Posted on 06/26/2014 4:38:05 AM PDT by Dr. Sivana
But, aside from the music, the American contribution to soccer has been minimal, and American interest in it even, er, minimaller. Every four years, the same bien-pensants who urge the Administration to be more "multilateral" and to work through the UN also commend the virtues of the World Cup: the game is supposedly more poetic than American sports, as subtle and nuanced as French foreign policy. But Americans like their international competitions to be international in the sense of the current "international coalition against terror" at Kandahar airbase - that's to say, overwhelmingly American but with a few token Canadians. The World Series extends to the Toronto Blue Jays, but that's it.
Yet for the last couple of weeks the World Cup has been going very oddly. I didn't notice it at first because, like 99.9999 per cent of the US population, I had no idea the World Cup was even on. But once the back-issues of The Daily Telegraph started arriving, I couldn't help noticing the cup's strange approximation of the world beyond footie. No sooner had the Saudi Ambassador to London, Ghazi Algosaibi, hailed the heroism of "martyrdom operations" than his national team heroically martyred themselves eight-nil. Either that or the entire squad are Mossad Jew infiltrators.
Even more unnerving was the success of the American team. What more damning evidence could you have of the global reach of the hyperpower than for the World Cup to go to the one country that has absolutely zero interest in soccer?
[...]
Many famous football faces from Britain have found themselves in demand on US television. 'It's a game of two halves, Larry,' Bobby Charlton said on Larry King Live. 'Is it really?' said Larry. 'Well, you'd know better than I would. And are the helmets expensive?'
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
“I look for America’s interest in soccer to gradually expand over the coming years, as the generation of kids from the 1990s (remember the advent of “soccer moms”?) grow up, wussified and antagonistic to competitive, brutal American sports, like real football.”
The eldest of that generation of kids is now 24 years older and it hasn’t happened yet.
What I DO see is a bunch of liberal poseurs on MSNBC and CNN discussing the latest Arsenal vs. Liverpool match with borrowed terminology. I know enough about the game to see that they really don’t comprehend what they are talking about, but they need some kind of background noise when they are knocking back their Stoli-martinis, or whatever it is they are drinking now that Cigar Bars are no longer in vogue.
Another aside: If the INS ever needs to begin mass deportations all they need to do is drive around to the various soccer fields on a weekend. What I am noticing is a lot of Latino kids of all ages playing the game they came north with. And if that isn’t stopped, then maybe, Soccer/Football does become the national game.
“I think all of these comments about soccer being a girlie-man sport would end if the commenters were somehow induced to play one game, both the fitness level required and the level of rough body contact would quickly change your minds.”
Soccer is a little bit like ice hockey in that regard. Fun game to play, tedious to watch (on TV). I do like going to live Hockey games and have enjoyed going to Scholastic Soccer Games. Most of the action, however, is bitching about the refs and their enforcement of arcane rules (why did he blow the last play ‘dead’ for a free kick and then let this play go? Oh? The player had “the advantage”? What’s that & how did the Ref make that judgment in less than the blink of an eye from his angle?)
Us older Americans are demanding “instant replay” be grafted into the fabric of all of our games. If we do that with our brand of soccer then it won’t be the same game that they play everywhere else.
When I was young, the ranking in popularity of sports was Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey, and Soccer. Now it is Football, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, and Hockey, with soccer set to pass baseball in the next decade or two. Baseball's problem is that its fan base is 50% over 55 years old, second to golf in that department. When your product it king of the nursing homes, you have a problem, a big problem.
The sport of soccer has nothing to worry about from the soccer haters. Reason, the soccer haters overwhelmingly have a foot in the cemetery. Soccer is content to let baseball win the nursing home demographic.
That might be because this is the World Cup, and at any one time millions of soccer-loving foreigners are in the country and watching the tube. Plus, there are the certain numbers of bemused Americans, like me, occasionally watching to see what the hubbub is all about. I hold no brief for baseball which is usually very boring as well and needs to be jacked up like soccer. Baseball purists have their own problems like describing a 1-0 snoozefest as a great game while the occasional 10-9, actually exciting game is described as an aberration. And the description of baseball as some sort of “cerebral” game is nonsense on stilts. It’s whose pitchers are better that day.
Cowards need pads. Real men play rugby.
REAL football?. I assume you mean that 4 hr sport that is a wimps version of its father, rugby.
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