Posted on 06/04/2002 10:08:50 AM PDT by GulliverSwift
I remember watching an episode of the Simpsons where the family saw an advertisement on TV for an exhibition soccer game at Springfield Stadium. The whole family was excited: "Yeah!!!"
So they went to the game, and all the characters, Crusty, Moe, the Simpsons, etc, were there. The teams were South American and you could hear the announcer calling the play-by-play with a Spanish accent.
The crowd was excited and cheering at first. And the Mexican announcer was excited the whole time as he said,
"He kicks the ball to Sanchez! He kicks the ball to Rodrigez! He kicks the ball to Sanchez! He kicks the ball to Rodrigez! He kicks the ball to Sanchez!"
The announcer's voice was shouting with anticipation as he described the exciting action of Sanchez and Rodrigez passing the ball back and forth (sounds like great World Cup action). The crowd was excited at first, but after four minutes, they fell silent. Then Homer shouted out, "Boring!!!"
To any of you Eurotrash, now you know why we can't stand soccer, or "football" as you Euro-femmes call it. It's BORING. Our football, the real football, is an improvement on the feminine type. Basketball is inovative, baseball is inovative, but soccer.... You kick the @$#&% ball back and forth for two hours--lots of drama!!!!.......and the score is 1-0.
Whew, with action like that, I don't know if I can keep from fainting!
The only reason why soccer is around the world is because of British and Spanish colonialism. We booted the Brits out before the bland game could be invented, and Brits being the boring females that they are, invented a game where you are required to kick a ball for 30 minutes before scoring a point.
So you may be wondering why the soccer "craze" hasn't caught on in the only country where men have more swimming clothes on their body than women. It's because we've got games that actually took creativity and innovation to invent.
If we wanted to be bored with something that's two hours and results in a score of 1-0, we'd watch a featherweight boxing match. Or a debate between Al Gore and George Bush.
Who do I want to win? Portugal or the U.S.?
I DON'T CARE!!
Well, I was smiling. However, I would note that the main reason why the FROGS arrogance is so annoying is that they have nothing to be arrogant about.
Like I said in my original post- I like all sports period- because I'm a highly competitve individual. The points you made about rugby not being as violent because of the lack of pads is spot on- all sports have their finer points and their pros and cons. Soccer is big where I live and I'm interested in how the English side fares in the World Cup. I'd also like to see the USA do well- although I don't give 'em much chance against Portugal. Maybe with a little luck they can advance to the round of 16. Their likely opponent then would be Italy and probably the end of the line- but still one can hope :-)
This might explain Senator Pardek's question about why hockey fans aren't big soccer fans. Soccer is a "possession" game in which the emphasis is placed on ball possession and play development, while hockey is a "transition" game in which the puck changes possession too frequently to develop well-defined patterns of play. In other words, hockey is more random than soccer, which might explain why it never seems dull -- even a game between two strong defensive teams will have scoring chances generated from odd bounces of the puck, etc.
Conceit suits no one. Not the French, the British nor the Americans. It has a bad habit of coming back and biting one on the backside.
Ivan
Something doesn't work out with these numbers. 19 miles in 90 minutes means the guy was turning in sub-4:45 miles for an entire game. I find that hard to believe, when you consider that worl-class marathon runners average no better than 4:50 per mile or so for a 26-mile race.
I'm guessing that this player lived five miles from the stadium and walked to and from the game with the mileage meter on.
Finally, we're talking real sports!!
LOL!! Good one.
LOL. That was a good one, too. See my Post #152.
This does not compute. Somebody must've kicked him right in the mileage meter.
Kinda like socialism, the best soccer game is a 0-0 tie as no one gets their feelings hurt.
I haven't seen this one mentioned yet either.
But it is a distinct American quality that demands winning even though we are already at a high level.
It may be different from other countries around the world, (perhaps the Brazil side is in the same position) but we WILL rally around the flag when the one game eliminations start.
And I will be roooting for Becks in the upset(?) against Argentina.
Here in Amercia we call it the 'Us Against the World Syndrome' most of our teams take disrespect and wear it as a badge of honor to motivate themselves in a sports tourney.
We have talk shows all day long on the radio where we insult each other on sports stars taking steroids, which baseball player is gay, what round Tyson will lose it and bite Lennox Lewis's nose off.
Its truly a Jim Rome world now, if we could just get him to start pimping soccer.
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