Euro Sports 
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!!
Another England hero, Nobby Stiles, probably accomplished more with less talant than any other player during that World Cup. He was an outstanding defensive half and kept many world class scorers in check throughout the 1966 World Cup. And is there any better forum for football than Wembly Stadium?
While I don't keep up with soccer, I believe that Kansas Citian Tony Meola is on the WC team, and ex-Kansas Citian, Alexi Lalas (aka cue ball! lol) is on the team...
While he lived in KC, Alexi had a reputation of being an amazing athlete on the field, but one of the hardest partyers on the planet! He would regularly drink a popular radio DJ under the table!
Mark
Imagine Jerry Rice, and Barry Sanders being trained from birth to be soccer players, it just wouldn't be fair.
I must be alone in not noticing any political bias one way or the other in regards to the World Cup. Of course I enjoy the World Cup. And besides, how can you hate an event in which France is humiliated in the first game by a piddly little African nation which didn't have the technology to make a leather ball ten years ago.
Oddly enough, I've always like all those things even though I grew up in "non-Atlanta" Georgia. The biggest sports events for us back then were the local high school football team's home games (Willie Gault, Jessie Tuggle and Freddie Gilbert played for us). But I also remember religously watching "Wide World of Sports" with my dad each week (The thrill of victory- the agony of defeat; ah those were the days). I've always like cross country skiing (even though I don't ski myself), been fascinated with bicycling and loved watching track and field. Nobody ever told me when I was a kid that some sports were "un American" or liberal or gay. If the object was to beat the other guy, that was the all the merit the thing required.
Man, would I so much love to see an American team lift that cup and then dominate the sport for all time to come. That would be the ultimate "in your face" to the rest of the world- not pooh poohing a sport that we aren't very competitive in. I would like to see the Euro Weenies and South Americans throw down the gauntlet to America and challenge us to win the 2006 World Cup or be known forever more as "Wimps" (the logic being if we can't beat a bunch of girlie men at a silly sport what are we?). That, I think would get a lot more of the testosterone types involved in making certain we beat the living sh!t out of 'em come 2006. Think about a team filled with 11 guys who had speed, talent and American cockiness like Deion Sanders (for example). Who could beat us?
"OK," I said, "but we'll do it like a hockey game just to see how 'athletic' you REALLY are. We'll sprint for 40-60 seconds at a time, then stop and rest for two minutes. We'll keep doing this until we cover the 5K."
"Oh, and by the way," I added, "You might want to wear some padding as you run, because I am going to knock you on your @ss every step of the way."
When I was still playing lacrosse, a few of the players also played hockey, and they used a lot of the same pads for both sports... One of them mentioned that the opposing hockey team players were worried about playing against someone who had "turf" on his pads!
Hockey and Lax are very much alike, but in Lax, you can get away with much more violent checking! No boards, but some of those poke checks will break your ribs and bruise kidneys. I had my ulna broken, as well as a broken collerbone from another game!
Mark
LOL! Actually, hockey rules.
OK, I'm going to put a stop to all this non-sense.
The ultimate sport is...
Baseketball!
Mark
Fact is, there arn't any.
And as a number of posters have pointed out, the preaching is precisely the problem. We don't accept soccer for the same reason we reject women's basketball: it's not just being offered in the marketplace as an entertainment option, it's being pushed in our faces -- and we distrust the underlying agendas of many of the people doing the pushing.
Euro Sports
But the US teams have been so snakebit with injuries it looks like we wont have to woory about that this year.
Their hipps are too big. Just not built for soccer. They could never keep up.
Nah, your in the wong direction for US Soccer competativeness.
In My Humble Opinion (IMHO), the US is doing exactly what is necessary to be successful, long term, in soccer. They are taking successful players from a diverse group of participants. We are just NOT getting the diversity necessary.
Oh, it would help if we could get the inner cities more involved, no doubt. But we are doing just fine, for now. But, we need a few tweeks within the system, to say the least.
Our problem is a political one, as usual. Certain regions, certain higher ups politically are calling the shots on players. It is a disgrace. I know, Im in this politically and it stinks.
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