Slightly off-topic, but I'm watching the under 17 men's world cup match for 3rd place in Mexico right now, Germany vs. Brazil, Germany is coming back from 1-3 and now up 4-3, dramatic match...I think several of these players have the potential to become big stars in a few years. Great game to watch as well. Soccer is life!
There was a great article in the New York Times Magazine on European soccer development in comparison to the US. In particular it focused on a dutch youth soccer academy but they interviewed youth development guys there about American soccer. And they were pretty harsh. The US has the HIGHEST participation in soccer among kids in the world yet we're one of the worst at translating that into any actual talent on the field. The biggest issue is our development model is completely backwards. In Europe, these soccer academies look for kids that have potential. They take them in for free, house them, feed them, school them, etc.. Everything for free. They start training at a very young age (at a time where at best the average kid is in some local youth league) To actually join something remotely comparable to a European soccer academy, you have to actually pay large sums of money here. In essence we're the only country where kids have to pay money if they want to be serious. So we isolate our soccer talent pool to a very small and wealthy segment. European soccer academies make their money by selling the rights to their kids to larger clubs. Most kids you bring in probably wont amount to a ton of money in terms of transfer fees but you'll get one every now and then that will yield a huge transfer fee and those large fees more or less pay for the whole program and more. They get their profits from soccer clubs whereas in the US we have this silly pay to play model that discourages kids from having a chance. This is in contrast to say basketball, where AAU programs and strong high school leagues create opportunities for everyone. Another problem is that prime development in the US happens in the NCAA system which is just terrible. Good players with real potential should not be stuck playing with amateur athletes who will never play again after college. The guys they interviewed say that Americans with star potential develop bad habits and miss out on key development time because theyre stuck in a soccer system that doesn't challenge them. In Europe they take the best kids, put them in soccer academies, and then make them play other top academies. And then they skip college altogether and join a pro team. Our development system flat out sucks and that's our biggest problem. We need to fix it or get the Euros to start scouting America so they can train our talent in their system.
Just one . Even our own players didn't kick the ball out...they must have known what this guy was up to :grin:.
Yes but refs don't ever add more than 4-5 mins, or it is really rare. You see it much worse when a team has a 1-0 lead against what is supposedly a dangerous team for an entire half. They will sit on the lead using all the delay tactics possible including minor 'injuries' and players taking forever to be subbed in&out. Wouldn't it be better to just pause the clock completely instead of adding onto the clock with a estimate?
I thought that the complaint was Brazil was faking to get a penalty kick. What is gained by getting a delay? Giving their team (and the other team) a two minute breather?
Getting a breather and stoppage time is never accurate. They always undercount time lost. Also, its a momentum breaker at a time where the US was making good push and Brazil was looking out of breath. The game against Ghana in the Mens World Cup is a perfect example. Once Ghana scored in overtime they wasted the rest of the period by being as slow as possible with everything to delay because the refs werent going to fairly compensate for time lost.
Wasting time is part of the game. However, there's the right way and the wrong way. What that Brazilian player did was very much the wrong way.
watching the replay now. man, don't know if the ref is getting paid or not. I think it was more incompetence than anything.
