Quote:
Originally Posted by St. Pats
I'd pile on but why bother. The only real surprise is the manner in which they are losing. I'd say choking but "choking" to me is having the talent to win but not doing so. How big a nation is in population and/or wealth has zero to do with how they do at a sport.
There has to be top athletes choosing the sport over other ones and then being able to find opportunities to get excellent coaching, games etc. to progress to an elite level.
True of very few sports in Canada. Very few.
I'm not sure I would even classify Canada as a sporting nation outside of hockey. Maybe there is some hope on the horizon as the MLS seems to becoming more a league Canadian players can shoot for but I wonder if the pathway there is even in place.
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There are plenty of other winter sports that Canada excels at, the medal stand in Vancouver demonstrated that, but summer sports are always going to be difficult. The culture doesn't really embrace them and the weather makes it difficult for them to grab hold of people.
Outside of Sweden and Russia (which has a massive population advantage) are there any other cold weather climates that have strong soccer programs? Norway pops up here and there, Finland generally sucks. Denmark has been strong for a while so I guess that's another, but they're vikings so that's not quite fair. I guess Germany counts as cold weather, but it's filled with robots in human skin so again, not really fair.