Recent comments in /f/sports

Caelinus t1_j21hshj wrote

My pet theory after reading that: He just has really, really crap form, and his punch was thrown with a slapping motion so his curled fingers impacted rather than his knuckles.

The witnesses, at a loss to figure out how to describe such a stupid move used to do something so horrible, called it a "closed hand sort of slap."

I like this theory because he is a professional boxer apparently, and so him being revealed to have terrible form outside of a controlled environment destroys his image.

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getofftheirlawn t1_j21cytd wrote

I agree with and wish for your sentiment but unfortunately your timetable is way off. By 14, if you want to play competitively you had better be well above the curve toward mastery of fundamental skills. What I am saying is that at age 14 you are in high school or about to be. Good luck making a high school team with only rec experience up until this point and you can just about forget entering club-level play at this age. Note, club-level sports long ago left behind high school level-play here in the states anyways.

The big problem here is that soccer clubs here in the states are run by for-profit 3rd party and sometimes nation-wide/regional companies with no real outlet to major league or professional-level. Where as in much of the rest of the world club soccer is about where you live and is therefore intrinsically local and does feed into the local professional team and or system of buying players.

In my experience youth sports here in the states, except basketball, dies recreationally around age 12, basketball has a strong rec presence until age 17 then if at 18 you still want to play you are playing with full on adults in adult rec leagues. Sure there are some rec soccer leagues, usually run by the club teams, but then it is typically just same 2-3 teams playing each other all season. By high school, kids are either playing high school or club/travel and high school and all the other kids that played when they were young quit.

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