I wonder how much time it would take to make him the best goalkeeper in the world. O/U three months.

tall athletic US guys put on weight because they are playing football...you don't think a julio jones who grew up playing only soccer could be 170 right now?

neuer is 6-4 205 for an elite GK comparison and there are tons of defenders out there who are tall. no one is saying put lebron as your speedy CAM

If Julio Jones played soccer all his life he wouldn't weigh 220. NFL players bulk up because that is an advantage in the sport they play.

And idk, seems like power, balance, explosiveness etc might be useful in soccer. Hold on, let me check something



huh, maybe the NFL prospect with a 40 inch vert could have maybe played soccer, WHO KNOWS

how would you defend a cross to calvin johnson in the box?

Reminds me of wrestling announcers during the Royal Rumble. "KING, BIG SHOW IS FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTY POUNDS! HOW IS ANYONE GONNA GET HIM OVER THE TOP ROPE???"

Yeah in reality if teams could field 10 ZLATANs they would.

i get that you need a mix of tall freaks with some quicker technical short dudes. imagine STEVE SMITH blazing down the wing and whipping the ball into megatron. thats world cup winning

Go to 1:10 in the Ocho video to see what it would like.

im not sure what im supposed to be looking at but if real natural athletes like steve smith and calvin johnson played soccer instead of football then our national team would not be a collection of suburb kids who carpooled in minivans

i'm with the yanks here, if every athletic american focused on soccer from birth they'd be able to give trinidad and tobago a tough test

Julio "grew up playing soccer" jones could have been a hellofa CB.

He could also be a striker like Mario balotelli minus all the shenanigans.

I can kinda see it

If Us soccer development sucks like people itt are saying, why do we think Julio's on ball skills would be good enough for the top level?

Yeah US soccer might still suck bigly but having good atheletes would have to improve things somewhat

As someone who is largely ignorant about soccer, I remember that the US used to be more athletic and fit than other teams but just had no skill. (This hasn't really looked true lately)

I'd guess that on the margins, the ratio of fitness/athleticism/size to skill is greater for defenders than midfielders and attackers. Is this actually true?

If so, why is our defense so ****ing bad? Knowing little else, I'd guess that the US would have a baller ass defense of big, athletic fit dudes who could cover all sorts of ground, and then would have trouble in the midfield and scoring.

It seems now that other than Yedlin our defense is slow, crappy dudes who are f terrible, and the only talent over the last few years has been Dempsey, Donovan and now Pulisic

The path to USA soccer being a world power starts and ends with doing everything possible to make MLS one of the big three USA pro sports (lol baseball and hockey).

Football will disappear in a few generations, then a couple generations later the US will become a soccer power.

I mean baseball has revenue nearly double basketball (and 20 times lol MLS), so this strategy seems, uh, dubious

That won't last. Baseball fan demographic trends are frighteningly bad for the future of MLB. The average age of the fanbase is in the mid to late 40's and it's accelerating in the wrong direction.

I would have put money on it being even older than that.

Right so MLB revenue falls by 50% and then it's tied for 3rd with the NBA.

MLB is in deep trouble but not as screwed as the PGA Tour where 63% of their audience is age 55+.

What sports fan bases are moving in the right direction?