Fantasy soccer all stars
The Question: What if America’s best athletes all played soccer?
American sportswriters have devoted countless columns to explaining why the U.S. isn’t particularly competitive in international soccer competition. But ultimately, the answer is simple: our most athletic kids almost all play something else.
What if they didn’t?
[I]t’s a poignant argument that has shut up more than a few loudmouth critics of U.S. soccer I’ve encountered around the world…Usually, a glimmer of hesitation enters their eyes when they stop to contemplate what the U.S. soccer team could look like. Which leads inevitably to a few more shots of grappa and an hour-long conversation about a possible starting XI for the U.S. team in 2010, if soccer were the No. 1 sport in the country.
Sports Illustrated imagines LeBron James and Tyson Gay at striker; Reggie Bush and Kobe Bryant in midfield; Champ Bailey and Kelly Slater on defense.
Bill Simmons did this same experiment during the last World Cup:
By the way, I’ve been watching the World Cup for four weeks trying to decide which NBA players could have been dominant soccer players, eventually coming to three conclusions. First, Allen Iverson would have been the greatest soccer player ever — better than Pele, better than Ronaldo, better than everyone. I think this is indisputable, actually. Second, it’s a shame that someone like Chris Andersen couldn’t have been pushed toward soccer, because he would have been absolutely unstoppable soaring above the middle of the pack on corner kicks. And third, can you imagine anyone being a better goalie than Shawn Marion? It would be like having a 6-foot-9 human octopus in the net. How could anyone score on him? He’d have every inch of the goal covered. Just as a sports experiment, couldn’t we have someone teach Marion the rudimentary aspects of playing goal, then throw him in a couple of MLS games? Like you would turn the channel if this happened?
The Iverson mention is excellent. People forget that he was one of the best quarterbacks in Virginia high school history — his athleticism is such that AI would have been a dynamo at almost any sport.
But it is also worth mentioning that America actually is producing world-class international soccer players. The Sports Illustrated list includes Tim Howard in goal and mentions the skills of Clint Dempsey and Oguchi Onyewu. Personally, I think it’s only a matter of time before we’re all raving about Jozy Altidore
Jozy is going to be great, but there is more young talent in the system now that there has been … well, maybe ever. Michael Bradley (an established started at central Mid at age 21) and Freddy Adu (still only 19) deserve mention as well, and there is a list of 5 or 6 other guys under the age of 21, all of whom have a chance to be world class players before all is said and done.
No doubt, though given the premise that American soccer lags behind the world because of diversity of choice, mentioning those two players is funny.
Bradley never had a choice about soccer, given who his father was. And Freddy Adu spent eight years learning the game on foreign soil before moving to the U.S.
You see, this is why I don’t like fantasy sports. Not to dispute the central tenet of the argument — of course if our best athletes grew up dreaming of winning the World Cup, or the Premiership, or a Scudetto, or (bless my heart) the MLS Cup, we’d have a much stronger national team — but the overly simplistic exercise of blindly sticking our most accomplished basketball, football, etc. players onto the soccer pitch is not only foolish, it often overlooks the qualities that actually make world-class soccer players what they are.
For example, Allen Iverson would not be the greatest soccer ever; in fact, it is absurd to suggest he would. Why? Well, so little of soccer is about beating your man one on one. Sure, Iverson is an athletic freak, but would he be able to consistently play the ball to the right teammate, then be able to anticipate a developing play three or four passes before the ball gets back to him so that he makes the correct run? In soccer, pretty much every single player (besides maybe the center backs) is a quarterback and a receiver, without the set plays. Intelligence, teamwork, and vision are paramount. I seem to recall Iverson having a little bit of a problem as a point guard, so I don’t see that how he pulls off playing in an environment where teamwork and movement are so essential to success (if I remember correctly, Iverson was an option quarterback in high school, but that could just me projecting a black quarterback stereotype on him).
His only possible position would be a striker (or winger in a 4-3-3). And he probably would be a hell of a striker … but not nearly good enough to be the best player in the world. Technique is so deadly critical for a soccer player. The best players grew up with a soccer ball attached to their feet, and Iverson just does not have the kind of dedication necessary to match up with that competition (I’m basing this on his infamous practice habits and his notoriously low shooting percentage — look at his FT percentage [78] compared with MJ’s [83.5] and Kobe’s [84]).
Kobe clearly possesses those characteristics, but there is something no one seems to consider when mentioning players like Kobe and Lebron as soccer players: Why is it that there are no really, really tall soccer players? It’s not like there isn’t an advantage to height in the game, or there aren’t any athletic and talented elongated folks in Europe, Africa, Asia, or South America. Does someone really want to make the argument that that someone like Dirk Nowtizki or Danilo Gallinari would not have rather been a soccer player? For some reason, I doubt that all the great athletes 6-7 and taller in the world would prefer to play basketball over any other sport. Different games are tailored to different skill sets. Once you reach a certain height, it is probably extremely rare to still have the agility and speed, not to mention intricate footwork, necessary to play soccer (remember, Dirk is one of the most nimble big men in the NBA’s history). And most of the taller players in the sport play center back, the one position that relies more on positioning than speed and agility.
I just don’t know if you plug in a Lebron James — even if he grew up playing the sport and even if he is the greatest physical specimen I’ve ever witnessed — and he becomes the top goal scorer in the world. Projecting how one athlete would perform in another sport is too inexact of a science. The only way to find out which athletes would excel in the sport is to grow it, brick by brick, so that in a couple generations we have our primary talents playing it, and not just in an organized fashion. Although, I would be all for trying Shawn Marion out as a keeper.
I played soccer growing up and coach it now at the high school level, so the thought of NBA and NFL icons on the pitch is my ultimate sports fantasy. But I think the post above is right on in saying that it wouldn’t pan out the way anyone projects. Soccer is built around a rather excruciating skill set, and being a great athlete is no guarantee of success anymore than having a fast 40 time guarantees football success or a great vertical leap equates to basketball stardom. You see a lot of multi-sport stars in high school, but never one who plays soccer and something else.
But while I doubt that our basketball, football and track superstars would be on the U.S. National Team, there’s no question having more athletes in the pool of developing talent would improve our program. There are no doubt dozens of athletes who fell short of the big leagues in their sport of choice but would have excelled at soccer had they pursued it at a young age. That said, the U.S. is no pushover on the world stage and is getting better. We’re just not contending for a World Cup yet.
(note: I have noted, after four years of coaching, that good basketball players almost always make good goalkeepers. Maybe that’s why keeper has been this country’s strongest position for the past 15 years)