Quote:
Originally Posted by JHikka
I don't think people understand the concept of sports rankings within countries and the desire to play those sports in those countries re: size of countries populations. Outside of Track and Field, Football is #1 in Jamaica? In Canada? Eh...
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I'm of two minds on this. I do think we have far more sports on our radar here than most countries and we are fairly competitive in most. And many countries do not concern themselves with putting resources or athletes towards winter sports as well except for maybe the famous Jamaican bobsled team (and just yesterday I saw something on a Jamaican hockey team)
Having said that, I think it would surprise or maybe shock people here how many soccer players and registered soccer players we have here and how we compare against other countries. But aside from pockets of larger support in the bigger cities, for Joe Sixpack Canadian it is not high on the consciousness stream.
I've been following the CMNT for 40 years and nothing surprises me concerning Canadian soccer (good or bad) but I do think we should be doing better than we are. I don't demean other small countries ie Central American and immediately dismiss them because they are a small country or do not have players playing for famous clubs. I've been around long enough to know that doesn't always work.
We've been getting beaten for years by some of these small countries who have a concentrated viable national league that allows players to develop familiarity and play together often.
Ok back to numbers playing (from FIFA). You can extrapolate these numbers anyway you wish, rich countries vs poor, largely populated vs small, number of females included, ages (minors vs adults) but it still comes down to Canada having a significant number of players.
When we can finally get rid of auld country influences, political infighting, and results based influences then we will be on our way. Things are getting better, but a long way to go.
Also I think, it would be safe to assume that we are still growing as a soccer country (compared to the survey below in 2006) while many other established countries may have maxed their potential.
(2006 Big Count, a FIFA survey of its 207 member associations)
Registered players
All Players
