Posted on 08/19/2012 10:47:26 AM PDT by Jakarta ex-pat
I have just finished watching an absolute scorcher of a game between Manchester City and Southampton (the current league champions won 3-2) and would like to state my case why America needs to embrace this game ASAP.
1) Football (soccer) is THE premier spectator sport in the world.
This doesn't mean baseball, basketball, Ice Hockey, cricket, American football, rugby, Australian rules etc don't have a place at the table. But week in and week out, the thought that David can and does beat Goliath makes it genuine.
2) It can be played anywhere.
Unlike most team sports, no equipment is required to play except a ball. And I don't necessarily mean a football. The kids at my school use "paper" balls, and when I was a kid, we used sweaters for goal posts.
3) It is an international language.
With the chances of our children traveling internationally becoming far more frequent, to be able to communicate with others is a huge asset. Yes learning languages is important, but that's no good if you have nothing to talk about. The EPL is represented by almost half the world. Moreover it is the most watched league in the world. Having some knowledge of its stars and traditions does no harm.
Once again, I'm NOT saying other spectator sports are boring ( well ok basketball and baseball). But in this shrinking world, if you don't know Rooney from Drogba, Pele form Maradonna, or Juventus from AC Milan...you are left with talking about ....
Are you fond of telling other people that they are not entitled to their opinion? That’s where you are “incorrect.”
If soccer had ROUTINE scores of 40-37, I’d probably watch. Make the goal area 25% bigger.
Forger it.
Which sport starts each play with a quarterback’s hands on a center’s butt?
Are you telling me I am not entitled to my opinion?
That's why William Webb Ellis cam up with a testosteron-laden alternative for his fellow Europeans!
Soccer boy?
No you are right. As a Brit living abroad, I have no right to opine to anyone about anything.
Maybe it's time for me to just shut the hell up.
Embrace this.
IMHO this is the perfect game, that takes the best of soccer and combines it with the other sports.
Gaelic Football
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEAbWrdB9XU
Of course not, that’s why it’s odd that you went straight to an ad hominem.
I have obviously hit a nerve in pointing out a fact. I didn’t say that soccer was for fags, or that the game sucks, or anything about the game. I simply stated that I found it strange that you live in a country not your own and have decided that a third country should embrace something not our own.
Don’t get you knicker in a bunch.
Three reasons Americans should shun soccer: 1) It can end in a tie; 2)there are more fake injuries in soccer than in pro wrestling; 3)waching a game in person is more dangerous in the stands than on the field since there is no “hooligan list” of American football, baseball or basketball fans.
Well, thanks to Obamacare, it’s becoming much harder to get Ambien.
A niche could be opening.
My attitude started to change when my daughter started playing, around 7 or 8 years of age. Based on an impressive sample size of one, I will offer a theory about people's responses to this thread: it all depends on what you grew up with. Soccer cynics will be folks, like me, who were never exposed to the game as youngsters; they remain focused on the big traditional U.S. sports. Then there will be a scattering of people who actually played themselves or, as a reasonable proxy, watched their kids play, which is the next best thing. The point is, all the big team sports are kids' games, and you need to be able to see it through the eyes of a child. If you didn't grow up with it, that's hard.
Not having played myself, I will never understand all the intracacies of soccer, but my appreciation has grown as my daughter has developed. She's now a reasonalby competitive travel player, certainly not an elite player, and I can kinda, sorta appreciate what the team is trying to do. It has become fun, which just goes to prove that even old dogs can learn new sports.
It helps that I've always been a fan of defense, and I'm disgusted with what the TV dollar has done to football, baseball, and especially basketball, which has become a nearly unwatchable parody of what used to be the greatest game ever invented. The shot clock and three point shot have ruined offensive basketball; the playoffs and interleague play have turned baseball's regular season into a fraud; football has turned into an aerial circus. I respect soccer for not selling out to television. If the people who ran the NBA or NFL were in charge of marketing soccer, the typical score would be 17-15, the Olympic women's teams would dress like beach volleyball players, and there would be an artificial play stoppage every three minutes for commercials. Good for soccer for holding out.
That said, too many high-stakes, major tournament soccer games end in PK shootouts, and calls/non-calls involving potential penalty kicks loom far too large. There are debatable calls in every sport. They loom excessively large in soccer because there is so little scoring. A bit more scoring would benefit the game, at the expense of reducing the number of upsets. That's a price I would pay; soccer purists would probably disagree.
All it would take is making the net a foot wider or six inches higher.
You obviously never have been to an Oakland Raiders game.
Space is more costly than a couple of baskets in an urban area, basketball is rising.
I’m British, but I’m not into football (or ‘soccer’) at all, which makes me something of a deviant over here. But then, I’m not really into spectator sports at all. Watching other people playing a game and then trying to bathe in the reflected glory of ‘your’ team winning never really appealed to me and I’ve never really understood why people care so much about this silly nonsense.
This Mitchell and Webb sketch sums it up really:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN1WN0YMWZU
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