Posted on 04/14/2008 2:26:11 PM PDT by WesternCulture
Soccer is a beautiful sport.
I'm not saying American football is not, but it ought to be remembered more often that soccer is performed without wearing tons of protection.
This is what the reality of soccer looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBanEscH7aU
Another example featuring the same player:
http://www.gordoneverett.com/LarssonHeaderComp.wmv
Henrik Larsson - more league goals than any other active soccerer of today and IMO a true ambassador of a true sport.
Larsson makes me proud of Sweden, the country in which we both grew up.
I agree FULLY!!! Thanks for posting
Any activity that routinely ends in a zero-zero tie is un-American.
Uh, because being tackled in football is infinitely more dangerous than anything that happens in soccer?
Because a hockey puck to the head can kill you, but a soccer ball seldom kills anyone?
Because being repeatedly punched in the head is riskier than soccer?
Yeah, I’ve never understood the offside rule ... sort of like outlawing the fast break in basketball and the long pass in football.
You create the thread, then followed up with a challenge.
Yep, you are officially a troll.
I think that your sports of choice are usually just those that you grow up watching and playing. Simple as that.
Look at Ronaldinho if you want to see a fantastic footballer. “Soccer” is a great sport.
“Soccer is the sport of the future in America, and always will be”-anonymous
I tell ya, I’m an American Football fan.
With that said though, any sport that gets these lard ass kids out running around and gets their heart pumping is fine by me.
“and at the end nothing has happened.”
- Yes, sometimes it all, admittedly, ends up like this.
On the other hand, once in a while, a team like Liverpool FC is in the disadvantage of a 0-3 position against Milan in a Champions League final and still manages to win it all.
That’s what I choose to call true fighting spirit.
I like the city of Milano a lot, but I like true fighting spitit even more.
Liverpool!!
That, in a nutshell, has resulted in the pussification of American Sport. My opinion, of course.
I guess it all depends on how you look at it. This weekend was my daughters’ local soccer tournament. Between both daughters they played 7 games in 3 days - Friday night, Sat and Sunday. There were over 200 teams and some really exciting games. And talk about rough play. Even in the 8 yr old games, there was enough pushing, shoving, elbowing, shirt/short pulling that we were not sure if we were watching soccer or rugby. It rained Sat morning, so the fields were nice wet and muddy for the rest of the day. It was a great moment when my 8 yr old took out a girl that had been playing rough the whole game. Mud slide face first at the end of the game. ;) Great family fun!
Faking an injury to get a penalty against an opponent is discraceful. Faking an injury after video review should get you banned for life from the game. In soccer, its actually part of the games strategy and players train for it. “How can you best fake injuries to gain sympathy from the refs”.
I remember a world cup match were someone kicked a ball, it lightly hit a brazilian player in the shin, he then collapsed on the ground holding his head, not even his shin, yelling in agony and rolling all over the field. The ref yellow carded the other player and then the Brazilian player jumped right up and continued playing.
This is one of the main reasons professional soccer will never be as popular as some of the other sports. Flopping has become one of the main strategy’s of the international Leagues.
Plus there is a lot of snobery from Europe like they own the sport. The NY Cosmos was easily the greatest team and organizations of all time. In Europe, the pretend that team never existed. It was that team that set the standard for all the super clubs of Europe today. But in Europe, they act like us americans just can’t appreciate the sport just because we don’t spend every waking minute obsessing about it.
The fact that Beckham took 50 million to come play in the MLS for a couple years was still too much of a bitter pill for them to take. They looked horrified when the news was announced and Beckham is nearing retirement. Oh how could anyone want to come to america to play soccer...blah-blah-blah.....
“You create the thread, then followed up with a challenge.
Yep, you are officially a troll.”
- :D
All of us who debate issues like these here on the Internet are trolls, aren’t we?!
I’ve never understood why people think that soccer is the only sport where someone tries to draw a favorable call from a ref.
Okay, but would you call a person like Henrik Larsson a fake?
Hank Hill said, “Soccer was invented by european women so they’d have something to do while their men did the cooking. Oh, yeah, I hate soccer.”
Soccer won’t catch on as long as the refs can dictate the outcome of the games (see nearly every USA world cup game in 2006).
I actually have grown to enjoy the English Premiership, except that the same 4 teams dominate year in and a year out.
Because soccer is a “contact” sport. Hockey, Football, Boxing, Rugby are “collision” sports.
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