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Originally Posted by BCWWF
I don't think the United States is the best country or anything, far from a contender right now, but maybe the 2002 World Cup wasn't the perennial good countries performing poorly, maybe it was the rest of the world catching up a little bit. I mean with all due respect, many of the top players in the premiership aren't English, so you can't really base anything off of how good the club leagues are. Obviously the Premiership is primarily English players, so England will always be a great team, but when enough players lesser football countries get in there it advances them just as much. A country with 11 great players is just as good as a country with 111.
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The infrastructure is far far more...I dunno, 'advanced' I guess, here though. I mean the US has what, 250 million population? And 12 teams to cover that? England alone has 1/5 of the population and nearly 8 times the number of professional clubs...even though it doesn't happen as much nowadays the best young talent does still come through at the top level. I just wonder how much potential in the US is going to waste in places like say Florida where there is no pro team within a few hundred miles.
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Originally Posted by BCWWF
I really don't know if USA will get out of the first round of the World Cup next year, but teams like them will. Turkey in 2002, Croatia in 1998, if you can get your 11 good players you can compete.
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1st round will depend on the luck of the draw. Croatia in 98 is a bit of a false analogy though since they had a lot of players in or just coming to the end of their prime playing for major European clubs, very talented players at that. You'd probably be better off looking to a team like Greece IMHO...not the most talented team, but with structure and good tactics they won Euro 2004 (which is still a bit weird to say)