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Why are the Americans so much better?


trueviking

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free kick

"Also, you cant just look at what what leagues the players play in. You have to consider what roles that they play within their clubs and the skills that they are counter on for. For example, we may have a certain player in the EPL, but if he is not starting or not even dressing, then is your comparison still valid? Then, what about a players ability to influence a game, not everyone in the EPL is relied on to influence a game. Your assumption inferrs that everyone in the EPL is equal in quality. "

of the three american players indicated as being in the EPL, one (specter) plays as much as edgar or less....why i included both in the comparison.

their top league players, bocanegra, bradley, cherundolo, dempsey, specter are no more important to their club sides or playing at a higher level than friend, stalteri, imhof, deguzman, edgar and mckenna...if those are the nucleus players, there doesnt seem to be that much between them...not 50 spots in the rankings at least.

i dont buy the argument that their individual top calibre players are at a substantially higher performance level for their clubs than ours (except in goal)...if you think they are, maybe a few comparisons would help.

i rate MLS very low...are you trying to make the argument that it is higher than CCC?....i wouldnt even give it that credit...what is your basis for believing it to be higher?...

i use pay scale as a prime guage...MLS has a similar average salary to league 2...in every sport on earth, the leagues that pay the most are the best leagues and the relative pay scales determines the relative level of play between leagues...its natural....are you claiming that MLS is somehow different?...that the players are actually better than their pay would indicate?...do they just love playing on plastic and in baseball stadiums so much that they choose to be charitable?

it might not be a perfect guage, but in general if you pay players a wage equal to a fourth division, i find it difficult to believe that you will end up with players of even a second division calibre....unless there is a unique condition with MLS that i am not aware of.

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Maybe time you reassessed MLS. Average salary is not a particularly meaningful comparison when the top MLS players, who are most likely to be on the USMNT, are often on over 300k and some of their teammates are making 35k. Most American players do not have EU passports so League 1 is simply not an option for them due to the UK's strict work permit regulations. MLS pays players less partly because they can get away with it because there isn't free movement of labour to the main English speaking soccer country. When comparing salaries you also have to bear in mind that the cost of living and taxation levels can be significantly higher in a European context. The net take home pay and the amount that can be saved for the future after basic living expenses are factored in is more important from a player's standpoint than the total size of the contract reported by the media.

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Us---------------Them

30 million-------300 million population

CSA--------------USSF

1 MLS------------14 MLS Teams

2 USL------------9 USL Teams

$13 million------$35 million annual budget (guesstimates)

nobody-----------Jack Warner

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Generally speaking, I think every time an American puts on his national team jersey, he raises his game well above his play at club level.

We cannot say the same about many of our players - Gerba and Serioux being the most notable exceptions.

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quote:Originally posted by BearcatSA

As stated, mine is a cynical opinion.;) It just seems like there are too many agendas in the current organization which might lead to a lot of extra funds being squandered.

I share a similar opinion, although it's more along the lines of "we can throw all the money at it we want, but we'll never get as far as we **could** if there was some damn accountability present up top to go with the investment."

quote:Originally posted by Free kick

So when you say, " well their players are only in in MLS", be careful. Because we have had several players on our MNT pool ( even starters or boarder line starters on our MNT) who were cut or released by MLS teams and/or cant find a spot on MLS clubs, or are/were not MLS quality.

That’s a great point.

I tend to think that if you put our best 11 and their best 11 on the field there isn’t much of a gap, but they’d be slightly ahead. Issue with us is: we hardly ever get our best 11 on the field together and play enough games.

Other than that, I simply can’t think of a scenario that doesn’t play to the factor they have more depth. They can ride the hot hand of whoever is having a good season while we can’t. The drop in quality in the backend of our roster compared to theirs is dramatic.

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quote:Originally posted by ag futbol

Other than that, I simply can’t think of a scenario that doesn’t play to the factor they have more depth. They can ride the hot hand of whoever is having a good season while we can’t. The drop in quality in the backend of our roster compared to theirs is dramatic.

Definitely. For instance, what's Kyle Beckerman at the moment: third or fourth string defensive holding mid for the USMNT? Then contrast him with our current back up(s).

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quote:Originally posted by BringBackTheBlizzard

Maybe time you reassessed MLS.

....

When comparing salaries you also have to bear in mind that the cost of living and taxation levels can be significantly higher in a European context. The net take home pay and the amount that can be saved for the future after basic living expenses are factored in is more important from a player's standpoint than the total size of the contract reported by the media.

I think you're over inflating both the effect of taxation and living costs for most footballers.

Many European countries have special taxation rules for foreign workers, including footballers with very, very, generous taxation rates. There is of course a ceiling for this generosity and a time-limit for these taxation grace period but I don't think that is really a big concern for the average footballer.

Most teams and leagues also use some pretty smart accounting practices when paying their players within the tax laws allowed by their particular local. Deferred wage payment, as an example, is very popular.

These guys are sharp and have some tools at their disposal, especially on the continent.

On the living costs side of things, its all relative. For the lowest level players</u> the day-to-day living costs may be an issue in some centres but these same players would have cost-of-living issues in many North American centres where they could find paying employment as a footballer. Plain and simply because of MLS/USL wages.

For quality players going to Europe the day-to-day living expenses will be neither here nor there. And especially important for Canadians who intend on returning home after their careers those little nest eggs they build up in pounds or Euros sure explode into something more substantial when they're converted to Canadian dollars.

But since we're on the subject one interesting thing which has been happening recently though is with the British pound dropping and taxes going up in the UK the continental leagues are finding themselves in a much stronger position to bargain for players than they were a year ago. How the worm has turned.

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quote:Originally posted by Cheeta

[]

I think you're over inflating both the effect of taxation and living costs for most footballers.

Many European countries have special taxation rules for foreign workers, including footballers with very, very, generous taxation rates. There is of course a ceiling for this generosity and a time-limit for these taxation grace period but I don't think that is really a big concern for the average footballer.

True. And the tax argument only matters if the salaries between MLS and Europe are close. But they're not close, unless you start talking about 4th or 5th divisions in England.

MLS is basically a part-timer league with maybe 50 quality professionals mixed in.

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quote:Originally posted by amacpher

MLS is basically a part-timer league with maybe 50 quality professionals mixed in.

50 quality professionals would be 3 to 4 a team. Using TFC as an example, if we eliminate the four highest paid players i.e. Guevara, De Rosario, Robinson and Vitti does that mean you think the likes of Dichio, Serioux, Wynne, Brennan and Gerba are part-timer league level despite having played at a much higher level than that either in Europe or for their national team? A much more realistic assessment is that MLS teams can usually field a complete team of starters that could hold their own at CCC level. The problem is with the quality of the depth to the roster because of the restrictions imposed by the salary cap.

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quote:Originally posted by Cheeta

For quality players going to Europe the day-to-day living expenses will be neither here nor there.

Strange then that Carl Robinson has mentioned it as one of the positive aspects of playing in Toronto. I'm also skeptical that the favourable taxation argument applies to the UK. I've only seen that argument used about Norway on here previously.

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Not sure why Burlington vs. Toronto would be relevant to a Canada vs UK argument. By all accounts he used to take the Go train every morning to get to BMO Field. Not sure if he still does. Don't have time to hunt it down but I'm almost 100% sure I've read him being quoted as saying that although he could make more in the UK in contract terms that is offset by factors like cost of living considerations.

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quote:Originally posted by jpg75

Not sure i'd use Carl Robinson as an example in this case, doesn't he live in Burlington? Of course it's cheaper there!

If Burlington is cheaper than Norwich/Sunderland I think its safe to say that Canada is cheaper than England.

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^ How many players are going to come to Toronto, live in Burlington and use GO transit to travel to work? Maybe a better comparison is living in Burlington as opposed to living in Cromer or Hartlepool.

Anyways, Robinson is just one analagous example. A better argument is to find out the average cost of living in each of the 15 MLS cities and then compare it to the CoL in similar urban centres in Europe that are home to football clubs. You'll also find some clubs throwing in perks like accomodation and car which would offset living costs. Then you have to account for the tax structure and special considerations for footballers like in Denmark and Russia.

But to get this thread back on track, using pay scale is a far too simplistic measure when you're trying to compare the strength of the Canadian and American squads. As Free Kick mentioned you can't just look at the leagues they're playing in or their clubs, but the role/status that they have for their teams. Even then it may look like on paper we're comparable to them in most areas - with the exception of goalkeeper. I tend to agree the most with Ivan, in that the US players tend to play beyond their club form when they don the US jersey. A structured system, more games, heightened expectations and competition for spots tend to bring the most out of players. We sadly have very little of those things.

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The bottom line is the U.S. has ten times our population.

Everything else being equal, we would expect the U.S. to have 10 times as many registered soccer players, 10 times as big a player pool to draw from, 10 times as many professional teams, 10 times as many cities with populations large enough to support a professional team, 10 times as many soccer-specific stadiums, 10 times as many fans, 10 times as many corporate sponsors and 10 times our budget.

You might as well ask why China gets more Olympic medals than Tuvalu.

A better question would be why can't we consistently beat countries like Costa Rica and Honduras who have 1/8 and 1/5 our population respectively. But there, I think, the culture comes into play.

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Guest speedmonk42

The numbers argument doesn't just scale linearly.

We have x number players but realistically we are more like 4 small isolated countries that pool their resources into one team.

The US has as many players as we do playing in Southern California just 3 hours apart by car.

There is a cumulative effect of a concentration of numbers/talent which aggregates over time into something greater than what we have were you to just look solely at the numbers.

This is just one dimension of the difference, but an important one.

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quote:Originally posted by amacpher

I hate to keep harping on it, but I will again blame the World Cup qualifying format of CONCACAF for this. Canada just doesn't get enough games. Plain and simple. That's why the USA, Costa Rica, etc. play better than their constituent parts while Canada plays worse.

Yeah, there's the Gold Cup but a 2-week tournament against often second rate teams or second-string squads always played in the USA, isn’t the same as home-and-away matches spread-out over 12 months in games that really matter. There needs to be two HEXs not just one.

The fact that this issue is clearly a self-perpetuating one (bad results leads to fewer games -> playing worse as a team -> no longer seeded -> even worse result ...) means its really important to change the qualifying format soon.

Why should there be "2 hexes"? I think that is terrible idea. One final group is the most fair way to do it. Everyone plays everyone else. The cream rises to the top. No chance of one unbalanced group of death. Actually I think the qualifying system is one of the few things concacaf has right.

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quote:Originally posted by trueviking

So...ive been watching the confederations cup and wondering how it is that the americans are so much better than us...we struggle to beat minnows and they are regulars in the world cup, consistently ranked 50 spots ahead of us.

is it a matter of them getting to play more because they are the USA?...is it a matter of teams being afraid of the mighty americans?...is there an undue respect that is given to them because of who they are?

is it that they have somehow figured out how to manhandle the central american teams in concacaf, which then allows them more competition abroad snowballing into a better team and higher ranking?

if we compare the make up of the rosters of canada and the US, there is little to choose between them...in fact, on paper you might opt for canada....it certainly doesnt look like the difference between a top 20 team and a side in the third world of the sport.

compare the american roster for the confederations cup final with a hypothetical canadian full strength roster...in the top 5 leagues (england, spain, italy, germany and france) the USA have 4 players while we have 6 (although they had 2 from germany missing)....the others seem to be about level.

USA

England (1) – 3

France (1) – 1

Sweden (1) - 1

Denmark (1) - 1

Belgium (1) - 1

England (2)- 1

Spain (2)- 1

MLS – 5

Canada

England (1) – 1

Spain (1) - 1

Germany (1) – 4

Denmark (1) - 3

Belgium (1) – 1

Holland (1) - 1

Germany (2) - 1

MLS – 2

you guys are smarter than me...any thoughts on why they are so much better than us?

Even looking at things on paper there isn't a single non Canadian in the world who would rate Canada's roster over that of the USA. Julian Deguzman is the only Canuck I'd select for the USA (were that possible). MLS is the main reason the USA has done as well as it has. Pretty much all teams play a similar style to the national team. The league has found/ developed players that would have fallen thru the cracks pre MLS. That said if Canada had 3 MLS teams, 3 or 4 USL-1 teams, then you would see them start beating teams like the US, Honduras, etc.....when it matters.

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quote:Originally posted by Crazy_Yank

Why should there be "2 hexes"? I think that is terrible idea. One final group is the most fair way to do it. Everyone plays everyone else. The cream rises to the top. No chance of one unbalanced group of death. Actually I think the qualifying system is one of the few things concacaf has right.

The semi-final groups were grossly unbalanced this time. There's a reason that Mexico needed goal difference to advance to the hex while El Salvador waltzed through a bunch of easy beat downs on Haiti and Suriname.

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