A Mosconi Cup Proposal

[Icon of Sin]

"the most unbiased & knowledgable in the country"... wow

you forgot to add humble and self aware

I know... tell me that part of the original post was sarcasm LOL.

 

[sjm]

I do realize i'm a broken record on this (forgive).... but what if each mosconi cup match were a race to 15 and each participant had to put up 10k. It would probably be a heist (if not, prove me wrong europe, please). Almost the entire Europe team is a bunch of drill mongering panzies. I mean they have taken competitive sport and somehow, with the help of "pool," turned it into a compete and utter joke. It isn't about good pool anymore, it is about not missing in a few racks. You know what would have happened to the best one pocket player that ever lived in this format (ronnie allen), he would have lost his ass!! Get a clue everybody. This meant, means, and will continue to mean nothing. Come on over and match it up Ralph, we'll see how good you actually are. The fact that he wont says it all. It would be like if you were a mountain climber, and you were really good (better than anybody) at climbing 20 feet. Who cares.... whole mountains are what matters.

Yes, you are a broken record, but that's OK. You are entitled to your opinion. Then again, if you doubt Souquet's pedigree, you are not very knowledgeable. Ralf is on the short list of the greatest players that have ever played the game. In his commentary, Jay Helfert called Ralf the greatest tournament player in the world. Van Boening will have to add to his competitive resume for years and years to even be mentionable in the same breath as Ralf Souquet.

Essentially, your "lengthen the race" argument says that even though Americans usually trail when the race reaches six, as they have proven beyond dispute, they'll make the comeback consistently.

Long matches are not the ultimate test of pedigree. I want to see who delivers when every match may ride on every shot. That's real pressure, and only the greatest champions know how to cope with it consistently. The unworthy fall apart in the clutch, just as a few members of Team USA did over the past few days.

Pool is not about endurace, but about performing with excellence when you have little room for error.

Most of all, I hope Team USA doesn't accept the excuse that you are making for them, instead focusing on improving their games. Those who continue to make excuses for the huge drop in the performance of American professionals against the superstars of Europe and Asia are a threat to our re-emergence as a pool playing nation.

 

[peteypooldude]

Having read through most of the posts re: the Mosconi Cup the last few weeks and having watched a bit of the stream, I have a modest proposal to make, WHICH I fully realize will never be realized (for any number of political reasons), but here goes anyways:

Let the AZ crew -- as the most interested, unbiased, and knowledgable pool aficionados in this country -- be the one's to decide the composition of the next USA Mosconi Cup team by (not unlike the one pocket.org HOF nomination process) polling, voting, general acclaim, whatever.

Certainly, we could do no worst than the geniuses at Matchroom.

Lou Figueroa

Couldn't agree more

 

[Siz]

Almost the entire Europe team is a bunch of drill mongering panzies.

:rotflmao1: Well that's put them in their place!

Not sure I agree about the long matches though. As a general rule long games test stamina, and short games test ability to deal with pressure.

But anyway, pro-pool is the same as pro-any sport: its all about what the public want (since in any sport, unless people want to watch you perform, are you really a professional sportsman?). And I think that it is clear that, rightly or wrongly, most viewers prefer shorter races.

 

[mikeyfrost]

It takes 5 hours to play a race to 6 for 5 matches. If they lengthen it any I think it loses its tv coverage, this probably would make the players pocket books suffer. Ask them to they wanna play Race to 9 for $10k/team or race to 6 for $10k per person. I think they'd choose the cash over patriotism and competition.