my rant on soccer, america and the world

First off, let me say over the course of the last 12 plus years i've increasingly become more and more of a fan of soccer and less so of basketball, including both pro and college. I think mostly because i've gotten older, hate the way the game is played now-a-days and the fact that morons like Carmelo Anthony are making 20 plus million a year and says that defense is something that he doesn't need to improve on. Here are my point:

1. So apparently the US just played 3 teams in the top 5 in the FIFA world rankings (Germany, Portugal and Belgium). I believe we are around 22 ish in those same rankings (right before the cup started). We lost to Germany 1-0 (we played defense the whole game knowing we had to give up 5 goals or so not to advance out of group stage), tied Portugal 2-2 (we dominated and held their douchey superstar to nothing until the last 30 seconds when he had a cross over the middle for the goal that tied it) and lost to Belgium in 15 minute extra period 2-1 (they domintated us). Here's my point if these countries were so great  why the hell were the games so close!!! Imagine a number 2 ranked Ohio State football team taking on a number 23 Idaho State....99 out of 100 times ohio state DOMINATES and destroys them. There's that 1 game that the breaks go the other way and an upset happens. I just can't comprehend how little the score and the game play is reflected in these games. Basically these FIFA country ranking are the biggest farce of all, or I just don't understand apparently how soccer has no difference in skill level, or very little, from 1-30 or so. Explain please.

2. What the F**K do soccer coaches do? They set a lineup...and manage 3 subs. Do they call plays? Most of the time I see them sitting on the bench not doing anything, and occasionaly getting up to yell at the refs who are most likely calling a foul when someone flops to the ground. I mean they do something, they decide the attack or defensive strategies against an opponent and who they guard more tightly but I can't see them doing anything else...

3. There are 220 or so countries that compete for world cup spots...the top 32 make it, 1 is automatic (host country) and so 31 spots are left. United States has qualified for something like 6 in a row.  A lot of the world thinks the united states as a horrible soccer country, but really, we are now in the upper echelon in the soccer world. We have gotten out of the group stage in 2 of the last 3 (Portugal, spain, england, etc etc) all didn't this year, england and portugual the last 3 world cups. We have gotten to the quarterfinals once in the last 3 (2002) and we have players from the us making significant contributions for some powerhouse european clubs (howard, altidore, etc). We have some dominant players coming up in the system that by the 2018 world cup they may be superstars. My point is this: they shouldn't be laughing, especially england, at the us anymore. I have no doubt we will continue this world cup streak and hopefully we continue to improve.

4. The united states dominates the rest of the world when it comes to producing top level athletic talent. We produce the best baseball, basketball and football talent than all the other countries. While the Japanese Baseball League does have some nice talent, it's no where close to MLB. We have a countries best players play in our leagues and that's very few. Baseball does have the most foreign talent than the other leagues but it's still a low number in the whole league. Germany's best basketball player is Nowitski...that's it. why haven't they produced another talent, because there busy playing soccer i guess. England- where's your 7 foot tall basketball stud, or baseball talent, oh wait you're too busy being idiots and drinking tea and watching the queen continue to be a piece of shit. Hey Russia- you've produced like 3 pro basketball players and the best one (Arbynis Sabonis) was pretty horrible and most can't cut it in the talented leagues. So the united states is producing athletes that not only dominate our leagues (which outside of the mls are all better talent wise) we are sending athletes to play in yours.

5. Was listening to a rant by a caller on a sports talk show and he said the only way that the US will ever break through in soccer is that we have to convince our best athletes to play soccer rather than baseball, basketball, football, etc. Not going to happen. Soccer players are all average size people, there aren't any of them that we would think of as freakishly athletic (ie Lebron James). Lionel Messi is 5'8 and weighs like 175...oh my god that's so intimidating. So would James dominate on the soccer pitching. Most likely...but he'd get yellow card after yellow card because he's touch one of those skinny nerds and they'd fly 10 feet and skid on the ground. This concludes my rant. Talent disparity in soccer is not so different between the top and the middle, US is no longer a joke in soccer, coaches don't do anything, and we produce by far the most talented athletes.