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.
No one realized what had occurred--the police had left so rapidly--but once it became apparent, the supporters started chasing after them. They threw bricks and bottles at their backs. But none of them hit their target. The police were gone; they had retreated; they had disappeared._____A chant broke out--the first that afternoon--and it grew louder as more supporters appeared, entering the square from the various side streets that fed it.
England.There were more people.
England.
England.
England.
England.Now that I could take it in, the crowd was larger than I had expected, not the four thousand who had begun the march, but still one of considerable size--more than a thousand. They were appearing from all directions; they had all taken up this chant. They were celebrating; the national side had won [the skirmish with the police].
England.
England.
England.
I remained leaning against the wall, and remember saying aloud: My, my, my.
Many things fell into place. This chant: it was the only one I had heard in a day otherwise characterized by its enforced, sullen silence. And now: this declaration for England. It was such a simple but enormous thought: these fools, despised at home, ridiculed in the press, incapable of being contained by any act of impulsive legislation that the government had devised, wanted an England to defend. They didn't want Europe; they didn't understand Europe and didn't want to. They wanted a war. They wanted a nation to belong to and to fight for, even if the fight was this absurd piece of street theater with the local Italian police.
Much the same way as Mom and Dad put a plate of spaghetti-o's in fron t of a 3-year old who doesn't like 'em, never has, and never will, but they say "You like SPaghetti-o's. You always liked them. Now eat up!" Sure they can change the channel. They just don;t like being told they enjoy a sport that they don't like.
I hate soccer.
Who the hell is telling you that you enjoy something you don't like? Are you on some sort of medication for that condition?
Then this thread's for you, friend.
For Europeans. And girls.
I refer to to my section concerning the exchange between the Mexican and American.
OMG. You got me on that one. LOL.
for children and foreigners.
And folks who can't bring themselves to cheer for the USA.
S.I., NYT., ESPN., LA Times, Mercury News.... and a few external to the U.S. But hey, I find it as exciting as baseball... (yawn).
Believe me, my first instinct was to post that soccer was gay. But then I saw that you'd beaten me to it, so said "European" which is basically the same thing.
By reporting on it? You are delusional.
the USA has my heart and i wish their soccer team the best, i just don't want to have to watch it. i will cheer them on in absentia. i just thank God my kids play basketball and ice hockey. i may have to put baseball below soccer on the sport scale and i KNOW that makes me anti-American ; )
Everyone is a hero behind a keyboard. Sorry you were cut from the team as kid. Did you try anything that did not require physical ability instead?
You have no sense of humor. Lighten up Francis.
That was the point of my little essay. If you do not wish to watch, that's totally fine. No one is forcing you to do so.
My, you seem awfully tense. Worried for the US team's chances? :-)
They didn't want Europe; they didn't understand Europe and didn't want to. They wanted a war. They wanted a nation to belong to and to fight for, even if the fight was this absurd piece of street theater with the local Italian police.
In other words, they’re retarded.
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