The Official Football Thread

[Nerroth]

Sometimes, an American or Canadian team (be they at a club or national level) has an issue when it comes to home matches against international opposition; namely, that there are as many (if not more) fans there to cheer for the visitors than for the home side.

However, for the U.S. Men's National Team in last night's World Cup qualifier against Panama in Seattle, this was not a problem.

The attandance was limited by logistical factors imposed due to the match being played in midweek, and across from a Seattle Mariners baseball game. Had this been a weekend match, they would have had a good shot at selling out the entire stadium - with fans there to cheer for the Americans. But even with those restrictions in place, the kind of fans who regularly turn out in large numbers for the Seattle Sounders in MLS made a case for themselves in their bid to host more USMNT matches in the future.

Fair play to the Seattle soccer fanbase. They certainly take their club and country teams seriously, and set a high bar for other cities in the U.S. and Canada to try and match.


Now, if only they could persuade the Seahawks to let them install a permanent grass surface at the Clink... (They had to lay down a temporary grass surface over the standard FieldTurf, since the USMNT prefers not to play on an artificial pitch. Unfortunately for places like Portland, which would otherwise make for excellent home venues for the U.S. national side, any local owners running teams on FieldTurf who aren't willing to go to the trouble of rolling out a temporary grass pitch lose out when it comes to deciding which cities get to host home matches for the CONCACAF Gold Cup or the World Cup qualifiers.)

[solomon]

Well this has to do with the demos of Seattle, which has less penetration of people from rival soccer nations.

Frankly, it's why people in LA, Dallas, Houston and possibly even some East Coast cities are gonna get screwed out of hosting, due to demos of fans showing up. Here in DC, we would have a pretty high population of Central Americans come out for their team. And of course we've seen what happens in LA......

[Bri]

Originally Posted by Nerroth

Fair play to the Seattle soccer fanbase. They certainly take their club and country teams seriously, and set a high bar for other cities in the U.S. and Canada to try and match.

Is there a strong soccer presence in the northern US?

[Nerroth]

Originally Posted by Bri

Is there a strong soccer presence in the northern US?

Cascadia/the Pacific Northwest (to include the Canadian province of British Columbia, and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon) is generally considered to be fertile grounds for soccer, relative to many other parts of the continent north of Mexico. The three Cascadian MLS teams are but the latest incarnations of sides that have done battle on an on-off basis in various Northern American soccer leagues as far back as the 1970s.

Of the three regional clubs, the Seattle Sounders have the highest regular attendance, with the amount of tarped-off corners of their home stadium descreasing year by year. The Portland Timbers are limited mainly by the size of their home stadium; they could arguably boast a higher average attendance had they the additional seats to put more fans in. The Vancouver Whitecaps post fairly respectable numbers, but they arguably have further to go before they manage to fill up more of their stadium in the way that the Sounders have done.

[Bri]

Interesting, so far I had been under the impression that soccer in north America was mostly linked to areas with large Hispanic communities.

The MLS is a totally different concept from most other leagues, nice to see it has a positive impact.

[germanturkey]

Soccer is huge in the north east and we have a small hispanic population, for the most part. like in New York, the most competitive high school programs are either from Section V, (wooo!) which is all middle to upper middle white suburbia, long island, which for the most part is white, or Shenendehowa, which has a student population of 3000+.

and for some reason, i just know that the pacific north west loves soccer as well, and i don't think they have that large of a hispanic population..

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by germanturkey

Soccer is huge in the north east and we have a small hispanic population, for the most part. like in New York, the most competitive high school programs are either from Section V, (wooo!) which is all middle to upper middle white suburbia, long island, which for the most part is white, or Shenendehowa, which has a student population of 3000+.

and for some reason, i just know that the pacific north west loves soccer as well, and i don't think they have that large of a hispanic population..

I know that, for the modest population in Montreal compared to other big US cities, the core fanbase for the Montreal Impact is mostly made of descendants from Europe (Greece, France, Italy, Portugal) and North Africa, and there are even more adepts with English/French Canadian origins with every year passing. However, I've not seen many people of Hispanic descent at the games and I also can't explain why either. Nevertheless, we also have quite big crowds too for what we can hold.

[justavisitor]

I guess the problem in Canadian football is that

1. They are not doing well (pretty obvious I know XD)
2. Because they are not doing well, lot of descendants from other countries would rather support their own native teams (or just simply choose a good european/brazil/agrentina football team to cheer if your native team is not good enough either)
3. Because we don't support it, we won't get good result
The cycle then just continues

That's why you see many ppl like football, school kids like to chase the ball at lunch time, but there is never a good male Canadian football team. Canada is not like U.S.A. The government does not support any sport except hockey. Since we will never be good on football, lot of the descendants from other countries will rather support their teams instead while at the same time we support our canadian ice hockey team

It is really hard to break that cycle. It is actually quite sad, but I don't see any change in the foreseeable future.

[Nerroth]

I'm not sure if referring to it as "Canadian football" is a good way to avoid confusion with Canadian handeggFootball or not.

The same sort of thing happens in Ireland (where I come from originally) to a lesser extent. While many people there refer to this game as football, it is often called soccer in order to distinguish it from Gaelic football. (Which, as it happens, is also played in Canada.)

[Bri]

Originally Posted by justavisitor

That's why you see many ppl like football, school kids like to chase the ball at lunch time, but there is never a good male Canadian football team. Canada is not like U.S.A. The government does not support any sport except hockey. Since we will never be good on football, lot of the descendants from other countries will rather support their teams instead while at the same time we support our canadian ice hockey team

It is really hard to break that cycle. It is actually quite sad, but I don't see any change in the foreseeable future.

It's fairly common in Europe to support both your local club and a (inter)national top level team. I don't see why that would be impossible in Canada.

Football is a fairly basic game, if youth development is sound, any country should be able to become good at it. If we look at the new football nations, especially Japan and South Korea are catching up at a rapid pace.

[justavisitor]

this is a "football thread" so I refer it as "Canadian football" XD...we actually call soccer in here

but the thing is that it doesn't seem like Canada has the determination to support football...in fact I don't think the government wants to support any sport at all. So it's very hard to improve.

[boggart]

Originally Posted by Nerroth

Actually, I recall seeing somewhere or other the idea (which may or may not have some weight to it) of splitting the AFC itself along an east/west axis, and then combining the remnants of the OFC into the eastern group.

So, New Zealand and the Pacific islands would be put in the same "Asia-Pacific" confederation as Australia, but the central and western Asian states would be in a separate route to World Cup qualification (not counting inter-confederation qualifiers, such as the one NZ will play to get in for 2014).

From what I recall, the AFC itself has a number of regional sub-groups, but I don't know if this idea would split one or more of those regions into one "new" confederation or another.

Is there any traction for that sort of idea, or was that just fan speculation?

I think a lot of this is due to fan and player complaints, especially for travel distances between countries. I don't see any split of the AFC any time soon.

[germanturkey]

so, no surprises so far in the Confederations Cup.

mexico continues to be overrated.. How do you know someone is a mexican soccer fan on goal.com? they'll tell you... zing.

[KiraYamatoFan]

The only match I watched in the Confederations Cup so far was involving Brazil and Japan.

While Brazil were ruthless, I put more attention on Japan. I was mostly disappointed at how stereotyped and predictable the Japanese were. There was no one in that squad who was willing to grab the game by the throat when attempting to get back in it and that's a very recurrent problem with Japan. They need to find someone in the mould of Dennis Bergkamp, Michael Owen or Alan Shearer soon if they want to even hope going further in the World Cup... because sometimes an individual moment of brilliance would make a difference.

Also I believe Japan will need a Dutch or German coaching staff when Alberto Zaccheroni's contract will expire. That team needs to focus work on efficiency and physical conditioning above all instead of playing the passing game.

[germanturkey]

so you're saying Japan needs.... a KNIGHT IN THE AREA?! haha. the scoreline didn't flatter japan, but from the highlights i saw, they actually played pretty well.

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by germanturkey

so you're saying Japan needs.... a KNIGHT IN THE AREA?! haha. the scoreline didn't flatter japan, but from the highlights i saw, they actually played pretty well.

Funny how fiction matches reality sometimes, eh?

It really is a problem in fact. Okazaki has been horribly poor as the front striker while Keisuke Honda wasted his share of opportunities to make something significant. They are in need of finding that beast of a striker as well as to improve overall efficiency and physical condition.

In times like this, I wish Tsubasa Ozora was created to be a striker à la Gerd Müller instead of a midfielder before the character became an inspiring force for all Japanese kids out there.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Most countries struggle with finding and developing a good forward, not just Japan.

[ChampDream]

I watch Brazil and Japan and Spain and Uruguay, you can see that Brazil and Spain won because the opposite team respect them too much, they just wait for them, they need to be more aggressive.

Originally Posted by germanturkey

so, no surprises so far in the Confederations Cup.

mexico continues to be overrated.. How do you know someone is a mexican soccer fan on goal.com? they'll tell you... zing.

that Mexico for you, I believe that if they were to play with South America's team they could not have gone to some world cups

[germanturkey]

Originally Posted by Terrestrial Dream

Most countries struggle with finding and developing a good forward, not just Japan.

yeah. i'm pretty happy that Altidore found his feet. with donovan out of the picture, i think this US team is stronger than it has been in ages.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by ChampDream

that Mexico for you, I believe that if they were to play with South America's team they could not have gone to some world cups

Obviously, this applies to like 90% of nations around the world.

And don't understand how Mexico is overrated. They are a team that gets to World Cup constantly and gets out of the group stage frequently. Not only that, they have won the gold medal in the Olympic, against freaking Brazil. You could argue, outside of South America and Europe, they have the best team because of their success.

Originally Posted by germanturkey

yeah. i'm pretty happy that Altidore found his feet. with donovan out of the picture, i think this US team is stronger than it has been in ages.

I remember Altidore in 2010, my friends and I would yell "Altidore!" every time he gets the ball, because we knew he woulds screw it up somehow. Really good of him to turn his game around.