The I dont like Soccer thread
DJ_WubWub
874 Posts
I know its world cup time and all but am i the only one who doesn't like Soccer here.
I grew up playing Ausssie rules and rugby. Games where you physically get to hit people and there is regular scoring.
Soccer for me is pretty unwatchable. I grew up never playing it or watching it. It bores me.Too many 0-0 or 1-1 draws. Too much faking and crying like little girls if they ever get touched..
Too each their own but I hate soccer
I grew up playing Ausssie rules and rugby. Games where you physically get to hit people and there is regular scoring.
Soccer for me is pretty unwatchable. I grew up never playing it or watching it. It bores me.Too many 0-0 or 1-1 draws. Too much faking and crying like little girls if they ever get touched..
Too each their own but I hate soccer
Comments
Flags everywhere an shit. STOP THAT!
I work in Queens and all types of folks have gone bazerk w/ the World Cup Theatre Uniforms.
The fact that it can bring so many Nations together and in Africa of all places, is a good thing.
Is it other countries' flags that are the problem?
It's a pretty good game; one of the best. The rules are simple and universal, and unchanging. The equipment is readily available anywhere, and it can be played by any number of people...
The most important thing to me, though, with the World Cup, is that it's huge. You could substitute any number of sports, and it'd be the same: I'll even watch poker when there's ten million dollars on the line...
If you can get everyone to change over to Australian Rules Football, I'm cool with it. I'll watch Rock Paper Scissors for pink slips, ya know? The medium isn't as important to me as the scale... I will say though, that I think soccer is perfectly acceptable as Number One Most Important Sport In The World. The ball stays within the white lines, that one dude in the mickey mouse gloves and orange shirt gets to use his hands...there are like four rules. The only one that takes more than three words to explain is onside/offside, and that takes like ten words...
It's a perfect ball game. Add in all the history, and I don't think it's going anywhere...
In the USA, there is the annoying Europhile association with it, but that's a people thing, not a game thing...the college kid who returns from a semester in Prague talmbout belgian beer, rail systems, wearing a soccer jersey...uuuugggghhhhhhh lol ...the Everyone's Irish on St Patrick's Day phenomenon taken to a whole new level.
But man, how can you hate the World Cup if you're into sportsfanizm? It's monstrous.
Nope. I'm not into it at all.
Nice goal from Villawrong threadIt strikes me that much of the American antipathy towards football can be attributed to the unspoken acceptance that the USA national side will never win the World Cup, the number one club side in the world will never come from the MLS, and no American passport holder will ever become World Footballer Of The Year, so, y'know, why bother? Even if you set aside those sports that "only America plays", the US still enjoys, or has enjoyed, a period of supremacy in most sporting endeavours it takes part in. It makes a kind of sense, therefore, that the majority of US sports fans would have little appetite for investing time and energy in an unfamiliar game in which American participants are, generally speaking, middle-ranking also-rans (not that that has ever stopped us Brits enjoying it).
Then there's the way in which the notion of winners and losers is so absolutely central to US sporting culture that there's no way more than a few Americans will ever truly grasp that it's possible for a 0-0 draw to still be a great game of football.
THIS. Well, either that, or it's just too little payoff for Americans. We love the money shot, not the awkward conversation before the banging, to use a porn analogy.
to further the porn analogy though, we also love dirty stupid shit like animal porn, i.e. NASCAR
And I don't mean random knuckleheads up in the stands.
See: Lance Armstrong
I can handle a free flowing game of AFL but league bores the shit out of me. Full of meatheads in denial about their homoerotic urges if you ask me. In the thick of state of origin atm too so it's fucking inescapable. I'm a cricket tragic though, so my opinion doesn't really count for shit. I could watch zimbabwe play new zealand in a 5 day test no problem.
You greatly underestimate the arrogance of Americans; I'm not sure that most Americans are aware of the above facts or would assume them to be the case.
I used to dislike soccer, but that's because I had only seen US soccer. Once I saw an international match live I was a changed man.
i had never seen a full game played until i moved to Europe in 98. since then i have come to really appreciate the game, when played well it is beautiful in its fluid simplicity, a true team sport, an exciting spectacle.
When played bady it is one of the most boring sights on the planet.
Note i said i have come to 'appreciate' the game, i appreciate it but it does not rouse the same passion that a good hard game of Rugby or League can, the diving, nancyboy antics and general Italianess of the modern football game is a huge thorn in its side.
if they could get past the obvious showpony theatrics and play like men then i think more people would come to love the game too.
Hank Hill
this more than your other argument.
to be honest though, the best argument i have heard tends to follow these lines:
In almost all American team sports there is a profound person that matters greatly to the game at hand, but never plays a minute. That person is the Coach. With perhaps the exception of Hockey, American sports culture is designed so that the Coach can play a very critical role in a game at almost any given minute. Calling time-outs to reset player responsibilities (NBA/NFL). Switching out key players multiple times in a game (MLB). Or in fact calling the play itself (NFL). In each sport, the Coach can at almost any time stop play or change the direction the game is going by making a decision.
The same is not true in Soccer/Football. Bar the line-up of a team, and having only 3 chances to switch players, a Soccer manager can do very little after a game has started to change the outcome. In short, it is all up to the players, and not just as extensions of a play itself.
My personal opinion is that Americans tend to enjoy that Coaching element of sports, and perhaps more so than the rest of the soccer loving world. This is not to say that its a zero-sum game in which you can only enjoy one sport or the other, but I do believe there is some element of this that Americans find engaging.
But as for your argument above Doc (i.e. - a thrilling game ends in a tie), i think there is more to add there too. Football requires a lot of build up as opposed to short bursts of activity. Preference for many people (not just Americans) is to prefer the latter. But i would agree with you, that in most circumstances Americans do like seeing a winner in their sporting events.
[rant time]
And the bigger issue i think is how Soccer/Football deals with penalties/cheating/etc. In that, in doesn't deal with it.
FIFA has established a set a rules in which only a few officials can radically change the game and there is little anyone can do during a game to impact how those calls are going.
NFL official makes a horrible call: challenge the play
MLB ump misses a lot of strikes: manager goes out (during the game) and confronts the ump (won't necessarily change the play, but the assumption is something is being 'done' about bad calls)
NBA coaches also get a lot of time to vent on bad calls, and replays can allow for correct calls in the future.
Americans, through replays or recourse, like to see correct calls made on a game. Football would argue this too, but the reality is that human error in official calls is a huge element of the game that the footballing masses love to hate. Does anyone ever really anticipate FIFA to allow video replay? I would suggest not.
And while it does occur in the NBA, diving is another element of Football that i don't think a lot of Americans can really get behind. Especially for the fact that FIFA has no desire to ever correct what is perceived as "cheating". Americans prefer their cheaters to work off camera (i.e. just take performance enhancing drugs) as opposed to cheating directly on the field of play.
Shows you how little I know....I figured that Maradona dude was running shit on the sidelines...and starring in 70's porn flicks during halftime!!
Now this I disagree with.
First off, comparing Soccer to Cycling is moronic... you're talking about an actual game, between two sides, to a bunch of dudes biking through France. One is actually a sport that many Americans play and one sounds like something to do on vacation.
Second off, speaking of many Americans... within 10, 20 years you are going to see the majority of America being into soccer. Why? Because they will hail from countries with serious soccer culture and fandom. This is part of the America We Know And Love Being Taken From Us By Maxicans And Socialists. Get ready for it.
Third off, speaking of many Americans... millions of kids all over the country play competitive soccer as kids. Their parents are basically the core marketing target for minivans. The only reason we don't have a sick homegrown Soccer industry is because there's not the kind of financial incentives and popular cult-status that football, basketball, and baseball all hold through high school and into the pros. Again, within 10-20 years I think that will change. We're already growing great soccer players they just have absolutely no reason to continue playing past their childhoods.
^^^THIS. All day, everyday.
Related aside: last Thursday, I was working at a cafe in El Serreno (predominantly Latino neighborhood to the east of where I live) and when the Mexico/France game was on, at least half or more of the folks watching and rooting on Mexico were Chicano dudes rocking Lakers gear. Saying.
I also think JP's third point - the relative scarcity of $$$ to help fund a professional soccer league that could compete with the NBA/NFL/MLB/NHL is a strong one too.
To sum up a lot of different points at once, I just think that professional soccer in American still *feels* like it's in its infancy. I bet most Americans aren't even aware there's an MLS (and frankly, I'm not convinced they should be aware).
re: JLee's point. I don't buy this "lack of a coach" argument at all. I just finished watch two months of playoff basketball and I'm still not 100% certain what NBA coaches do except make pithy speeches about "being aggressive" or "trusting your teammates" and occassionally, diagramming some X and O shit. But for the normal flow of the game, I just see 10 dudes on a court.
Pine Tar, Vasaline under the brim, Sandpaper,saliva, sticky gums for Safetys, Flopping, etc.
There's plenty of on court/field cheating in American Sport.
Im fine w/ the World Cup, just take off the USA/Mexico/Brazil/Nigeria/Greece denim jacket while im having lunch thank you. It like the Puerto Rican Day Parade meets Crayola Crayons up this mutha.
FAIL
When I've attended the Euro Bike show in Germany every Euro I met was giddy over the fact that I was from Dallas and might know Lance Armstrong....his popularity there is mind boggling while virtually non-existant here.
Soccer has been hailed as the "next big thing in the next 10-20 years" for 10-20 year plus....hasn't happened and I don't believe I'll see it supplant the other 4 sports in popularity here in my lifetime....and Hockey already draws more crickets than fans on TV.
You may be right.....but when an American dominated one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the Tour De France, no one here gave a rats ass......yet I have the opportunity to run down 100's of cyclists every weekend!
Part of what makes it so great is that there are so few gols. When they finally hit one it's super climactic.
It's a pretty raw sport, too. I see follies getting dragged off the field all day.