Another loss for Team USA!

easy-e said:
I think you mean “the number of world class players FROM there”.
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vjmehra said:
All those issues apply in Europe too (and I'm guessing Asia).

The Euro Tour is great in a sense, but the prize money barely covers more than expenses, so whilst its a tough tour, its not a financially lucrative one. The benefit to the players is exposure, which has potential for sponsors (and Mosconi Cup points).

Land prices are also probably higher on average in Europe than the US (excluding areas like Manhattan, bits of San Francisco, LA etc, but no pool player is going to live there unless they have an alternative source of funding anyway so that's sort of irrelevant).

Also a lot of the European guys are sponsored by...US cue manufacturers!

To be honest I don't know what the issue is, I struggle to believe its one of talent, I suspect its more a combination of attitude and culture.

Over here it feels like tournaments are priority and gambling occurs on the side (if at all), races are short in tournaments and so every shot has to be given 100%, especially the safety play, which I feel the US players perhaps neglect slightly.

I also feel that US culture views tournaments as secondary and gambling races to 100 as the top priority. There's nothing wrong with that of course....unless you're trying to win a competition that is short races and alternate breaks every year against a group of players that take that format very seriously and play it all year.

Over long races you can get into a groove and are more likely to pull off recovery shots by pure sharp shooting when you run out of position, whereas you don't have that luxury in short races. If the US players want to compete over the shorter distance they simply need to sharpen up. It will be tricky for the older guys, but the younger guys have no excuse, they need to do drills, drills, drills!

For the record I'm not saying the Europeans can't compete over a longer distance, as they have solid fundamentals I'm sure many of them could. I'm merely saying that I think the US probably has the talent, they just have the wrong focus if they want to compete in the Mosconi (and its a big if, whilst the players may want to take part...is if their top goal every year ad for the Europeans, I genuinely believe it is)?
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I think this is spot on right here. We have the talent but we are missing a few small things that mean a lot in the short race. Europe has the sprinters and we have the marathon runners.
 
SFC9ball said:
I think this is spot on right here. We have the talent but we are missing a few small things that mean a lot in the short race. Europe has the sprinters and we have the marathon runners.
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Where is that proven? Shane is pretty much the only one playing long races, I don’t think anything would change if it were races to 11 per match- except the beating may get worse
Jason
 
Instead of trying to find the five best American pool players to send every year let's just try to find five that will rise to the occasion and not dog their brains out! Are there even five? Name them?
 
LeonD123 said:
Numbers doesn't mean anything.

Switzerland has 7millions people and yet we won 23 tennis grand slam last 20 years while USA won nothing.
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andy roddick us open 2003 , agassi australian 2002...but I agree, your point is valid.

Now women's grand slams...the williams sisters give the world the 7 out in recent years
 
OLD NO 9 said:
Instead of trying to find the five best American pool players to send every year let's just try to find five that will rise to the occasion and not dog their brains out! Are there even five? Name them?
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How can you predict which player will puke on his shoes in front of a tv audience and playing for his country? IMO you need to go get the guys that play in the trenches on a regular basis. I like Danny Smith playin' for the chili WAAAAY better than Oscar Dominguez.
 
vladmin said:
Oh ya. US won the first 10 out of 12 MCs. Wasnt a problem then when US had the likes of Nick, Rempe, Archer and Earl in their prime, Varner, etc etc etc ? Im sure it wasnt. It was fair !!!
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That's all you need to know. Children throwing a tantrum now that their toy's been taken away!
 
vladmin said:
USA played their hearts out ? Where ? The poker tables in the lobby ?

Did we not witness Skylar shooting just as good as a grade 4 APA player ?

Did we not witness Shane missing again and again some incredible shots just as he does year after year at MC ? Where's that Shane we used to see in those incredible TAR races to 100 vs Alex and Earl ?

Did we not see Oscar "The Rapist" Domingues complaining after every bad shot about the roll, the table, the lights, etc ?

Let me put it to you in this perspective. Population of US = 323M. Population of Western Europe = 394M

So ya, cherry picking from a somewhat similar sample. Not sure the ratio of pool players maybe someone can chime in.

US lacks in the "respect" and mentality department. Earl and Archer were feared because they were ruthless on the table. I recall MC in 2009 when Archer came back against Appleton from 5-1 down to win 6-5. I can tell you as I was watching from the crowd, Johnny owned the table and the crowd with his presence. Who do you have today that can do that ? Woodward ? Hatch ? Come on

All those guys were playing their best irrespective if it was MC, pool hall or in their basement.

Filler is Europe's Earl. Antics antics antics. Its part of the game. Pool is not snooker with the same etiquette and spirit. Whereas in snooker you have people competing in dress pants, dress shoes and vest at ANY tournaments, Derby City and US Open are played in shorts and flip flops (exaggerating of course but to emphasize the point)

Oh ya. US won the first 10 out of 12 MCs. Wasnt a problem then when US had the likes of Nick, Rempe, Archer and Earl in their prime, Varner, etc etc etc ? Im sure it wasnt. It was fair !!!

So maybe hope that next year some players with a real hunger to win make it on the US team that wont get phased by the european inferno.

Cheers
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United States = 323 mil
Western Europe = 394 mil

Aha, this is why we been losing!
 
In all fairness, when the MC was first started, the pool-playing population in Europe wasn't as large as it is now. That's why it started out as the US vs. Europe. Now that there are thousands more playing in Europe, maybe we should start playing against single countries rather than cherry picking one or two of the best from several different countries.
 
RickLafayette said:
In all fairness, when the MC was first started, the pool-playing population in Europe wasn't as large as it is now. That's why it started out as the US vs. Europe. Now that there are thousands more playing in Europe, maybe we should start playing against single countries rather than cherry picking one or two of the best from several different countries.
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So let me get that straight, you're basically saying that a Usa vs Greece (10M population) would be a fair contest? Or even the bigger countries like Germany, Poland, Italy, France, UK that go from 60M-80M. You're implying that any European country has, more or less, a similar amount of players to choose from....
 
snucar said:
So let me get that straight, you're basically saying that a Usa vs Greece (10M population) would be a fair contest? Or even the bigger countries like Germany, Poland, Italy, France, UK that go from 60M-80M. You're implying that any European country has, more or less, a similar amount of players to choose from....
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Not sure about France, Greece and Italy, but I’d say the US vs Poland, Germany or the UK would be interesting games!
 
Johnny Rosato said:
United States = 323 mil
Western Europe = 394 mil

Aha, this is why we been losing!
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Why are you using the population of Western Europe? The population of Europe is ~740million. I'm not sure what qualifies as "Europe" for Matchroom's purposes, but I think that number you used does not include the populations of places like Germany and Italy, and is already 70million more besides.
 
vjmehra said:
Not sure about France, Greece and Italy, but I’d say the US vs Poland, Germany or the UK would be interesting games!
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So what's the point? Instead of calling it USA vs Europe rename it USA vs Poland/Germany/UK??? Isn't it basically the same thing as it has always been? And let's say we have a USA vs Germany contest, why an Italian or Spanish should give a flying buck about it? It would certainly deduct audience, not all but a good slice for sure.
 
snucar said:
So what's the point? Instead of calling it USA vs Europe rename it USA vs Poland/Germany/UK??? Isn't it basically the same thing as it has always been? And let's say we have a USA vs Germany contest, why an Italian or Spanish should give a flying buck about it? It would certainly deduct audience, not all but a good slice for sure.
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I wasn't suggesting it...I was merely saying that actually Europe is so strong right now you could actually do what RickLafayette suggested and may well still end up with a defeat for the US!
 
vjmehra said:
I wasn't suggesting it...I was merely saying that actually Europe is so strong right now you could actually do what RickLafayette suggested and may well still end up with a defeat for the US!
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Agreed on that. But then again, in case of defeat of that single European country, they could pull the same excuse out against the US team "I'm a smaller country than you" . They would never do that, but that faulty logic it would still stand as an easy excuse for them. Sheer madness!!!

Their game is awfully dated, plain and simple.

Just take a look at this shot selection of Thorpe at 10:28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIFvHqkjzFs

Not only he plays a shot no decent European player would ever play, he gets lucky not to leave the 3 ball on, but he also brags to Skyler that he even got intentional position for the 4 ball. Just watch how the cue ball comes across TWICE through a small gap amongst the balls to land on the 4. If he tries to do that again he will never make it in a million years. And what's Skyler answer to that? "Good shot!" of course lol
 
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snucar said:
Agreed on that. But then again, in case of defeat of that single European country, they could pull the same excuse out against the US team "I'm a smaller country than you" . They would never do that, but that faulty logic it would still stand as an easy excuse for them. Sheer madness!!!

Their game is awfully dated, plain and simple.

Just take a look at this shot selection of Thorpe at 10:28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIFvHqkjzFs

Not only he plays a shot no decent European player would ever play, he gets lucky not to leave the 3 ball on, but he also brags to Skyler that he even got intentional position for the 4 ball. Just watch how the cue ball comes across TWICE through a small gap amongst the balls to land on the 4. If he tries to do that again he will never make it in a million years. And what's Skyler answer to that? "Good shot!" of course lol
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Yeah I noticed a huge difference in approach (or at least what seemed to me to be a huge difference in approach).

The Americans always tried to go for a pot if there was a 1% chance of it, the Europeans (most of the time, not saying their shot selection was perfect) seemed much more comfortable playing safe if there was no great upside in taking on a low percentage pot.

Also the execution of the safeties were better by the European side.

From this forum I get a slight impression that playing safe is considered 'dirty play' or unsporting still in the US?
 
snucar said:
So what's the point? Instead of calling it USA vs Europe rename it USA vs Poland/Germany/UK??? Isn't it basically the same thing as it has always been? And let's say we have a USA vs Germany contest, why an Italian or Spanish should give a flying buck about it? It would certainly deduct audience, not all but a good slice for sure.
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What people forget is that while US players do feel like they are representing their Country the Euro players aren't representing theirs.
 
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