JadedWolf

So who deserves the number two spot in this group...

Told you so.

It's only a matter of time until either of the keepers lets a ball through, both look very shaky.

I am not that surprised, they may not be bursting with individual class, but they have a lot of technical skill and they play well as a team. They're a hard team to beat on their good day. Plus, Russia isn't that great.

Ibra has... issues. Though to be honest, I think he is showing restraint here towards the guy with the camera.

As kirottu pointed out earlier in this thread, spiders aren't insects! :D

As the list you posted points out itself, that list doesn't actually add endorsement deals, which would change the picture a bit: http://www.forbes.com/athletes/list/#tab:overall. But of course, Altidore is in neither of those lists, because he's nowhere near one of the best footballers in the world. In fact he is a pretty average footballer who is playing for a pretty average club in the Premier League. I just thought it a bit silly to deride American soccer players for having chosen to play association football, when they were doing pretty well for themselves having made that choice. Anyway, it is true that for a country the size of the U.S.A. the football talent coming through is not that great, and I think that's a combination of things. A lot of sports that are more popular over there are competing for the same pool, as people on this board pointed out earlier, and I am sure that doesn't help. But I also wonder how talent scouting for football and youth academies over there compare to over here in Europe. I've never heard much about it, so I can't judge myself, but I suspect there is a lot of room for improvement. As for how specific a skillset you need for football, I guess it partly depends on what position you want to play. Some positions require you to be fast, in other positions require you to be tall, etc., but the most important skillset for football is something you can't compare. The most important skillset is the ability to read the game, to know what to do when, and to predict what the others will do. So for that reason alone already I think we can't say that athlete x from a different sport would be good at association football, because we simply don't know until we actually see him play it. There are lots of people in football who have plenty of athletic ability but who can't read the game as well as others, so they will never reach the top. And as for football being popular is just a media hype, well, I guess we will see in ten years or so if you are right. Edit: comparing the two lists, the one you give and the Forbes one, the salary and winnings don't seem to match at all - and you yourself say you have a list where the highest paid football player is #22 with endorsements added. No idea what's up with that, to be honest.

Popularity of the sport is growing, and I have no doubt that we'll see a U.S.A. team go far in the WC eventually. With a population size of just 3,3 million people Uruguay managed to make it to the semi-finals in 2010. Imagine what a country like the U.S.A. with its population size could do if it put in the effort...

You have to remember that the US Soccer program only gets the athletes that weren't good enough for Basketball, Football, Baseball, or Hockey. Altidore earns 2,2 million pounds a year in the Premier League, I am sure he's crying all the way to the bank about not being good enough for other sports. I don't doubt their ability to perform, anyway. I just wonder if something went wrong in their fitness training, considering a lot of them looked on the verge of injury.

Congrats. Now go beat Portugal.

It's a shame, but African nations just somehow always bottle when it's time to shine. Even when they have a few really good, talented players who can work magic with the ball either their teams don't gel, or the discipline isn't there, but they just rarely ever manage to live up to their potential.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Well, poor Ghana. Good work by the U.S.A. team though. They certainly saved up all their energy for that one goal.

Oh dear. Well, Ghana deserved it to be honest. Neither team is really helped by this score though, the only one who would like to see this score is Portugal.

You have to wonder about their fitness training.

Well, it started off with fireworks, and went downhill from there.

Yeah, poor guy. Might be the end of the tournament for him.

Way to go U.S.A., 0-1 after less than two minutes. I guess no one told Ghana the match had started already, heh.

I had promised myself not to watch the Iran-Nigeria game, as it didn't exactly look promising on paper. Then I broke my promise, watched it for ten minutes and concluded that I had been very much right in not wanting to watch it and turned it off again. Looking forward to the U.S.A.-Ghana game though.

Pepe a red card! Who would have thought, normally he is such a nice boy!

Well, it has eight legs, so it's surely not an insect. It surely looks like an arachnid. In fact, it looks like an Amblypygid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblypygi It's still welcome in this thread though! Just... Keep it away from the actual insects a bit. It's giving them funny looks.

Since Portugal is playing tonight:

Right you are, sir kitty.