You wouldn't have thought it would go to overtime. You would have expected anybody from the birthplace of the gridiron game to waltz into a competition like this and beat down everyone in their path. It appeared the ragtag bunch of college grads that made up Team USA were going to do that, too -- until they reached the final against Japan and needed two overtimes to cap a 23-20 comeback victory to win the American Football World Cup.
Before people get too upset that the score was this close, consider these things.
1: This team was put together just weeks before the tournament.
2: They were all college graduates who couldn't even land a undrafted free agent contract.
3: Japan's been playing football for years now.
4: We also invented baseball and basketball, yet we managed to lose those tournaments.
I saw pictures of France playing Japan a few weeks back and thought this whole World Cup thing was an interesting concept. I just wish I had known about it before then.
It would have been embarassing to not have won this competition.
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Jake wrote:I saw pictures of France playing Japan a few weeks back and thought this whole World Cup thing was an interesting concept. I just wish I had known about it before then.
They did a terrible job promoting it. Even though this is the third World Cup, it's still just in its infancy. The fact that Canada didn't participate speaks volumes. I hope in 2011 we see an expanded field.
Is this something we could send our high school All-American teams now?
In basketball, we have our Under 19 teams and stuff. Our high school All Americans could all go play in these games and dominate. No insult at all to these guys considering they're representing their country, but I would love to this scenari...
"Jimmy Clausen calls the snap... Hands off to Noel Devine-! No! It's a play action and a deep bomb to Arrelious Benn! Touchdown, AMERICA! USA leads 41-0 pending the extra point!"
"I said when he retired that Joe Gibbs was the best coach I'd ever faced." - Bill Parcells
Smithian wrote:Our high school All Americans could all go play in these games and dominate.
You do understand that we needed double overtime to beat Japan, right? We're just lucky Canada didn't participate.
It will be interesting to see if USA Football makes any changes as to how they construct the roster and how much practice time they get in 2011. And remember, every other country is just going to be that much better.
Smithian wrote:Is this something we could send our high school All-American teams now?
In basketball, we have our Under 19 teams and stuff. Our high school All Americans could all go play in these games and dominate. No insult at all to these guys considering they're representing their country, but I would love to this scenari...
"Jimmy Clausen calls the snap... Hands off to Noel Devine-! No! It's a play action and a deep bomb to Arrelious Benn! Touchdown, AMERICA! USA leads 41-0 pending the extra point!"
An NFL All-Star team would pwn the rest of the world. It would be the dream team of football. It would never happen because too much money is on the line for someone to go down playing an exhibition game.
Cappster wrote:An NFL All-Star team would pwn the rest of the world. It would be the dream team of football. It would never happen because too much money is on the line for someone to go down playing an exhibition game.
It's also useless for them to compete. We're really the only nation that plays NFL football, aside from some semi-pro and rec leagues elsewhere.
Cappster wrote:An NFL All-Star team would pwn the rest of the world. It would be the dream team of football. It would never happen because too much money is on the line for someone to go down playing an exhibition game.
Yeah, imagine an Olympic team.... not many from the NFL would play because they want a SB. Much like the Basketball team. It seems more stars played for the us than in past years execpt the first team was kick a#$. All the NBA stars played that year, no one turned down the chance to play if asked, then.
