When you're the biggest, strongest, wealthiest, most powerful, concacaf-dominating superpower in the world, that, according to fifa, is perennially one of the top 25 teams in the world (sssssure you are) isn't a flash-in-the-pan showing at a World Cup quarterfinal a little beneath the standard your country purports itself to behold? Shouldn't y'all have at least won a final semifinal.........quarterfinal by now? (Oh, I forgot. the only reason y'all lost to Germany in Korea-Japan is probably through some fault of the referee or linesman.....some call y'all didn't get or something. Yuh ent have one ah dem "vuvuzelas" to blow on? Your team still have a chance of advancing in this tournament!)
In Spain it's the #1 sport and they have one of the richest leagues in the world. How many World Cup's have they won by now? Your logic is bunk and you know it.
Our pro league's only been around for 13 years, and not even 20 years ago our team was made up almost entirely of students. Since then we have we have beaten teams like Brazil, Argentina, Germany, England, Portugal, etc. -- something that no other team in the region could even conceive of, bar Mexico. It's precisely that kind of steady progress that worries the hell out of guys like you.
BTW - just to drop a little bit of history on you (since you seem to so sorely lack the perspective), we've actually been to the semi-finals.
Let's really put things in perspective, zeppo before you get happy blowing your vuvuzela too hard: Spain's empty Trophy case in the World Cup department is universally seen as underachievement, lil fella, while any results that you can brandish is equally seen as
over achievement. On any given day, the usa can eke out a result against Germany, Brazil, England and Argentina and you will STILL never be seen as belonging in their company. As you proved yesterday, you didn't belong on the same field as Brazilian ball boys, so the result that Kasey Keller secured for you in the Gold Cup in 1998 is not something to tout as anything more than having had a lucky day (even small countries like my own have those from time to time) I will grant you that you embarrassed Portugal and eked out a loss to Germany, but when you compare third place in the inaugural World Cup tournament to getting eliminated in the group stage and being beaten by Ghana in 2006 along with all the results in between.......I wouldn't call that "steady progress" like you would, young man. (wait, didn't y'all lose to Iran in '98?) CONCACAF, the confederation which your country so dominates, has had a steady slot available to them since 1930. Cameroun's and Nigeria's accomplishments are what you would call steady progress, especially when you consider the fact that Africa did not start having a consistent slot in the World Cup until 1970. Your country and Mexico have dominated concacaf for more years than I have probably existed, that has never been in question, as far as I am concerned, but against top level competition, y'all don't matchup, y'all don't belong, and y'all prove that time and time again. (Beware of Egypt on Sunday)
Also, when you talk about your pro league being only 13 years old, please don't forget that the
mls msl misled is merely a rehashing of the NASL and all other associated leagues which were unsustainable because there was hardly the local talent (and even less local interest) to feed it.
See, zeppo, you're missing my point and I am not surprised. I should have given up when I saw you try to use Spain as some sort of "point" to sustain your argument and I was even more appalled that you would pluralize "World Cup" with an apostrophe "s" but if I stuck with you that you might try to apply a little "perspective" and learn something. The usa can dominate CONCACAF and Mexico all you want. TRUST when I tell you that scattered victories against big teams neither bother nor impress me. I know that sooner or later, even 5 World Cups from now, your team will STILL be made to look like they were yesterday.