Posted on 06/09/2006 8:56:48 AM PDT by 1rudeboy
So you Think Soccer Sucks?
Fine. I am honestly surprised that you could find the energy to type it, or its equivalent. I am not surprised that you are probably the same person complaining that soccer is being “rammed down your throat,” or other such nonsense.
Do you realize how silly you sound? In what sort of universe can a professional sport, any professional sport, be forced upon anyone? Just turn off the sports media. That enough should be understandable to every member of this website, even the re-treads, trolls, disruptors, and shills.
But we need to get a few things straight. Above all else, your team is playing in the largest tournament on the face of our planet. That’s right, your team. Your other teams, be they named Penske, Padres, or Packers, do not perform on such a stage. A Packer fan may tell a Bear fan that his team sucks. The Bear fan will reply in kind. Such is the nature of rivalry. But try and explain to me that soccer is a wussy sport when I see the following:
Mexican fan: Your team sucks.Oh yeah, that’s real testosterone on display. Chicks dig a competitor.
U.S.A. fan: Soccer is ghey.
If you cannot bring yourself to cheer for or even defend your own country, then how about shutting the heck up. If you cannot bring yourself to shut the heck up, then walk into a stadium full of English, German, or Dutch fans, stand up, and shout the same out loud. But please try those fans first. Other countries’ fans may mistakenly deliver you to a painless death. Drink a beer or two if it makes you brave. Remember that there will always be someone braver than you.
I don’t want to hear about how soccer is a “socialist” sport. It’s insulting. To your intelligence. I don’t care to talk about restrictor-plates, revenue-sharing, anti-trust exemptions, or the Fair Catch Rule, whose very name suggests wine spritzers and flower arrangements. Please understand this is not about the superiority of one sport over another. This is about rising to the pinnacle of a sport that gives every country in the world the opportunity to qualify. It’s a sport. It has a ball. It's about being the best. What more do you need?
Americans love to fight - traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble player; the fastest runner; the big league ball players; the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win - all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.1I don’t want to hear that the rules are lame. You don’t know the rules. You all but admitted you don’t watch, so how can you? Injury time, the calculation of which was always the source of debate, is now announced at the sideline as the half is ending. It’s been that way for years. Please try and keep up.
Players take dives. Live with it. It happens in every contact sport. Sometimes a player takes a dive in order to give himself or his teammates a rest. You would also if you just spent the last forty minutes and incalculable miles alternating between a run and a sprint.
Your team needs you. Your country needs you. The next couple weeks will not be easy and will only become harder, and the stakes higher, as time goes on. Sure, I think Landon Donavan is a priss, DaMarcus Beasley is over-rated, and Claudio Reyna is too old. It matters not. I do not expect you to start drinking at 5AM. I do not expect you to march down Main Street with the Stars & Stripes. I do not expect four Chicago cops in riot-gear come to the apartment (my personal best). But I expect you to get behind your team or get out of my way.
Thanks for letting me “share.” Thanks for letting me “emote.” Chuckle if you wish. Just remember that somewhere (not necessarily in Germany) someone in American gear is drinking and dancing with a hot Brazilian, or Swedish, or Australian chick and you are not.
_____
1George S. Patton, Speech to the Third Army, 1944.
What comments such as mine? Quote where I've said anything bad about soccer or actual soccer fans (not counting libs who just use soccer as a way to bash America as fans, I'm probably going to watch more World Cup than all of them will combined) Mitch is a loser, he's a weak writer who regularly inflicts his idiotic liberal world views on sports where they don't belong, the only good thing I can say about Mitch is that he's not as addicted to inflicting his politics on sports as Jason Whitlock who can't seem to see anything happen in any sport without it being racist.
Actually the "America's Team" thing for the Cowboys was much more the result of their marketing people than sports writers, the sports writers jumped on it. But it was people in the Cowboys organization who pushed it, and Cowboys ownership has laughed all the way to the bank because of it.
Where did I say "force"? I don't think anybody is forcing soccer (or any other sport) on anybody else. The libs certainly don't want America to suddenly start watching soccer, then they'd lose something to complain about. The worst thing that can happen to a profesional whiner (which, let's face it, is what most lib columnists are, sports or otherwise... yes and many conservative columnists too) is to actually have some of their whining "result" in change, then they gotta go through all the trouble of finding a new axe to grind, which might involve work.
"Tuesdays" is the exception that proves the rule. And proof that everybody can write something good once, the problem is the people that can only write one good thing but somehow get a career writing.
I completely agree with your assessment of Mr. Albom. And I should have done a better of demonstrating that I was speaking generally, and not directly at you.
"...I wonder how many people would feel less defensive or even like soccer if all of this was conducted in a vaccuum..."
I get your point, put those players in space suits!
Naaaah, still BOREING!
Then we're all good.
Run by a murdering dictator. My teacher went there, he said the atmosphere is stifling, with the Gestapo around every corner.
Another Communist Utopia.
Heh. Fair enough. :)
Not sure why you flagged the other guy to your reply to me.
By the way, it is called football, not soccer.
Soccer? Isn't that what little girls play in Elementary school?
Hey, at least in baseball if another player pi$$es you off...you're already armed. In soccer what do you have...a ball of air surrounded by leather.
A set of sharp football studs in the groin will tell 'em who is boss.
Metal baseball cleats have been known to do quiet a bit of damage from time to time as well. :-)
Relax, they know that football (the game where you must play with your foots mostly) is number one in the world while American football is nowhere near the top ten, that hurts :)
Soccer is pushed on kids in elementary school because it's a sport that anyone can play and not look too bad at. Anyone can run around a field and kick a ball with little or no practice. Baseball requires a variety of skills, such as running fast, hitting a ball with a bat, throwing accurately and catching. Educators hate baseball because it makes some kids look bad. The same is true of football.
Soccer doesn't hurt a kids self-esteem and that's why deep down many Americans resent soccer. It's associated with the namby pamby, feel good, style over substance liberalism.
Bite me.
Exactly. See post 134.
Apparently, anyone can also tell the vast majority of Americans to shut up from behind a keyboard, because they disagree with you about a sport they don't care about.
But, to be fair, why don't you try to preach your screed, with a loudspeaker, at the nearest NeckCAR, NoFunLeague, MustLayoffBarroid or NBA game?
Indeed, no one is forcing me to watch that garbage I call soccer, and the rest of the world insists is called football. I just wish folks like you, who have drank the CapriSun and sucked on the orange slices, would quit telling me I am "enenlightened" for not joining the Global Herd.
You're the soccer fan...Chuck E. Cheese's is down the road.
Agree, if you want to play and watch a bunch of Eurofags in shorts, that's your perogative. The rest of the world can say that we all should wear fanny packs and (censored sexual act between men), but that doesn't mean that this AMERICAN will do so!
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