So You Really Think Soccer Blows?

9. June 2006 | 1rudethug

[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.
U.S.A. fan: Soccer is ghey.

Oh yeah, that’s real testosterone on display. Chicks dig a competitor.

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.¹

I 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.

[1rudeboy]

Squirming is boring. So are you planning to get on with it, or not? Ask someone (you can ask practically anyone) how to compose a insult. There was a good one posted just above.

[Darkwolf377]

This is fun.

[1rudeboy]

I agree. Wouldn't be here otherwise.

[Darkwolf377]

You obviously enjoy being made a fool of, you do it so well. ;)

[1rudeboy]

It happens from time to time. I'll let you know when it does.

[raybbr]

Again, no one is saying you are unpatriotic, we are merely discussing the limits of your patriotism.

That's ridiculous. Judging someone's patriotism by whether or not they root for an American team.

I rooted every time for Patrick Rafter against Pete Sampras. Does that make me unpatriotic, too?

[tomkat]

This is the Smoky Backroom. You must be looking for Linens & Things.

Soccer still blows, but that was purdydamn funny

[Sybeck1]

87 days away!!

[JRios1968]

I'm not attacking their sexuality, I'm saying they remind me of the "boymen" who are ruining this world, the kind who never want to grow up, or "win" if it means someone else loses.

I won't attack their sexuality. I just question the limits of said sexuality.

[VOA]

"There are just not enough lesbians to make the WNBA into a real
money-making business!"
--Tom Leykis (shock jock of 97.1 FM in Los Angeles)

[JRios1968]

My son in law (from Ecuador by way of Canada) told me that one team had a player that produced an "auto-goal" scoring against his team and the fans killed him after the match. This may be an urban legend, but the hooligans and deaths of fans at soccer matches are not.

Not an urban legend...and really, what's the deal with that?!

Folks in Seattle think the refs gave Super Bowl XL to Pittsburgh...I have yet to hear about any dead "zebras."

[JRios1968]

If you wish to see what messing with the clock can do . . .check out MLS. What an abomination.

There, it's more to the point.

[JRios1968]

Thanks for illustrating my points so well. Your lack of self-security about the activity you try to pass as a sport leads each of you to attack the messenger.

By the way, if my understanding of succer is anywhere close to being up to par, your US team of overgrown 8-year olds got itself owned today. Boy, don't they just make you proud to be an American? In fact, let me get out my Lee Greenwood CD and my big ole flag, which I will fly in their honor on Thursday.

But hey, we will all welcome them back home with wide open arms when they come back to the US next week.

Oh, who am I kidding? You will welcome them, the vast majority of Americans won't notice and still won't care.

[secret garden]

do Americans ever think that being in the minority could mean they are wrong?

No.

[GregH]

haha.. thats a funny one.
I wonder who even watches that trash game WNBA, how they even find sponsors and generate cash to keep the sport going, a truely boring sport.

[GregH]

A lot of people find baseball to be incredibly boring, their conservative credentials are pretty solid.

[secret garden]

They are bankrolled by the NBA.

[the scotsman]

Poor argument.

Britain was THE world power until the 1940's.

And 'soccer;'was,as now the no1 sport.

So then,the nation that invented football(the Scots and English) was also the sole superpower on earth...

[Coop]

You're so blind you're beyond help. :-D I never once made mention of soccer. Not once. I just laughed at your juvenile and inconsistent attempts to insult the adults here on a soccer-related thread.

And then you launch into the "neener neener, your team lost!" approach. Very mature. Perhaps next you can tell us that Peyton Manning "sucks" as a quarterback.

[tuffydoodle]

All sports are boring, except this one.