How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad

First Things ^ | 5 March 2009 | Stephen H. Webb

[dfwgator]

Also I think that in football, both college and pro, an overtime win, should not count the same as a regulation win.

[Revolting cat!]

Has anyone here heard of a sport named handball? It's played very much like "soccer" except with hands. That's why it's call handball. And that's why the rest of the world correctly calls "soccer" football. Let's from now on call the game played with armpits, armitball, and the game played with bats, batboyball!

[razorboy]

I like the point balance in that, but I don’t like losses getting points (I believe a loss is a loss), and it would add another column to the standings chart. It would help keep teams from tanking the last 5 minutes though, as they’d now be losing a possible point.

[razorboy]

True, sometimes two good teams get to a tie. But at some point you just have to call it. Especially for “regular” games (not playoffs). I mean I love a quintuple OT NHL playoff game, I especially love them because I’m on pacific time by the time the playoffs start and I can watch a 5 OT game and still get to bed by midnight if it’s an east coast game. But part of what makes them cool is that they are a playoff thing. If regular season games could go into 5 OTs it would get dull, and that dullness would reflect on the playoff marathon games.

Regular season games should be able to end in a tie. Get it over with, it’s just a regular season game, most sports have too many of them anyway.

[olivia3boys]

Yes, no football on my list so far—my oldest boy is only 12 so that option hasn’t really entered our lives yet.

I don’t think it ever will as they are all skinny.

I have uncles who’ve played rugby; now there’s a sport!

I forgot swimming—like golf and tennis, very useful one’s whole life, even when elderly.

[razorboy]

Well in the NFL they kind of don’t. Because NFL standings so frequently go to tie-breakers, and point differential is part of the tie-breaker system, and OT wins have a limit to the point differential (usually 3, sometimes 6), there is some level of reward for winning in regulation. Sort of.

[ansel12]

...my daughter plays field hockey... a sport that requires you be a stone cold b*tch to win!..... no wimps or whiners in her sport.

ROTFL, now that sounds like a sport.

[Philo-Junius]

That’s an excellent business case for the tie regular season game, but it hinges on the notion that what’s REALLY important is the meta-game, not the game itself.

I think playing each game to a decision is more logically coherent in terms of game theory, if not always the best business theory.

Your mileage may vary.

[dfwgator]

Can Arsenal now make it 4 out of the final 8 in the Champions League for the EPL? Going to extra time in Rome.

[dennisw]

What we really need are more soccer wars where 3rd world nations go to war over soccer disputes. Would cut down on the illegal immigration

The soccer war between el salvador and honduras

[razorboy]

I don’t think it’s just a business case. OT is often times not exciting. Ties are a decision, it’s a decision that the two teams on that day were equal.

[wardaddy]

I played Little League in the 60s and 70s....Dixie Youth...it was hardcore.

now Cal Ripken league is soft

[ArmstedFragg]

All the way to penalties, huh? But, by golly, they did it!

It’ll be interesting to see how the draw plays out.

[1rudeboy]

I think playing each game to a decision is more logically coherent in terms of game theory, if not always the best business theory.

I don't know about that. Let's see: "the two of you played to a draw, so now we flip a coin . . . and the winner of the coinflip will be the overwhelming favorite to win."

[ArmstedFragg]

Clock-ruled games which permit ties are not positive metaphors for life.

I don't know... in the end we all up dead, that's pretty much the ultimate clock-ruled game.

[x]

1) Any sport that limits you to using your feet, with the occasional bang of the head, has something very wrong with it. Indeed, soccer is a liberal’s dream of tragedy: It creates an egalitarian playing field by rigorously enforcing a uniform disability. Anthropologists commonly define man according to his use of hands. We have the thumb, an opposable digit that God gave us to distinguish us from animals that walk on all fours. The thumb lets us do things like throw baseballs and fold our hands in prayer.

In der Beschraenkung zeigt sich erst der Meister, Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben. (The master proves himself in limitation. And it is the law that can provide us with freedom) -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Why use a ball, anyway? Why not just fight it out with our fists.

We can even talk with our hands. Have you ever seen a deaf person trying to talk with their feet? When you are really angry and acting like an animal, you kick out with your feet. Only fools punch a wall with their hands. The Iraqi who threw his shoes at President Bush was following his primordial instincts. Showing someone your feet, or sticking your shoes in someone’s face, is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Do kids ever say, “Trick or Treat, smell my hands”? Did Jesus wash his disciples’ hands at the Last Supper? No, hands are divine (they are one of the body parts most frequently attributed to God), while feet are in need of redemption. In all the portraits of God’s wrath, never once is he pictured as wanting to step on us or kick us; he does not stoop that low.

This guy has got a real foot fetish. Or anti-foot fetish.

I actually don't think he's wrong. Soccer does make for a different America than football does.

But there is such a thing as being over the top, and a lot of polemicists do undercut their argument by going too far.

Did Soccer ruin Britain? It sounds like it gives the Brits and opportunity to get out the same aggressions that other countries do with rugby or hockey or American football.

[Philo-Junius]

The clock doesn’t rule the life of anyone not trapped in a film-noir remake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.O.A._(1950_film)

Most of us die when we give up, not the other way around.

[Rebelbase]

Heh..

[dfwgator]

Yep, this is where the Champions League really gets good.

Final Eight:

Arsenal
Liverpool
Man Utd
Chelsea
Bayern Munich
Barcelona
Porto
Villareal

[Defiant]

Football is a man’s sport,rugby is a crazy man’s sport. If they are skinny and slow,then football is not for them. Try wrestling or karate.