Why, in America, immigrants don't cheer for the U.S. soccer team

SF Chronicle ^ | 6-4-02 | Gustavo Arellano

[jordan8]

YOU WOULDN'T know it from watching network television, but millions of U. S. residents will go into virtual suspended animation during this month's World Cup. Dramatic stories and images from the tournament will cover the front pages of Chinese, Vietnamese and Irish community newspapers for the next 30 days. Spanish-language broadcasts will fill the air of Latino neighborhoods with the fever of futbol.

[AmishDude]

Okay, then name another sport for which you think owns the best all around athletes. Decathlon.

If the main virtue of soccer includes the idea that the players are good runners, we might as well bring track and field into the discussion.

By the way, the Amish and the Mennonites are not the same.

Uh, yes. I know. However, there is frequent defection and many families contain both.

[FreedominJesusChrist]

I meant professional competitive sport.

[AmishDude]

Again, by saying "all-around" athlete, you must include upper-body strength. I would say that basketball provides better athletes overall than professional soccer. Wilt Chamberlain was actually a decathlete in college, I believe.

Willie Mays is probably the best all-around athlete to play any game, but baseball does not require athletics, as John Kruk proved extensively. Hockey players are required to be quite strong but I don't know that speed on skates necessarily translates to speed without them.

[Dan from Michigan]

F**k you traitors. My bloodlines are Irish. I'll cheer for Ireland in the World Cup....unless they are playing the USA.

[Dan from Michigan]

Usually (with exception for the quarterback), they are around 20-50 pounds overweight, while the average soccer player is in top physical condition.

QUARTERBACK? What? Bwhahahah. I used to kick quarterbacks around in my sleep.

Signed
A Defensive back

BTW - I'll take 100 DB's(and probably 1/2 the outside linebackers) over any soccer player in an overall athletic test. Speed, endurance, and strength. The total package. IMO, they are second to Decathletes.

[Mamzelle]

An outlet for immigrants to voice their frustration against the US?

When do I get an outlet to voice my frustration over the ungrateful immigrants?

[Dan from Michigan]

Kurt Angle? He's booed since his CHARACTER is a jackass, like much like Gustavo Arellano. I doubt Kurt Angle(the real person) was booed by Americans back in 1996.

Gustavo here needs to learn that the WWF is SCRIPTED.

[adx]

Soccer is a commie plot to destroy clean-living American youth.

Or so my football coach told me. :)

[Dan from Michigan]

Don't wear a soccer shirt to MY practices...
Signed
A Football coach

[dead]

Few of these immigrants will be cheering for the United States

Few immigrants from Mexico.

I know dozens of Irish immigrants and each and every one of them cheers for the US.

They are grateful and gracious about their adopted homeland. Unlike some others.

[FreedominJesusChrist]

I do not believe that the average football player, who is by the way, overwieght, could whoop the average soccer player in either the areas of speed or endurance.

[willgetsome]

This whole thing makes me ill.

IMO, the reason these new Americans don't give a damn about the US team and usually cheer against the US team is that we let them into the country with little or no difficulty. Hence, they take us, our economy, and a our freedoms for granted. To Hell with them!

[driftless]

Your argument is flawed if you choose to use the example of competing with a professional in any sport. Nobody has cited curling as an example of sports excitement, but undoubtedly it takes much skill to be a top-flight curler.

My argument with most sports is not that it doesn't take great skill to play most of them on a professional basis but mostly with the amounts of boring action compared to the exciting action. To give soccer its due, on the basis of its being fairer in not placing undue emphasis on one particular player unlike basketball, American football, and baseball, it nevertheless fails to provide, at least to American audiences, proper excitemental rewards for the time spent watching it. In short, there are too few opportunities where the goalie is tested unlike hockey where a goalie has to stop anywhere from approximately twenty to thirty-plus shots a game.

I have watched some world-cup soccer matches and there is a certain excitement when certain players organize a good scoring opportunity, a prospective scorer gets off a good shot, and he either scores or the goalie makes a great play to stop it. But those moments are few and far between. It seems that most of the game is spent watching a certain player dribbling the ball around for a while and then losing it to an opposing player who repeats the sequence. I would say that obviously the average non-American soccer fan has far more patience waiting for the few genuine scoring opportunities than the average soccer-hating American.

And the idea that soccer is an innately conservative game reminds me of those baseball fans who love one to nothing pitchers duels ie. yawnfests. If both games had far more scoring the popularity would not decrease but increase. Soccer played with seven players and a goalie would be a great game. And get rid of those preposterous offsides rules.

[luvbach1]

Belated reply. Gone for a while. I don't doubt that some insular immigrants took several generations to assimilate, especially in the "ghettos." I cited my family as an example. My father, from Eastern Europe, arrived at 15, learned Engish in a year, and read the classics in English within two years.He also embraced a conservative political viewpoint in short order. Anyone remember Westbrook Pegler? A favorite of Dad's. No doubt he was an exception. My mother, born in Ukraine, emigrated to Canada as an infant so had little acculturation to achieve in the US. But I think my point remains: that earlier immigrants consciously were escaping the ills of the old world and were open, if not eager, to emrace what the new world offered, specifically, the United States. However long it took them to assimilate, I don't think we had the divided loyaties phenomenon to contend with in any way comparable to today.

[luvbach1]

Belated reply. Gone for a while. I don't doubt that some insular immigrants took several generations to assimilate, especially in the "ghettos." I accurately cited my family as an example. My father, from Eastern Europe, arrived at 15, learned Engish in a year, and read the classics in English within two years.He also embraced a conservative and pro-American political viewpoint in short order. Anyone remember Westbrook Pegler? A favorite of Dad's. No doubt he was an exception. My mother, born in Ukraine, emigrated to Canada as an infant so had little acculturation to achieve in the US. But I think my point remains: that earlier immigrants consciously were escaping, shedding the oppressive ills of the old world and were open, if not eager, to embrace what the new world offered, specifically, the United States. They were not much inclined to cling to what they had left.However long it took them to assimilate, assimilate most of them did; I don't think we had a divided loyaties phenomenon anything comparable to what e contend with today.

[MinorityRepublican]

Well, you got to feel bad for Mexico. We beat them at their own game!