Posted on 07/03/2018 5:43:32 PM PDT by DoodleBob
When I was coming of age, soccer was pushed on us, and so was the metric system — and for the same reason: The rest of the world did it; America was stubborn and behind, in its rejection of those things. America held on to this screwy imperial — imperialist! — system: feet and yards, pints and gallons. The rest of the world had this elegant and logical and non-imperialist — non-British! — system. America had its brutish sports: football, in particular. We needed to embrace the real football, soccer, played by thin, small, virtuous Third Worlders, who had no equipment save a ball, and maybe a few sticks for goals. Nets, too, if they were really lucky.
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For reasons I can’t explain, soccer uses an antiquated timing system, whereby after 90 minutes have elapsed, we are told that 4 (or 6) minutes remain. This gives the referees way too much leeway for corruption.
Still looks more masculine than Attention Hogg and his millennial cohort.
NOPE.
Don't like it, never did.
Wouldn't walk across a kilostreet for it.
.
LOL. You got a good point there. That guy looks like a hard core biker compared to Hogg:
Dayum. “The 80’s called” and I used to wear that “preppy” sh*t. Then I went “hipster” with all black and funky hair. LOL!
It does, but most referees use their influence sparingly. I never wanted a penalty call to be the deciding factor in a match, and I would not end a period if one side were rushing the goal. Watch and you will still see this with stoppage time (the term used for those extra minutes which are to account for time when action on the field has to be stopped for some reason). The game always ends with the ball somewhat in the middle of the field.
One other thing about the field. The rules are not strict about length and width, so that as many fields as possible can comply. A normal US football field is not a good design for soccer because it is too narrow, but does meet the rules. Field must be 100 yds to 130 long and 50 to 100 wide but length must be greater than width. Seems reasonable does it not? Dimensions are stated in yards or meters as the local units apply — our fields in the USA were always in yds.
Baseball will always be America’s Past time.
Metric system good. Futbol stupid.
It is strange, soccer was never pushed on me, we played it in grade school, because it was so easy to set up. (Ball and goals. We did not call out of bounds, the ball was simply always in play.
I never played it in high school, although it is a a HS sport today. I did play it in college when I learned that my wind was good from cross country and my feet had more coordination than my hands. One other thing, I was a good sprinter for about ten yards. But most sprints in soccer are won in those first two or three strides. So it became my favorite sport. I loved watching football, and played it once but was (like I indicated earlier) simply faked out by the more coordinated players. And I was not big, in fact my size was almost exactly the average soccer player’s. ( 5’ 10, 145 lbs)
I’m really surprised that soccer hasn’t taken off in the hood, to compete with basketball.
You have to be tall to have a future in basketball, soccer is a cheap game to play, many of the great Brazilian players started out playing barefoot in the streets with an improvised ball and goal.
And yet, in this country, if you want to be a good soccer player, you have to pay an arm and a leg to go to some academy, it’s insane.
Ya know, a lot like soccer.
Not behind.
Ahead.
And independent and inventive.
Brits come up with one sport and the whole world falls sucker for it. Probably also more indicative of their very imperialist ways involving spreading it via their vast colonies/commonwealths all over.
“Football is played with the head. Your feet are just the tools!”
Andrea Pirlo
And Academy soccer is no prize either. You can’t play any high school sports and the training is often not special. I mentor a boy who is 16 and was playing up a year in the academy program. Special player, more special young man. Decided to drop the academy to play high school and club soccer. I’m training him via common sense and love for him and the game. Led me to an invention that I just filed for a patent on today.
I always thought a better business model is to go into areas and recruit the kids. The money comes from being able to sell the rights of the kids to clubs, whether here in the US or in other countries, so kids from poorer families get a chance to develop.
The Articles of Confederation was the immediate source that gave the central government "the sole and exclusive right and power of...fixing the Standard of Weights and Measures throughout the United States." Article IX, Section 4. More remotely, the power to establish national standards of weights and measures resided in the English Crown or Parliament from the late eleventh century, although it appears that official standards were frequently ignored throughout England. The phrase itself dates from the late fourteenth century.
By the time of the Constitutional Convention, it appears that the Weights and Measures Clause was not an attempt to remedy a situation in which various standards obtained in various parts of the country. There already existed a customary uniformity. Rather, the purpose in granting this power was to facilitate domestic and international commerce by permitting the federal government to adopt and enforce national measurement standards based upon the prevailing consensus. The clause excited no controversy among the Framers or in the ratifying conventions.
During their respective tenures as Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, as well as a House Committee, produced extensive studies calling for congressional adoption of uniform standards. The reports by the House and Adams rejected adopting the metric system of France and proposed no federal enforcement mechanism, leaving the application of the standards to the executives of the several states. Nonetheless, Congress did not adopt any systems of weights or measures, although the Treasury Department established standards for the pound, yard, gallon, and bushel for customs purposes.
In the face of congressional inaction, many states defined standard measures for trade purposes. No Supreme Court case has explicitly held that the states are free to establish such standards in the absence of congressional action, although Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes intimated as much in Massachusetts State Grange v. Benton (1926).
Congress has acquiesced in (though never authorized) the use of the traditional English system of weights and measures in nonbusiness activities. In 1866, Congress authorized, but did not mandate, the use of the metric system and, since 1975, the metric system has been the "preferred system" for trade and commerce. The National Institute of Standards and Technology of the Department of Commerce periodically publishes standards for English and metric weights and measures.
Personally, I like my 2-litre bottles of soda.
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