Why the USA SUCKS at Soccer |

I see lots of people in the comments claiming that the current US are “pretty good”. Time for a reality check. Let’s compare the US football development, the talent pool, with that of Scandinavia. Scandinavia has a combined population of about 20 million people, compared to the US population of 341 million. Scandinavia is not a footballing stronghold. Together, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway have ONE European Champions title (Denmark in ‘92). The quality of the national leagues are somewhere between average and poor (ranked 14th, 15th, and 23rd in Europe). Here are the number of players from each region currently ranked among the top 500 highest valued footballers according to Transfermarkt (April 2024): Scandinavia (🇸🇪🇩🇰🇳🇴) 1. Haaland (2) 2. Ødegaard (16) 3. Isak (43) 4. Højlund (51) 5. Kulusevski (83) 6. Gyökeres (86) 7. Christensen (181) 8. Andersen (230) 9. Hjulmand (265) 10. Larsson (299) 11. Bobb (336) 12. Lindstrøm (353) 13. Elanga (421) 14. Billing (439) 15. Strand Larsen (478) 16. Wind (486) 17. Berge (497) USA 🇺🇸 1. Pulisic (245) 2. Balogun (260) 3. McKennie (380) 4. Dest (433) 5. Reyna (472) 6. Robinson (492) The US population is 17x larger, but Scandinavia have eight players ranked higher than the highest rated American. Not a single American breaks into top 200. Scandinavia have almost 3x more players on the list in total. If the US produced as many top 500 players per capita as Scandinavia (which, again, is an average region by European standards) they would have 289 players on the list. They have six. Out of these six, four grew up in Europe, and all six played in European academies before making their senior debuts. Not a single one made their debut in the MLS. The comparison could be made more extreme by comparing the US to the Benelux countries, Portugal, Croatia, or even Japan or Korea. US football education is frankly terrible. There simply isn’t any production of talent to talk of, because the local know how isn’t there (much like India and China). All that said, I’m rooting for US soccer. I like to see the sport gain ground. But I don’t think hubris will do Americans any favors. I clearheaded view of the present is a much better starting ground.

Imagine Manchester United moving to Liverpool.. that would go down well 😁

This is a great video for those who are not from the US...and great reaction as well 👍

10:46 the funniest thing about US football misconceptions is that they actually think England is good at football

The truth is our National team/Players do not suck. Our talent level has never been higher. But when it comes to the national team coach/MLS/USSF, US Soccer as a whole does indeed suck. We don't even promote or market Soccer anymore.. I'm curious about how many people outside the sport even know there is a huge Soccer tournament in the States just a couple months away.

It's been changing slowly but it feels It's changing a whole lot faster now. The interest in American football is certainly lessening and soccer is growing a whole lot. In a lot of the US, especially with all the large demographic changes, it's only a matter of time before soccer becomes the dominant culture. The men's team will become a powerhouse eventually I'm sure of it. Who knows, with the next copa America and world cup on home soil, maybe we could see a huge upset run and witness something very special, something that will go much farther in pushing the sport than any amount of players the mls could bring in.

The United States has been a power in women's soccer for two reasons: 1º The United States has taken women's football seriously. 2nd The rest of the world has not taken women's football seriously. Recently the second point has been diluted since Europe is finally promoting women's football, which is why this year Spain has emerged as world champion with a golden generation. I dare say that in the future it will be very difficult for the United States to win a World Cup again because now Europe has become serious about women's football.

The US isn't even bad at football, just middling. I'd wager that within the next 6-8 years the US will be a solid contender on the world stage. You guys are at least the best in North America.

This is going to be a great series, can't wait for the next episode!

Oh man felt like it's been forever since your last upload

Y’all both hit the nail on the head

There’s never been a team that have won the World Cup that didn’t have kids playing unorganized football at parks or in the streets. These were and were not in some cases the training ground for elite players. What it demonstrates is that football was a part of the culture.

Another problem is in America with soccer is its a rich sport. They always have pay to play. There are no programs for kids to play soccer for free like football and basketball. If you haven't noticed but most areas that win state titles in highschool soccer are mostly from rich suburb areas. They need to figure how to incorporate soccer in lower privileged neighborhoods to get talent from everywhere.

You guys aren't elite, but you don't totally suck, im half-English, half-Indian, I was born in England so I mainly follow England at international level, though in Asian tournaments I will support India, I'll be frank the thing with India is in football we suck, most Indian kids go to play cricket (which India is actually good at) the US have come an extremely long way since the early 90's, its just a sport that isn't traditionally part of US culture, you say about family, it was my Grandad that got me into football, young people in the US seem more receptive to our football these days, in the future, maybe the US will have that, maybe not to the same degree (in the UK we're literally marinated in football culture from a very young age, e.g I was 4 when I started getting into it)

I got you, Corey! Subscribed!!

The problem with simply throwing money at the sport is that this will actively hurt your national team. The best way to get a strong league is to buy strong players....which will be foreign players one and all until you guys fix your youth development. And if you always import your top players, you disincentivize young people to choose that sport as a career. This means you never get homegrown talent in large enough numbers to matter on the international stage. After a certain point, money is not a help, it's a hindrance when it comes to the national team. It stifles homegrown player development because there's no space for them in their own top league. This is one reason the richest league in the world - the English premier league - disappoints at the World Cup again and again and again.

22:10 "make it as much as a business as possible" you hit the nail on the head 🤣 that's essentially what mls LLC is and they wanna kill local community soccer

Corey you’re doing an amazing just. We need you to help other influencers to spread the word about soccer. Need to get all the basketball and football channels on board. It’s a group effort.

Learning to play football (soccer) is done before you reach your teens. If you wait until you are 15 or 16 it becomes much harder to become someone like Messi or any other top player. So, until the US starts teaching kids to play from an early age and pick out the natural players for a more professional training the quality of players you get will remain second rate. The US also needs a few more levels of leagues besides the MLS for those young talents to become better and advance in a natural way. The MLS also needs to introduce relegation. The lack of incentive to avoid ending at the bottom is only good for the team owners. But since they own shares in the MLS, not in the individual teams, I don't see why they could not kick out bad teams and introduce new ones to replace them - it would not affect their investments.

MLS needs to have promotion and relegation.

Great content. You should come to my country, Argentina, and see it with your own eyes. I can garantee you that a weekend here would turn the biggest red neck anti soccer into the most loyal football fan

US compared to what we were when this video dropped is way better. MLS Next Pro was created. More MLS teams are creating academies with schools as well. USL is constantly growing and is the backbone of US soccer rn with 500 youth clubs across the country. I mean there are Multiple under 16 year olds who are signing contracts with Big Premier league clubs. As a whole we're definitely better than when the video dropped. Now can we be a top 10 team? are we great or just decent at soccer? Considering one of our best starters Dest is out for the year I'd say Copa America will be our true test to find that out. But I wouldn't say we suck as of right now. There's just huge expectations we a s country have for the team which is valid, but I'll still stick by them.

Still better than the Mexican national team 😂

The trends are showing the rapid rise in infrastructure, coaching and training, player development and talent development in the usa. I hear your worries but juwt watch as the precipice hits in 5-8 years time and USMNT start to look about as strong as the average Euros ans WC quarterfinal reaching team. Then watch in another 5 years time after that how strong the USMNT will be... Almost ridiculous and dreamlike it will seem

MLB has had one team relocate since 2005.nba has 3 since 2001.NFL has 3 since 2016,nhl has 2 since 2011.it doesn’t happen as much as people like to think it does.

Dont be surprised if part of the hatred of "Soccer" wss purely because it wss an English creation 😂

Watching this in 2x speed, but his reasons are mostly correct.

You mention the size of the states. Even the. NFL when formed in 1920’s was a league practically with in a few states on North East of the Country.

soccer in the U.S will only start to flourish "when" the people here as a whole start to love it...the U.S. has always had the best atheletes in any field when there is a huge interest by the people..market, market, market the robust players (we love celebrity status) and make upcoming atheletes know the amount of money, especially the money that can be made (20+ million each year) ..then you will attract our best atheletes to dominate the sport...if the owners of MLS teams paid 10+ million to at least 8 to 9 of the players on each squad, how do you think MLS teams would fair?...

So ...let me see if i can get this straight in my head Dana White ....a man with no talent, and a history of speaking controversial opinions simply to be "edgy", and a even bigger history of making grand ploclaimations that and then going back on them (i still remember him saying Kimbo Slice would never fight in UFC, so of course he did) thinks footballers have no talent You might as well tell me that the president of Botswana has an opinion on how i wear my socks ...i would take it more seriously 😂

USA Rugby's strategic development begins in 2024, with the goal of improving the American market and raising the competitiveness of the American national team, with the time to fulfill the goals being the World Cup in the USA in 2031. USA Test Matches in 2024 July 5 - USA - Romania : State of Illinois July 12 - USA - Scotland : Washington July 19 - New Zealand - Fiji : San Diego Pacific Cup 2024 August 31 - USA - Canada : Carson California September 6 - Japan - USA : Kumagaya Final Series September 14-21: Japan The new format of the Pacific Cup will provide one home game for the Yankees each year, in addition, the final series will alternate between the USA and Japan, so looking at the final series that will be in the USA will be in 2025, 2027 and 2029, 2031 is world cup and the possibility of the Pacific Cup being cancelled, these finals series will provide five more games each for American fans, and regular games against Canada, Japan and a match or two with someone from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga will ensure a permanent rise in the level of American rugby players

30:32 somehow it doesn't work in the nba,

AFL is the greatest ball game.

europe is way bigger than the us, i hope you know that and also has way more ppl

Probably because baseball was invented by the British.

'coz soccers sock at football 😂

Without a relegation style system (which I don't see happening anytime soon in the US, to greedy of a country) the us will always be behind.

Untill people in the us understand it's not just a game it's religion it's starts when you're young it's your team and you till death football for us is a way of living untill you understand that you'll never know what why we love it so much

Yea ppl were very xenophobic unfortunately and I really wish it was different so fútbol could’ve flourished in our country

I agree when he said that the reason why football didn't take off in the US in the beginning was because there was no grassroots level start for the sport in the States, like in other countries. Football was, is, and forever will be a sport that is eternally linked to the community, compared to most US sports that are mostly 'franchises' and just profit-minded. Also, that mentality of Americans only interested in the sport as long as 'they win all the time' is an extremely poor mentality. The reason why Europe and South America are very good at the sport is because it took them HUNDREDS of years to actually play and improve at the sport to be at the level where they are now, not something that lasts only 30 years. You have to slowly play the sport, suffer, and slowly improve to truly become 'world-class'. Also, 'nationalism' is cancerous, much worst than 'patriotism'.

USA women's are world champions. I disagree on that statement.

The current US mens team is pretty good. Mckennie and Pulisic are the goats.

Starts with the fail of naming it right.

Also, for a long time and even now, soccer has been viewed as an immigrant sport. That's largely because most immigrant parents have no familiarity with American sports, minus a few exceptions. Examples like Mexico , the DR, PR, Venezuela, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan (for baseball); Lithuania and most of Western Europe (for basketball) and Finland, Russia, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland and Czechia (for hockey). This also coincides that most registered soccer players in pee-wee soccer being there because their moms don't want them to get CTE playing football. Also, most registered players in the higher levels of soccer are either children or grandchildren of immigrants since they have closer ties to the sport compared to some Americans from families who have been here since the 17th century (Mayflower/Jamestown families).

The more younger people speak the dumber they sound. Most of this shit is a website away. Amazingly most people have an idiot proof phone to keep you informed!

All eyes are on MLS at the moment so this will naturally transpire..👍In 10 years time the only leagues that are going to matter are the EPL and MLS

That was pretty funny. Talk about misinterpretation. Thinking American football is more manly, wow, in a sport where guys wear body armor to play. I know the excuse, size of players, and I counter with rugby, same size and only shin pads. Americans are tough? Only US citizens believe that. If you had been playing male football and not just female the men's team would be a serious threat? I see why you think that. There are two reasons why that is not right. The USWNT plays against women's teams from other nations, but women's football is not well supported in most countries, as no one wants to watch it. So the USWNT has had an advantage in having a system supported by your colleges, which is a system that doesn't exist elsewhere. That said they were knocked out of the most recent Women's World Cup. Secondly the way MLS is set up is wrong. You use the franchise system which means almost all games are meaningless. There are games for top three or four teams which have meaning, but not too much of it, because winning the league means financial rewards, it doesn't lead to more meaningful competition as it does elsewhere in the world. It just means a bit more prize money. Finish last 20 years in a row and what happens? Nothing, except less prize money. Contrast this with elsewhere where winning or being near the top of your league leads to competitions next season with winners of other competitions in your region (usually continent). This leads to large financial prizes, plus gains of international reputation and respect Losing means being relegated to a lower division where you will stay until you can win promotion,. This is why the standard of play in the MLS is so low. Don't think it's low? Look at Messi, a goal scoring God in MLS but he couldn't do that anywhere else. He is a great player, but in a top level league in Europe he doesn't score that number of goals, because people have reason to prevent him also his age is becoming a factor. Players in other countries are always playing for their personal career, as it's easy with a perceived wrong attitude to become someone that none of the top teams want to gamble on, which affects the career of that player. Watch an MLS match and in most of them the defenders jog back towards their own goal when the striker has gone past them. You hardly ever see the desperate challenges you see in other countries and players rarely slide in to try to win the ball. As long as MLS is what you have you will lag behind other countries. It keeps you mainly relying on players who play abroad as candidates for your men's national team. As for American football being a great sport that's pretty funny. It is the slowest sport in the world. You may think otherwise but it's an 80 minute game that takes 4 hours to play. That's slow. Also you play for 12 seconds at a time, and time out when you have a problem. Just deal with it. No sports outside the US do that, and for good reason. The biggest problem with American sport is it's all closed off, and except for the Olympics and the likes, the USA doesn't play against anyone but yourselves. I know there is the odd Canadian team in some of your sports, but that is only because they are a huge country with a small population and no other neighbours apart from Greenland. Incidentally when the World Cup was played in the states it nearly wasn't. When the USA won the bid for the world cup they told FIFA (the world governing body of the sport) that they needed to change it to four quarters for tv advertising. FIFA said if that was how it had to be then they would take the tournament elsewhere, and the rules remained unchanged. Incidentally I am a Scot living i9n the USA now (American wife) and I bemoan the lack of watchable football here. Incidentally my team in Scotland has an American player . When he arrived he was from American college football and he was hopeless but had natural talent. Two years later he is becoming a very good player, quite transformed from the slow, unfit player he was when he arrived. I think he may play for the USA at some point he really is that good.

It's because we won the war. You have to lose a war or be losing and have your allies bail you out to develop the mentality that somehow a draw has value. Getting points for not winning is like writing a cheque to Poland in '39 knowing you can never cover it but expecting others to do it for you. It's defeatist and reeks of moral failure.

Zealand is one of the best football content creators out there. Do check more of him, especially his Football Manager contents.

Soccer and NFL is boring

It is NOT soccer, it is football. You don't deserve to enjoy it if you call it soccer.