Imagining a reality when the average score of an American professional soccer match
is 5-3, and pro soccer teams in every market capable of sustaining an "A" level Major
League Baseball farm team.
Now consider what the sports sections of the nightly news might be like. The American
news readers would be spending a reasonable amount of time discussing American pro
soccer, but the big difference between the American coverage and coverage elsewhere
would naturally come down to the focus on statistics.
How so? Currently, aside from the World Cup, very little attention is paid as to who the
scoring leaders are in any particular league. It's just not that big of a deal.
From an American point of view, this is made even more obvious by the soccer's current
focus on "points" leaders instead of a separate focus on goals and assists.
I'm not saying that the points focus isn't correct, as I fully understand the logic behind it.
But I am saying that if someone were to propose a new stat in baseball called "points" which
was a combination of a players hits and home runs and RBI's, my response would be:
"WHY?"
Each area is so important that, even in the environment of grossly excessive stats which is
Major League Baseball, I and most Americans want to deal with hits, home runs and RBI's
as separate topics.
Anyway, here's my point. Once the goals and assists stats go up as high as I feel that they
will, the "points" stat will become irrelevant in American professional soccer. The goals and
assists figures will be so high that they will finally be able to stand on their own. When that
happens the importance of winning the goals and assists season titles will greatly increase.
Here's where I'm taking you with this: Caps will become unimportant!
The day will come when the coach of the US Men's or Women's National team will call up
a player from the MLS or WUSA and the response will be:
"Sorry, but I've got a chance at winning the league goals or assists title, so I'll have to pass."
And the player will hope that the coaches next call will be to one of the other players who are
contending for those same titles. It will happen as sure as I'm sitting here right now. And the
reason is money and glory. You see, the glory of the team in elevated when a player wins a
"title", so into the player's contracts are incentives to encourage the attainment of these goals.
This will be even more pronounced in pro soccer, as the owners will want the players to be
motivated to play in every single American pro game.
So who has the most to loose with higher scoring American soccer? The USA National Teams!
Do I care? No! Because I would rather see American pro soccer thrive than worry about
whether we were going to win a friendly match against Trinidad, or even whether we qualify
for the next World Cup. Oh, I can hear the gasps now. "Heresy" is being whispered as readers
are "crossing" themselves, certain that this must be the devil's work.
Relax people! There will be American players who will continue to be enamored with defensive
oriented soccer. Most will be defenders...correction...all will be defenders and goalkeepers, and
they will make their way to Europe and England where they will feel that the defense is treated with
a great deal more respect. And they will be correct. There will also be American forwards and
midfielders who crave the higher pay which Europe and England affords. So you see, the US
National team will have a good pool of players to pull from, it's just that the highest producers of
the American professional leagues will likely remove themselves from the US National Teams.
But then you realize that I'm assuming that those highest producers will be Americans. Some laugh
at the very thought, and if they are right, then the coaches of the US National Teams have little to
worry about.
So, while there are no easy answers, easy questions can be hard to come by as well.
Mike Kimbro
Return to : Visualize High Scoring Soccer