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How Far Are We From A Soccer Nation?


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58 minutes ago, Ottawafan said:

Loved that show! ...

I was a regular listener to Geoff Pevere's Prime Time so not a big fan of Peter Gzowski given how that got taken off the air. Think it's important not to underestimate the influence the media has had over the decades on pushing the message that Canada =/= soccer on people's reluctance to openly support the CMNT.

You had to be willing to swim against the tide and potentially take some flak back in the day where being a soccer fan was concerned so play along with the prevailing culture and pretend to be super interested in all the Leafs and Jays chat when around the Bob and Doug McKenzie types during the work day and only have a soccer interest in the confines of your ethnic community was the norm for a lot of people.

The legacy of that sort of thing is large portions of the GTA going completely mental if Italy wins something but still being largely apathetic about the CMNT. Insigne signs and Gino and Gina will be driving down to BMO Field in Gino's IROC in their matching leather jackets but By Canadians For Canadians doesn't really move the needle in quite the same way when Paul Beirne is trying to peddle York 9 and never had a hope in hell of doing so.

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On 6/11/2023 at 10:16 AM, SpursFlu said:

I watched the game on DAZN. Terribly boring broadcast but I watched. DAZN is a bit Euro centric so i find they're footi coverage is lacking.

Did DAZN have pre, post and half-time shows for the Champions League Final?

Edited by Rivaldo
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17 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

What I have in mind is us getting to a similar level to a country like Sweden or Korea. Top 20 team, lots of players in top leagues, respectable domestic leagues at a decent talent level that also produce a ton of players, solid attendance, competes admirably with hockey/baseball respectively, baseline level is a national team that is a tough game, but with the right generation of players, they can really knock down some good teams, etc.

Interestingly enough, Korea qualified for the 1954 World Cup, then nothing for a long time. They created their domestic league in 1983, qualified for the 1986 world cup and since then, have qualified for 11 straight tournaments, hosted one where they reached the quarters, they have some really good players at really good teams, etc. We launched the CPL in 2019, made the very next world cup, hosting the one coming up... why can't we do what Korea did?

I don't know much about the K League, but on the basis of players in top leagues, I think Canada is better. I'll admit that's a recent development.

South Korea's World Cup success can partly be explained by a better funded and managed national team program and an easier road to qualify.

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1 minute ago, Rivaldo said:

I don't know much about the K League, but on the basis of players in top leagues, I think Canada is better. I'll admit that's a recent development.

South Korea's World Cup success can partly be explained by a better funded and managed national team program and an easier road to qualify.

They’re also able to pull in players from the K league and still be competitive, which we’re quite a ways away from being able to do with CPL. But when I look at their most current roster, other than Son and Kim Min Jae obviously, they’ve called in guys from Freiburg, Mallorca, Mainz, Wolves, Gent, not to mention Japan that has a very good league. The gap isn’t too wide, but I think their mix of players in top leagues + a solid pool of domestic players to round out the roster keeps them extremely competitive. 
 

As for your last point, yeah- none of this happens unless we’re better funded and managed as the game grows.

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2 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

They’re also able to pull in players from the K league and still be competitive, which we’re quite a ways away from being able to do with CPL...

Isn't the sensible comparison with how MLS influences the CMNT roster? CanPL is going to be more like the K League 2 even if that's not how it looks on paper in sanctioning terms. Canadian soccer maybe isn't so far off where South Korea is at if you look at it from that angle. There's probably even posters on their soccer boards trying to convince people to accept that Korea will never be a soccer nation because baseball ratings are so much higher.

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38 minutes ago, Rivaldo said:

Oh yeah! The NFL is king in the USA.

Is that the measurement? I'm genuinely asking because if just say USA win the World Cup, MLS is a top 10 league in the World but NFL is the most popular league in America... then the US isn't a football nation?

That would be pretty embarrassing for everyone else 

Edited by SpursFlu
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1 minute ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Isn't the sensible comparison with how MLS influences the CMNT roster? CanPL is going to be more like the K League 2 even if that's not how it looks on paper in sanctioning terms. Canadian soccer maybe isn't so far off where South Korea is at if you look at it from that angle. There's probably even posters on their soccer boards trying to convince people to accept that Korea will never be a soccer nation because baseball ratings are so much higher.

Korea took 14 domestic players to the world cup and took a game off of Portugal and drew Uruguay- I don't think we could've done that with 14 MLS players on our roster, for example. We also can't rely on MLS to always be there for us. We have 3 teams.

I'm looking at it from the POV of- what does Canada being a soccer nation (realistically) look like? It looks like a national team that's at least in the top 20, a strong domestic league that has a solid domestic fan base, it produces enough players that are good enough to make your national team and enough players so that when you inevitably have to run a B team, like we're going to do at the Gold Cup, you can still hold your own.

I'm also talking about years into the future. The CPL will improve, it will attract a higher quality of players, eventually its best players will find themselves on our roster, so on. That's the gap between us and Korea, us and Sweden, so on. I also chose those examples because they're not so far off that it's a pipe dream, but still teams a level above us. The bolded is a big comp between us and them. Some koreans will be baseball until they die, no other sport. A lot of Canadians are hockey or nothing. We probably like hockey more than they like baseball (relatively), but they've been able to compete at a high level in two sports that have a large domestic fanbase, and I can't see why Canada can't be there in the next few decades.

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13 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Is that the measurement? I'm genuinely asking because if just say USA win the World Cup, MLS is a top 10 league in the World but NFL is the most popular league in America... then the US isn't a football nation?

That would be pretty embarrassing for everyone else 

You can’t compare anyone to the US when it comes to this stuff. 360 million people, biggest media ecosystem in the history of the world, most infrastructure on the globe, etc. I mean, they’re not a hockey nation and yet they’re about to win their 31st consecutive Stanley cup. 

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12 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

Is that the measurement? I'm genuinely asking because if just say USA win the World Cup, MLS is a top 10 league in the World but NFL is the most popular league in America... then the US isn't a football nation?

That would be pretty embarrassing for everyone else 

It would be pretty embarrassing for many soccer nations if the USA won the men's World Cup, but that's not going to happen for a long time and only if there is huge growth in the popularity of soccer in the US.

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4 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

You can’t compare anyone to the US when it comes to this stuff. 360 million people, biggest media ecosystem in the history of the world, most infrastructure on the globe, etc. I mean, they’re not a hockey nation and yet they’re about to win their 31st consecutive Stanley cup. 

Ouch, ... but like every Stanley Cup winner there are a lot of important Canadians and a lot fewer Americans contributing to that Stanley Cup win.

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25 minutes ago, Rivaldo said:

Ouch, ... but like every Stanley Cup winner there are a lot of important Canadians and a lot fewer Americans contributing to that Stanley Cup win.

The % of American players in the league rises every year. They don’t have the star power Canada has (and won’t for a long time), but there are more and more American players in the league now.

 

23 minutes ago, SpursFlu said:

I'm going to say something very controversial.. the US is closer to winning a World Cup then people realize or would like to admit 

they’ve literally been saying this since they won bronze in what, 1934? “Oh if only we took soccer seriously we would win every World Cup”- ok so take it seriously. Show us what you got.

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11 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

The % of American players in the league rises every year. They don’t have the star power Canada has (and won’t for a long time), but there are more and more American players in the league now.

 

they’ve literally been saying this since they won bronze in what, 1934? “Oh if only we took soccer seriously we would win every World Cup”- ok so take it seriously. Show us what you got.

But now I'm saying it

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11 hours ago, QBCS said:

FIFA isn't very popular outside of kids who play soccer or athletic kids, the growth shouldn't be attributed to that. 

In my school I'd say soccer is the 2nd biggest sport, hockey an obvious 1 and all others kinda lag behind. On any day its common to see at least 5 soccer jersey's. Dortmund, Chelsea, United, City, Bayern, Barca, Madrid, etc. If you look around you'll see it. I'd say the sport has grown exponentially in the last 5 years due to the national team, in terms of younger aged people being invested in it. Any kid knows Alphonso Davies, The average kid who enjoys sports can hold there own in a conversation about the national team and world football.

 

The apple TV deal is something I can't get my head around, must've been heaps of money for them to take it. I don't see how the game will grow in Canada if the games are locked on a streaming service for the next 10 years. Can someone explain the thought process?

EA FIFA is the best selling sports video game & sells over 5 million units/yr in the US. As a result, FIFA became synonymous with a video game more than as a governing body in North America. The Guardian in a 2016 article said EA FIFA belongs to a select group of titles familiar to people who have no interest in gaming – or even real football.

In 2014 an ESPN poll found that 34% of Americans became soccer fans as a result of playing the game, while half of all Americans say that the game has increased their interest in the sport. In 2012 ESPN Sports Poll, EA FIFA was cited as a driving factor for soccer becoming the second favourtie sport among those aged 12-24. 

MLS went with Apple since the major US broadcasters weren't willing to pay up. That's because there was no growth in ratings over the past 10 years as even MLS fans largely just watched their home team. At the same time, there was good audience growth in other soccer tv properties. So, the major US English & Spanish networks didn't need MLS to show soccer. 

MLS also said their their fanbase watched sports most on streaming vs fans of other US leagues. And the core MLS fanbase in the US wasn't being served properly given the blackout policies, not all RSNs being carried by cable & subpar local tv match coverage for some clubs.

Canada rights were an afterthought but given the lacklustre ratings and Bell scaling back the budgets of their media business, TSN couldn't have paid 2x more. Even though TVA Sports is a money loser, they may have paid more since CFM is the only Quebec-based team they showed in the summer.

 

 

Edited by red card
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6 hours ago, Rivaldo said:

Did DAZN have pre, post and half-time shows for the Champions League Final?

For the big matches, they use their own broadcast team instead of using the world feed but no shoulder programming. That's likely because Canada is their only major English speaking market where they have Champions League rights.

For women's Champions League, they do have shoulder programming once it gets into the knockout stages. In this case, DAZN is the global rights holder and produces the world feed in about 3-4 languages.

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I would like to take the odds on "Never", which implies within the 5 decades.  Once the criterion are firmly established, that is, for this esoteric question.

Canada is simply too far behind many other nations who put soccer first, or at least further ahead, in every aspect that has been discussed in the thread.  All the UEFA nations.  All the CONMEBOL nations.  And so many others around the globe.  Women's success is notable, but may not move the needle so much. 

Plus Canada clearly puts one sport, hockey, above all others, which allows it to compete on a world stage with great success, which is a self-sustaining and sufficient situation...for male and female players and fans both.

USA can also never be a soccer nation, so I would also like odds on "Never" for them.  They revere something known as "american football" well beyond anything else, at every level possible, and that's never going away, and it will always compete with soccer for athletes, for eyeballs, for $$$ every which way it goes.  US college football teams have budgets and fan-bases and player development pyramids down into the pre-teen years that rival professional football club budgets in top level leagues in the soccer-iest of nations everywhere!  That ain't going away!

 

 

 

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6 hours ago, SpursFlu said:

Is that the measurement? I'm genuinely asking because if just say USA win the World Cup, MLS is a top 10 league in the World but NFL is the most popular league in America... then the US isn't a football nation?

That would be pretty embarrassing for everyone else 

My opinion?  US is not a soccer nation, not even winning a men's World Cup would make it so.  Same as China.  Same as Yugoslavia's diaspora (water polo man, that's what drives the nations!). And sadly (but awesomely too!) same as Canada!

Edited by eramosat
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9 minutes ago, eramosat said:

My opinion?  US is not a soccer nation, not even winning a men's World Cup would make it so.  Same as China.  Same as Yugoslavia's diaspora (water polo man, that's what drives the nations!). And sadly (but awesomely too!) same as Canada!

Has there ever been a none soccer nation to win a world cup? Or a major title? It's a good question. Can't think of one of the top of my head

Would love to be the first

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On 6/12/2023 at 12:21 AM, SpursFlu said:

I'm curious if people consider the US a football nation?

Not really , Gridiron Football runs that nation. But I am very curious to see in some US cities that have a MLS team and see where they stack up against the other Pro teams . Ive always wondered for example If The Seattle Sounders are a bigger deal Than the Seattle Mariners  in that market 

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So I guess people believe you are a soccer nation only if soccer is far and away the most popular sport in the country.. thats interesting. I'm not sure what to think about that.

Is it more impressive to achieve success as a soccer nation or to do so not being a soccer nation? As a lifelong shit disturber, I think it would be a lot more fun to achieve success as a none soccer nation. That would be hilariously amusing. A lot of fun

Edited by SpursFlu
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In order to achieve a bigger popularity for Soccer in thyis country we should look at countries like Japan and Maybe Australia to see what they are doing .Like Canada where Hockey dominates the the sports Landscape, Japan has Baseball very dominant while Australia has Aussie Rules and Cricket has the dominant Sport yet somehow Soccer is thriving in those two nations 

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