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AMERICA'S FAVORITE NATIONAL PASTIME: HATING SOCCER (ANN COULTER)
Ann Coulter Webpage ^ | June 25, 2014 | Ann Coulter

Posted on 06/25/2014 8:47:40 PM PDT by fkabuckeyesrule

I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.

(1) Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls -- all in front of a crowd. When baseball players strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks.

In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised. There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football moms."

Do they even have MVPs in soccer? Everyone just runs up and down the field and, every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in. That's when we're supposed to go wild. I'm already asleep.

(2) Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the kindergarten level.

(3) No other "sport" ends in as many scoreless ties as soccer. This was an actual marquee sign by the freeway in Long Beach, California, about a World Cup game last week: "2nd period, 11 minutes left, score: 0:0." Two hours later, another World Cup game was on the same screen: "1st period, 8 minutes left, score: 0:0." If Michael Jackson had treated his chronic insomnia with a tape of Argentina vs. Brazil instead of Propofol, he'd still be alive, although bored.

Even in football, by which I mean football, there are very few scoreless ties -- and it's a lot harder to score when a half-dozen 300-pound bruisers are trying to crush you.

(4) The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game.

Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace. In hockey, there are three or four fights a game -- and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box.

(5) You can't use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here's a great idea: Let's create a game where you're not allowed to use them!

(6) I resent the force-fed aspect of soccer. The same people trying to push soccer on Americans are the ones demanding that we love HBO's "Girls," light-rail, Beyonce and Hillary Clinton. The number of New York Times articles claiming soccer is "catching on" is exceeded only by the ones pretending women's basketball is fascinating.

I note that we don't have to be endlessly told how exciting football is.

(7) It's foreign. In fact, that's the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring Americans to love soccer. One group of sports fans with whom soccer is not "catching on" at all, is African-Americans. They remain distinctly unimpressed by the fact that the French like it.

(8) Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European. Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief intervals when they weren't committing mass murder by guillotine.

Despite being subjected to Chinese-style brainwashing in the public schools to use centimeters and Celsius, ask any American for the temperature, and he'll say something like "70 degrees." Ask how far Boston is from New York City, he'll say it's about 200 miles.

Liberals get angry and tell us that the metric system is more "rational" than the measurements everyone understands. This is ridiculous. An inch is the width of a man's thumb, a foot the length of his foot, a yard the length of his belt. That's easy to visualize. How do you visualize 147.2 centimeters?

(9) Soccer is not "catching on." Headlines this week proclaimed "Record U.S. ratings for World Cup," and we had to hear -- again -- about the "growing popularity of soccer in the United States."

The USA-Portugal game was the blockbuster match, garnering 18.2 million viewers on ESPN. This beat the second-most watched soccer game ever: The 1999 Women's World Cup final (USA vs. China) on ABC. (In soccer, the women's games are as thrilling as the men's.)

Run-of-the-mill, regular-season Sunday Night Football games average more than 20 million viewers; NFL playoff games get 30 to 40 million viewers; and this year's Super Bowl had 111.5 million viewers.

Remember when the media tried to foist British soccer star David Beckham and his permanently camera-ready wife on us a few years ago? Their arrival in America was heralded with 24-7 news coverage. That lasted about two days. Ratings tanked. No one cared.

If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: cup; world
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To: fkabuckeyesrule

Soccer would be much more interesting if the players carried swords and spears on the field. That way, they could stab the opposing players instead of having to bite them.


21 posted on 06/25/2014 9:07:45 PM PDT by Milton Miteybad (I am Jim Thompson. {Really.})
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To: fkabuckeyesrule

Bravo Ann! Watching soccer is like watching grass grow and how I hate the metric system.


22 posted on 06/25/2014 9:07:45 PM PDT by willk (everyone)
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To: fkabuckeyesrule
As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice in this century we beat them at their national game.

Baroness Thatcher did have a way with words.

23 posted on 06/25/2014 9:08:03 PM PDT by aposiopetic
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To: fkabuckeyesrule

“After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box.”

I laughed out loud at that one.

And rugby is a real sport.


24 posted on 06/25/2014 9:08:30 PM PDT by Ironfocus
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To: fkabuckeyesrule

Ann’s right. But.

The first soccer match I ever watched was US vs. Portugal. It was exciting.


25 posted on 06/25/2014 9:08:43 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer (The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.)
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To: Mount Athos
What about pretending to get hit hard to win fouls?

You mean, like NFL kickers and NBA floppers?

26 posted on 06/25/2014 9:08:56 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: TheTopRead

Looks like it’s time for a soccer pome:

There was a young man from Koblenz,
His balls were really immense.
One day playing soccer
He sprang his left knocker,
Then kicked it right over a fence.


27 posted on 06/25/2014 9:09:19 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: Beowulf9
Soccer is baseball by another name. Both are boring, both require a lot of time but that is where it ends. Baseball winners don't usually riot, nor do they have an announcer that says Gooooooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaal. I pick baseball over soccer any time, any day. Thank you. Yes, I will get in trouble for this. Sorry.
28 posted on 06/25/2014 9:10:18 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: fkabuckeyesrule

Funny how Ann is a hero on this website, all of a sudden. Because she wrote a column to generate hits.


29 posted on 06/25/2014 9:11:43 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: Fungi

Actually, growing up watching baseball prepared me just fine to becoming a soccer fan.


30 posted on 06/25/2014 9:12:46 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: fkabuckeyesrule
"Soccer is a sport invented by European women to give them something to do while their men cooked." -- Hank Hill.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

31 posted on 06/25/2014 9:13:19 PM PDT by wku man (Veterans, it's up to us to save the Republic...let's roll.)
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To: fkabuckeyesrule
It's the flopping that drives me nuts. Two guys bump into each other and they go down like they were shot with a deer rifle. thirty seconds later they are running around with no ill effects. If they would red card everyone who faked an injury, games wouldn't last 15 minutes.

Golf is more exciting.

32 posted on 06/25/2014 9:13:47 PM PDT by Doomonyou (Let them eat Lead.)
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To: fkabuckeyesrule
A classy, incisive and witty piece of writing by Annie Banannie!

Leni

33 posted on 06/25/2014 9:14:37 PM PDT by MinuteGal (Monster BHO uses illegal children for political agenda while accusing Right of doing same.)
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To: Ironfocus
Hunting is a real sport.

Scouts out! Cavalry Ho!

34 posted on 06/25/2014 9:14:51 PM PDT by wku man (Veterans, it's up to us to save the Republic...let's roll.)
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To: Crazieman

It’s too hard to score and the opposing teams are too good. Un-American, I say.


35 posted on 06/25/2014 9:15:03 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
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To: 21twelve

“Seattle” the city of a Lenin statue, Starbucks, 15 dollar minimum wage, and child support for men who might decide to live with a single mom who already had a kid. The region where communists often relocated, and to where Obamas momma grew up in. So yes, I’m certain they were able to attract 67,000 to a soccer game,

,,,,,enough said.


36 posted on 06/25/2014 9:19:43 PM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: Mount Athos
"What about pretending to get hit hard to win fouls?"

So liberal like... "someone hit me while playing a running and kicking game, so give them a penalty!"

So European like for sure.
37 posted on 06/25/2014 9:21:31 PM PDT by JSteff (It was ALL about SCOTUS.. We are DOOMED for several generations. . Who cares? Dem's did and voted!)
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To: fkabuckeyesrule

Soccer is of the devil. Those who watch soccer should be subjected to Old Testament style punishments.


38 posted on 06/25/2014 9:21:43 PM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans (I mostly come out at night... mostly.)
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To: Fungi

I think a lot more Americans might watch if, well let’s say we’re playing a good team, Brazil, Germany?—the American defenders are allowed to use wiffle bats.


39 posted on 06/25/2014 9:23:17 PM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives)
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To: rcrngroup

There should be a shootout like in hockey if there is a tie.


40 posted on 06/25/2014 9:24:22 PM PDT by Clint N. Suhks ( Laughter is the best medicine, unless you have diarrhea.)
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