I know many of you aren't following soccer, but maybe you should
If you're one of the people that says that the reason USA Basketball has been failing the last few years in the Olympics and whatnot because of lack of chemistry and not enough practice, Brazil Soccer shows you that you're wrong.
The common excuse given when the US Mens BBall team loses to Argentina or some Euro team is that we don't have enough practice together as a team and these other nations spend hours a day just practicing to beat the US. Well, i don't think that true at all, in fact, i think its a cop-out.
This past week in soccer, South America held their Copa America tournament with teams from the North, South and Central Americas competing to win a place another important tournament to be played in 2009. The tournament is important, but not as important as the World Cup so some teams elect to use the tournament to scout talent for their official national team (like the US did going 0-3 and getting killed with a terrible roster).
The big names in this tournament besides the USA team were Argentina, Mexico and Brazil. Brazil was like the US and brought essentially a "B" team (no Ronaldo, Ronaldhino...) while both Mexico and Argentina fielded the best team possible, and both of their rosters were world class.
Here's the parallel to US Basketball. Brazil won this tournament against Argentina in the Final. Argentina is a top 5 team in the world as is Brazil. The players on the Brazil squad rarely play together since most of em play somewhere in Europe, and don't travel back to Brazil for friendlies. So this team won solely on talent and the way they're taught to play soccer.
So this begs the question on why US Basketball, clearly the top in the world for talent pool and athleticism, can't win the Olympics.
I think its because our players don't care and they don't take the tournament seriously enough which would be a coaching problem as well
They are a lot of parallels between world soccer and the NBA/US Basketball. All the best soccer players play in Europe, specifically the English Premier League whereas all of the best BBall players play in the NBA. You'd think that this would mean that America is the best in basketball and England is the best in soccer but it never ends up that way.
The other hilarious aspect to Copa America and Brazil winning is that Argentina lost with their most stacked team in the last 15 years.
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This is a good post. I agree and disagree. I think Soccer is a little different game than Basketball,. . and lack of team chemistry can be more exposed on the basketball court. It's important in soccer too. . but there's a smaller court and a smaller team in Basketball.
And, I don't think that Ginobli and those guys practice year-round or anything. . they don't. It's just that whenever the Argentinians get together,. . it's those same guys,. . has been for years. So, there's a little familiarity there.
But, I agree, the problem was that we weren't taking it seriously enough. I think we are now, though,. . we only lost one game last year,. To Italy, . . .by 8 points. Then, we killed Argentina. So, I think we're on the comeback. Michael Redd should be required to be on the team for the next 15 years :)
Aaron
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