're better than Mexico, just by results/rankings. (I barely have time or means to watch games, and I don't base my arguments on the eye test, ever.) But I don't think we'll ever know if England or Brasil was the "rightful" Sklansky-bucks winner of the 1950 WC, or whether 1994 Colombia was good enough to win it all if not for Escobar's fateful OG, etc. etc.

Sports fans always overrely on the "eye test" and that's just the nature of sports. Everything has to have a narrative, etc. I've learned to just embrace it, rarely argue against it, unless a thread gets on my nerves like this one.

Here are some related points I think I believe. I'll add justification later if anyone cares:

• Chemistry / WIM is actually hugely important to results, but virtually impossible to measure, largely because of sample size effects.
• Friendlies have a broad range of predictive value, from little better than NFL preseason games to somewhat meaningful but still less meaningful than WCQs.
• In a confederation full of bad teams, dominating versus slipping by has a good deal more predictive value (for results against better opposition) than people generally recognize.

I can't wait until nutshot starts blasting these gents with bans during WC. Talk about rustling.