John Elway Watches the Last 2 Minutes of a World Cup Game
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“Okay, they’ve got two minutes left, that’s plenty of time. Just start methodically moving the ball downfield. Wait, why are they kicking it backwards? Stop screwing around out there. Hustle, dammit! Why aren’t they in their Two Minute Drill? Can’t they see there are only 97 seconds left?
“They can’t? The amount of time left in the game is … a secret? What kind of stupid rule is that?”
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When civic duty puts me at the local soccer matches, my eyes wander to a nearby gridiron version improvised by some bored locals.
I’ve tried to like it. I don’t. The only reason people like it is it gives them all kinds of time to get drunk w/out missing a score.
They pass it backwards, when they do, to maintain possession. Kind of like a hand off or swing pass to an RB in football. Sometimes they launch long forward passes successfully (e.g.), but if they try to force them, the other team ends up with the ball (kind of like in football).
Unlike in football, the team with the lead can’t kill the last two minutes by taking three knees in a row.
e – I’ve tried to like it. I don’t. The only reason people like it is it gives them all kinds of time to get drunk w/out missing a score.
Thats what everyone thinks about (American) football.
11-15 shots total in 90 odd minutes. No wonder they party and sing in the stand; NOTHING IS HAPPENING. In somewhat similar games like hockey, lacrosse or rugby the teams are mixing it up to get down the field while the defense tries tos top them. And if anyone dove like that they would be abused of penalized.
Part of the interest of soccer is that usually it is pretty hard to score, so that is way players and audience get so excited when a goal happens. Also, the ball and the players are always moving, except when a player falls and rolls crying in the floor for 30 seconds to win time for his team, but the drama is also part of the fun. I only dislike penalty kicks.
Basketball soon becomes boring because there’s too much scoring, back and forth, back and forth, unless the two teams are really close in number of points until the end. (I remember one exciting basketball game, Lakers vs …? , decided in the last 30 seconds. But that was it.)
American Football, I don’t really understand all the rules, but the moments in which people are running or doing something are few and far between. In general it seems pretty uninteresting to watch.
Hockey has the problem of being too fast and the puck being too damn small, so most times you can’t even see what is happening.
Baseball has its interest, but seems to be extremely long and slow, with exciting moments here and there. When I went to a stadium to watch a Dodgers game, people were more interested in watching the cheerleaders, the musical intervals, in singing and in drinking. My impression was that most were not even paying attention to the game.
Tennis, F1 and golf are OK. Cricket, I never really watched. Is curling a sport? That is OK, too.
I really only like to watch soccer, Olympic gymnastics and ice skating, but that’s just me. Most people in the world seem to like soccer just fine as it is.
“”””””””Unlike in football, the team with the lead can’t kill the last two minutes by taking three knees in a row.””””””””””””””””””””
Or, as it does occur in soccer competition, (including at the international level) a goal is scored…by accident.
And again, and again. All of this would become irrelevant and unnecessary to the final outcome if they would simply institute a mandatory penalty kick per every 15 minute intervals. (e.g. 1st penalty kick @ 15:00; 2nd penalty kick @ 30:00; etc).
As stated a while back (during the old isteve.blogspot.com era), in soccer a penalty kick is from about 36′ away.
Under the mandatory single penalty kick for every 15min. intervals of regulation time (90min), the kick will be undertaken at 24′, or roughly two-thirds the distance from the “regular” occuring penalty kicks that often take place at end of game.
After about two world cups, or about 8yrs total, the distance mandatory penalty kick would be moved to a permanent distance of 20′.
And then after that widen the nets by 33% on each side.
The soccer rules are fine the way they are. It’s also just fine that America doesn’t care and that the rest of the world does care. None of these things are problems in need of fixing.
“Hello. I am ignorant and know nothing about subject X. However, subject X annoys me, because it is different from subject Y, which I do know something about. So let me propose some changes to X to make it more like Y, so I can feel better about myself; let my compare X to Y in ways which demonstrate that I am totally clueless about X. I don’t need to cure my own ignorance; I need to impose my own ignorance on X by spoiling X for the billions of people out there who do understand and enjoy X just fine the way it is.”
That’s basically what a lot of American non-soccer fans do when they try to “understand” soccer without, you know, actually trying to appreciate it for what it actually is. Instead they insist on trying to “understand” it through the lens of things that it is not.
Anyone who says that goals in soccer happen by “accident” is too silly and uniformed to be taken seriously.
Likewise, anyone who thinks that goals or shots on goal are all that counts in soccer, and that if it isn’t a goal or a shot on goal, then “nothing is happening”, has disqualified himself and nothing he says in regards to soccer can be taken seriously.
It’s like saying that the only thing that matters in baseball are hits, and that therefore the most boring thing in baseball is a no-hitter – because no hits!
You literally have no clue about what is happening during a soccer match. No clue. NONE.
Don’t be this guy:
http://deadspin.com/mike-francesa-has-a-lot-of-dumb-questions-about-soccer-1592143944
By the way, those are not really John Elway’s thoughts watching a World Cup game. Or, at least, I have no proof that they are.
You keep saying this, but how true is it? I’ve watched about a dozen games so far this World Cup and exactly one accidental goal comes to mind, an own goal that happened last week when a ball deflected off of a defender.
In a comment above, I linked to Robin Van Persie’s flying header against Spain last week. Here’s a video someone put on YouTube showing all 30 goals he scored for Man U during 2012-2013. How many look like accidents to you?
This is a horrible idea, why do you keep repeating it?
As is your idea to make the goal wider. It’s huge as it is. As I mentioned last time you brought this up, basketball has a tiny goal and is high scoring. You could make soccer similarly high scoring by changing the rules without changing the size of the goal (e.g., by eliminating the goalie, adding a 3 second rule to keep defensive players from clogging the box, scrapping the offsides rule, making any contact with a dribbler a penalty, etc.), but no one is interested. It’s the most popular sport in the world already.
The only change I’d suggest to soccer is for the refs to penalize the malingering a bit more. I think they have the authority to do so now, but they don’t seem to do it often enough.
The fundamental thing Americans need to understand about soccer is that it’s not about entertainment. You ever wonder whey there’s no cheer leaders or marching bands or elaborate halftime shows?
It’s about my village vs. your village, my city vs. your city, my religious group vs. your religious group, my class vs. your class, and in the World Cup, my nation against your nation. If it’s entertaining, that’s a bonus, but its really just a forum for ingroup-outgroup loathing.
Could the game be improved? Sure. Increasing the size of the goal to reflect the much greater height of goalkeepers since the rules were framed would be one easy way to create more goals and therefore prevent cagey stalemates. But that would do almost nothing to increase the size of crowds and TV audiences (outside the US). You want to be entertained? Watch a movie. Want to play out eons-old group rivalries, then you go to the soccer.
Didn’t your kids play soccer, Steve? I never liked watching soccer until my sons started playing it. After you spend years watching your kids play and realize the level of skill it takes just to connect a few passes you develop a real appreciation for the game. You can treat yourself to some nice soccer locally – Manchester United is coming over for an international friendly with the Galaxy at the Rose Bowl on July 23rd.
It’s not like random countries win the World Cup. If Honduras wins the World Cup this time, then I’ll change my mind, but during my lifetime the winner has always been a Major Power of soccer. The NCAA basketball champions are more random.
They should reduce the numbers on the field for each team to ten-a-side.
That would create more space, allow more scoring attempts, and make the game less dominated by defense.
And it’s also not like random strikers end up being the top scorers. If that were the case, the best wouldn’t get paid so much.
Steve, I’m surprised you haven’t mentioned any similarities between soccer and golf, in terms of swing /strike mechanics, placement of the ball, etc. Check out this GIF of Luis Suarez’s second goal against England Thursday: head down, follow through. And there are also the soccer free kicks that are sort of like a chip shot in golf, where instead of trying to hit a ball out of a sand trap, they try to arc it over a wall of defenders. Of course, there’s also lots of luxuriant grass, particularly in England’s premier league.
There’s some of that — it seems like most fans during the World Cup don’t care if their team wins ugly — but it can also be pretty entertaining if you give it a chance. I’ve only been watching soccer for a few years, but it has grown on me.
Come to think of it, one thing that would increase soccer’s popularity in the US is if there were a soccer version of NFL films. That was what got me into watching football as a kid. The Fox Soccer channel made a couple of moves in that direction last year, but then when they lost the Premier League broadcasting rights to NBC, Fox shut it down.
The randomness has been ramping up since the Cold War partially because it seems like most of the traditional powers have already hosted a World Cup, which they inevitably won, so all the new host countries which are not traditional powers provide a more open tournament. Or in France’s case let’s a team that hadn’t won before win while hosting a world cup.
I learned the game, and to enjoy it, watching bay area pub tv in the mid-seventies, after the war. Well after that war anyway. Now we’re working thru the alphabet.
It was Bundesleger, and good quality play, very tacticized and intricate, v little sloppiness. Guess kqed got muy cheapo rates for rebroadcast in u.s.?
The game definitely can be static, esp when a lead’s being protected with backwards passes. But when teams are highly skilled at ball control and movement, particularly with a stud midfielder, the game can be entertaining and even instructive. Cheers.
Who is John Elway?
@Kris: Who is John Elway?
He’s the guy that hired Peyton Manning.
I played soccer for about 10 years. It’s a fairly fun game to play, and I always appreciated that it didn’t suffer the over-the-top intensity and melodrama of high school American Football. (Of course it also didn’t come with any prestige or cheerleaders.) Soccer is a fine alternative team sport for guys too short for basketball, or too small for football, etc.
Having said that, soccer is boring as hell to watch. Don’t believe the people who insist that knowing the rules makes soccer enjoyable to watch. It doesn’t. Massive amounts of beer make soccer fun to watch. But massive amounts of beer make anything fun to watch, including drying paint. I guess it’s true that there are some soccer fans who enjoy watching soccer sober. If you invest enough time into anything, it can become interesting (if you’ve ever been to Amish country, you’ve probably witnessed the common sight of Amish guys standing around watching someone do farm chores.)
Also, Dumbo: major league baseball doesn’t have cheerleaders. They should, but that would probably be too lowbrow and uncouth (too “football”) for baseball’s snobby fanbase.
Basketball is typically fun to watch, but the NBA is too scummy to tolerate. American Football is a lousy sport for a whole host of reasons, but I think it’s fixable in theory. Rugby (League, not Union) is a lot of fun to watch; it’s a shame its not really a thing in America.
People need to get away from the corporate controlled spectator sports and get out there and do some physical exercise themselves.
“It’s about my village vs. your village, my city vs. your city, my religious group vs. your religious group, my class vs. your class, and in the World Cup, my nation against your nation.”
Really, “my nation against your nation”? Then you haven’t been paying attention either to the US or to overseas teams, where World Cup Soccer has become about “we need to let more foreigners into our country so that we can have a better soccer team so that we can prove that we’re better than those dirty foreigners.”
Didn’t your kids play soccer, Steve?
Who hasn’t? More kids play soccer than any other sport, even in places like Gainesville, Florida and South Bend, Indiana. Soccer is also the first sport that kids quit.
“You are posting comments too quickly, slow down.”
“It’s about my village vs. your village, my city vs. your city, my religious group vs. your religious group, my class vs. your class, and in the World Cup, my nation against your nation. If it’s entertaining, that’s a bonus, but its really just a forum for ingroup-outgroup loathing.”
No, no, no. Just wrong. Most Americans are, as ever, hopelessly clueless about football. That doesn’t stop them spouting rubbish about it, though.
If Elway were watching football he would know just how much time was left. The fourth official holds up a sign so everyone can see how much extra time will be added to the 90 minutes. Usually 2-4 minutes.
“a mandatory penalty kick per every 15 minute intervals.”
Possibly the worst idea for “improving” football I have ever seen.
Increasing the size of the goal to reflect the much greater height of goalkeepers since the rules were framed would be one easy way to create more goals and therefore prevent cagey stalemates.
62 goals were scored in 23 games so far. That’s almost 3 per game. Will the people who have no idea about soccer at least shut up about how low scoring it is? Watch basketball if scoring is what you like.
The randomness has been ramping up since the Cold War partially because it seems like most of the traditional powers have already hosted a World Cup, which they inevitably won
Gosh why does the subject of soccer attract so much uninformed commentary?
Only counting soccer superpower hosts:
1950 Brazil – winner Uruguay
1974 Germany – winner Germany
1978 Argentina – winner Argentina
1982 Spain – winner Italy
1990 Italy – winner Germany
1998 France – winner France
2006 Germany – winner Italy
Does 3/7 look like inevitability to you??? Oh, and see Brazil not winning this year, too.
I am with Pinsen here. I won’t waste my time watching MLS, but the World Cup is a spectacle that I enjoy very much. This year’s games have been exciting; higher scoring, plenty of drama. Steve’s desires for more upsets are noted. (Costa Rica over Uruguay stunned a lot of folks.) But there’s a reason Kissinger can write about 6 or 7 teams and their soccer styles – there are just dominant “franchises” in the sport. (Also, the fact soccer games are seen as harder to bet on should be seen as a detriment. The fact football and hoop have point spreads make it easier for the average guy to understand and get some action down on.)
Also remember, there’s a reason why Duke is Duke, Kansas is Kansas & Kentucky is Kentucky (and w/ 4 titles in 13 years, Connecticut is Connecticut). Every time we think some advancement is going to democratize a sport, the rich tend to get richer as they steal the successful ideas (or coaches!) from the usurpers (think Butler & Brad Stevens or Urban Meyer in College Football).
Not to jump across sports so blithely, but in other words, whatever is happening in Oakland w/ the A’s should be cherished.
Thats what everyone thinks about (American) football.
‘Cept they’re wrong, because there’s way more scoring in football than in futbol.
Also, the ball and the players are always moving
Now, see, that’s a valid point. ‘Cept, it’s all signifying nothing.
Basketball soon becomes boring because there’s too much scoring, back and forth
Basketball’s more asinine than boring. Men kicking a ball, that makes sense. Men throwing a ball, that makes sense. Men running with a ball, that makes sense.
Men walking or running while continuously bouncing an oversized, clownish ball? You know, it does look like a sport clowns would play, now that I said that…
“Unlike in football, the team with the lead can’t kill the last two minutes by taking three knees in a row.”
No, they just take a dive and roll around like pansies to play for time or wheedle a penalty out of daddy referee.
The soccer rules are fine the way they are. It’s also just fine that America doesn’t care and that the rest of the world does care. None of these things are problems in need of fixing.
Indeed, I don’t see why there must be One Sport to Rule Them All, and With the Darkies, Bind Them.
That’s basically what a lot of American non-soccer fans do when they try to “understand” soccer without, you know, actually trying to appreciate it for what it actually is. Instead they insist on trying to “understand” it through the lens of things that it is not.
‘Cept they all ride down football, when the odds of them understanding football are about 1/50th the odds of an American understanding futbol.
Likewise, anyone who thinks that goals or shots on goal are all that counts in soccer, and that if it isn’t a goal or a shot on goal, then “nothing is happening”, has disqualified himself and nothing he says in regards to soccer can be taken seriously.
So, what is happening in futbol, when the ball’s being bounced back and forth? “The stuff that happens before something (say, a shot on goal) happens”? Field position?
It’s like saying that the only thing that matters in baseball are hits, and that therefore the most boring thing in baseball is a no-hitter – because no hits!
You literally have no clue about what is happening during a soccer match. No clue. NONE.
At least in baseball they have some stats to show for it.
rugby & rugby-likes>football>soccer/baseball (tied)>hockey>>>>basketball
Kris,
In soccer terms he was like a 10 who was famous for winning important games in extra time with perfect set up passes.
No one doubts the skill involved with soccer. That doesn’t mean it is enjoyable. Soccer is hockey, just slower, with no real contact, more fake injuries, and chants to keep fans from falling asleep.
BTW, how can you have a sport where the officials can randomly tack on additional, secret time, at the end of the game? The one thing I have observed about any international event is that the less randomness/personal judgment there is in the rules and officiating the better. That is why anything that doesn’t have hard scoring is a waste for international competition. It is too prone to abuse.
It’s kind of dumb to argue about the merits of one sport vs another. Usually you like what your dad liked / what was popular where you grew up.
…I have noticed though, that this whole world cup soccer thing has become a big political signifier where I live (Toronto) – globalist/multiculturalists seem to love soccer (or the idea of soccer) even if they are not particularly big sports fans….where they might view the traditional Canadian sports – Hockey or the CFL as a bit déclassé.
You can really learn a lot about someone by getting their take on the World Cup.
It’s like saying that the only thing that matters in baseball are hits, and that therefore the most boring thing in baseball is a no-hitter – because no hits!
If both pitchers pitched a no-hitter in half of games and batting averages fell to sub .100 levels then yes I guarantee people would get bored of baseball.
Wait, why are they kicking it backwards?
Didn’t most of Elway’s plays in the two-minute offense begin with a backward pass? Wasn’t he in the shotgun formation?
“The NCAA basketball champions are more random.”
No way, Steve.
The last eleven:
Connecticut, Louisville, Kentucky, Connecticut, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Florida, Florida, North Carolina, Connecticut.
Basketball might be slightly more random since it happens every year rather than every four, but still, not an underdog in the bunch.
The last night a non-power won the NCAA? Maybe Arkansas in 1994.
“The last night a non-power won the NCAA? Maybe Arkansas in 1994.”
The last time, rather.
Kris – John Elway was the quarterback who lost this game:
before losing a bunch of games to Joe Montana.
Steve – do you see any changes coming up in the distribution of Major Powers of soccer? Look at it this way – maybe five or ten in a million men between 5’9″ and 6’3″ has the potential to play Premier League soccer. Young men from countries where soccer isn’t the most popular sport may be diverted into other sports (cricket, rugby, American football); some will end up just not wanting to play. Right now, most of the major powers are large-ish countries without other sports: Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina. But there are other countries who should be able to supply enough world-class soccer players to become Major Powers of Soccer. Right now, I’d bet on Cameroon and Ghana, but are there enough Egyptians or Turks to make them a soccer power (or will Germany give citizenship to those Turks who are that good)? Are there enough men in India of the right height? China?
What they should really do is make both games more like Aussie Rules. Whoever “they” are.
While we’re waiting for that, why doesn’t someone cut twenty yards out of the middle of the soccer field?
e : ” I’ve tried to like it. I don’t. The only reason people like it is it gives them all kinds of time to get drunk w/out missing a score.”
Lurker: “Thats what everyone thinks about (American) football.”
_______________________________________________
Sober or tipsy or drunk, you can’t leave a college or NFL football game to buy food or relieve yourself w/out fear of missing a score. Not true of soccer.
It’s amazing that soccer has managed to thrive for all these decades without input from busybody Americans.
Dumbest sport ever. I can see why there are riots and binge drinking at every match. What else is there to do? Slow, clumsy, weird-ass rules, flopping like fish, goons in the stands and sometimes the field.
Hockey, sure I can understand. It’s cold you’re going to need alcohol to warm up and the stinking puck is small plus you got actual guys hired for their ability to throw a punch. That’s entertainment! I spent twenty minutes watching a brawl at a hockey game. Time well spent quality bonding time with the wife and kids too. It was their favorite part of the match.
But soccer? Good Grief! No one can touch the ball with their hands but the goalies? That guarantees that things will be way less graceful than if they were allowed to use their arms and hands. Imagine baseball with just feet or basketball. People would look just as goofy and uncoordinated as at a soccer match. The wonder is not that they get ‘own goals’ but that they don’t get more of the damn things.
Let’s hope soccer–the real football–continues to grow in popularity in the US. It’s an awesome game.
Note that the US team is finally being whipped into shape by the German coach, Jurgen Klinsmann [who lives in nearby Huntington Beach], who has imposed a strict, unconventional training regimen on players, including IQ tests, media training, and blood tests. It’s amusingly typical that it takes a German to discipline the Americans.
The World Cup, in particular, allows for an expression of nationalism and racial pride that you can’t find in American sports, which, unfortunately, are dominated by Africans and their white beta-male worshipers.
“Okay, they’ve got two minutes left, that’s plenty of time. Just start methodically moving the ball downfield.”
What an easy-peasy,tiki-taka task!
Especially taking in consideration that your feet had evolutionary adapted with a set of performing abilities equaling to your upper extremities, therefore allowing you to effortlessly run and handle round objects – you know things like …a ball.
P.S. Soccer and football are made for monkeys proles, anyway.
A real gentlemen exercise their grip/precision/timing skills by indulging themselves with a noble sports such as polo.
Steve, I love watching soccer and I get really tired of all the naysayers and their “it’s so boring” comments.
But the Elway thing was funny.
Soccer remains the metric system in short pants.
My bad I forgot a since the “end of the Cold War” glad I got to provide a crotechy 60 plus the high light of the day by correcting me though always a treat.
It’s amazing Luguana beach fogey doesn’t have any grand kids he could spend time with rather than boring us with his typical eurosneers. You’d think a guy like that would have a bunch of loving children and a even bigger assortment of friends.
Komment Kontrol says:
“You are posting comments too quickly, slow down.”
Hey Komment Kontrol, I also got that message from WordPress when I tried to post.
@Wilkey: World Cup Soccer has become about “we need to let more foreigners into our country so that we can have a better soccer team so that we can prove that we’re better than those dirty foreigners.”
This seems to be similar to what is happening baseball, at lease with regard to the importation of foreigners to play MLB; they return home to represent their home country in the World Baseball Classic. In fact, black Americans and their supporters have been whining that there are not enough blacks in MLB (something like 8%), and claim that black Dominicans and S. Americans aren’t black.
…this whole world cup soccer thing has become a big political signifier where I live (Toronto) – globalist/multiculturalists seem to love soccer (or the idea of soccer) even if they are not particularly big sports fans…
Yes, I thought the same. The US media seems to be forcing soccer on Americans. Though it seems to have become much more popular for kids today than thirty+ years ago. Growing up in the New England in the late ’70s, there were no youth soccer leagues; we only played a few times in middle-school gym class. Back then, it was baseball in the spring & summer, football in the Fall, hockey & basketball in the Winter. I’ve never watched soccer or learned the rules.
What is it about the popularity of soccer that people here find so threatening? If you don’t like, don’t watch. Problem solved.
Some of the commentators here are behaving like agents provocateurs paid for by the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. It’s weird. It certainly makes you wonder.
The increasing Hispanicization of the US means futbol is going to be a lot more popular in coming years anyway, so you might at least try to understand it.
@ bored identity…”Soccer and football are made for monkeys proles, anyway.”
Soccer was actually originally made by rich schoolboys for other rich schoolboys in the public schools [boarding schools] of 19th century England. European colonialism spread it around the world.
Soccer feels Latin and 3rd World, despite more whites playing it. Football, basketball, and baseball are more white sports, despite there being more blacks in them.
Most of soccer games consist of losing possession of the ball to the opposing team either by a pass being intercepted or by the ball being taken away by the defender.
A few times during a game possession won’t be immediately lost and shots on goal will be attempted.
If you watch a bad league like MLS and compare it to the better European leagues, what you notice is that in the bad leagues teams will lose possession almost immediately, while in the better leagues the teams usually be able to hold the ball a little longer or make a pass or two before losing the ball.
Soccer popular? Not in the US by citizens except those who just arrived across the border. To play? Yes some folks enjoy playing soccer but more enjoy stopping playing soccer. It is a boring sport. If the rest of the world thinks it’s hunky dory what does that matter to me?
But I can certainly scoff at the stupidity of the most boring sport ever and the most violent fans and the most ridiculous rules. Soccer is eminently worthy of scorn. Everything about it.
Any sport that requires alcohol to make it marginally entertaining to watch is simply stupid. Any ball-handling sport where the majority of the action occurs without using your hands or a stick or anything but your damn head and feet is stupid. Any sport where you can go and get a zero – zero tie and some halfwit yells, ‘That’s football!’ is stupid. Any sport where you need live crocodiles or machine guns and razor wire to keep the fans off the field or from killing each other is stupid.
So scoring and therefore winning in soccer is random.
2013-14 Spanish league stats (ties not included)
First Place – Atletico Madrid Wins 73% % Losses 11%
Second Pl. – Real Madrid W 71% L13%
Last Place – Real Betis W 15% L 65%
Most European leagues have similar percentages of wins and losses though in Germany Bayern Munich won 85% of their matches.
Now MLB’s National League West 2013 with Steve’s LA Dodgers
First Place – LA Dodgers W 56.8% L 43.2%
Last Place – Colorado Rockies W45.7% L 54.3%
The other MLB leagues are similar. So to would the NHL most years though not the NFL. I don’t know about the NBA.
If soccer is random what does that make baseball?
(I’m not knocking baseball as I played it at school and watch it occasionally).
Sadly, however interesting the World Cup is, the average US soccer game is a complete bore. Which is why soccer in the USA will never become that popular. Soccer – without some sort of external factor, like Nationalism – is dull to watch on TV. It lacks the “wow, did you see that?!” factor. Remember when Jordan, single handed, and with the flue defeated the Jazz? Remember when Gibson with the Broken leg, (or whatever), hit that HR to win the world series? Remember, that fantastic catch, hit, pass, run in the latest NFL game?
Soccer has very, very few of those moments. Mostly it just “wow look at that great ball handling’ and “wow, look at that defense now that the team is up 1-0”.
Soccer was certainly popular in America in the 1970s-1980s., particularly where I grew up on the East Coast. I remember watching Pelé play for the New York Cosmos in the late 1970s, which drew huge crowds. In the elementary, middle, and high schools soccer was also very popular and competition to win a place on the local club ‘traveling teams’ was fierce.
Today I regularly see soccer matches being played by everyone from little kids to grown men. It is a major sport in the high schools. It is of course also popular with foreigners (Mexicans, Europeans, South Americans). I have a few colleagues who play for an indoor league. Local cities maintain municipal soccer pitches. I’ve been watching recent World Cup matches at bars and restaurants and these places are packed.
The popularity of soccer isn’t in doubt. Its popularity is only going to grow.
LBF, the reason soccer is treated with derision by a lot of people is because a certain segment of this country has been trying to force the sport onto everyone else. I remember hearing some idiot in a restaurant spout off in the early 80’s about how American’s needed to make soccer the national sport because it was the international sport. Since we didn’t like it, we were just rubes.
BTW, using the term pitch for field is just highlights my point. In Spanish, they call it a field. In most places they call it a field. In America, we call it a field.
A marathon. They play a lot more games in baseball, and they never play a team just once but always in a series.
Rowing crew and lacrosse are also popular in parts of the East Coast. But they’re mainly popular as school sports that provide more athletic activities and possibilities for kids. They’re by no means popular in the US and more generally as sports.
It’s funny you bring up Pele and the Cosmos because they were supposed to ignite soccer popularity in the US but it was mostly just a novelty that didn’t lead to that much.
I’ve played pickup indoor soccer in major cities and enjoyed doing so. But it’s a pretty foreign scene. It was mainly foreign expats like Europeans and Hispanics. Soccer of any type is just not played a lot by adult American guys. Even things like squash, martial arts like BJJ, Crossfit are more popular as athletic activities among adult American guys than soccer is. Golf, softball leagues, pickup basketball are vastly more popular.
Again, I have to ask, what is it about soccer that threatens the commentators here?
Soccer’s popularity is growing and there is no end in sight.
Relax a little and learn to enjoy it.
Nobody is ‘threatened’ by soccer that is an asinine statement it just gets dumber and more annoying with every repetition. It is boring, mind numbingly stupid, and painful to watch but it is not threatening.
Soccer is the ‘metrics’ of sports everybody but the US does it. So what? Who cares if it becomes more popular and it will in the US. But so will other Mexican fashions and habits.
Play, watch and enjoy your futbol; just don’t act like I’m some mental defective for not joining you. I don’t care that you don’t want to watch baseball, but I do. Feel free not to join me, because I know you won’t understand its strange and wonderful nuances. Just like you feel about futbol.
Which is the problem, all you foreigners commenting here. American soccer supporters are the most obnoxiously SWPL bunch you’ll ever find, hectoring us great unwashed about the joys of this multi-culti jamboree. Democrats, if you will.
Again, I have to ask, what is it about soccer that threatens the commentators here?
Okay, so I’ll answer: nothing. It’s just relatively boring to watch.
Soccer’s popularity is growing and there is no end in sight.
I don’t care.
Relax a little and learn to enjoy it.
No.
Let’s face it, soccer is an awesome game, much more exciting than boring, thuggish US sports.
I think a lot of the anti-soccer animus comes from the fact the world hasn’t taken up American football, basketball, and baseball, at least not to the extent their proponents would have liked.
Which is the problem, all you foreigners commenting here. American soccer supporters are the most obnoxiously SWPL bunch you’ll ever find, hectoring us great unwashed about the joys of this multi-culti jamboree. Democrats, if you will.
I can remember American (and Canadian) soccer-haters in the 1980s saying the same ignorant things they say today but I don’t recall them being provoked by SWPLers. Just noticing the sport’s existence was enough to set them off. I can also think of quite a few North American liberal sports journalists who are among the worst soccer-haters. The ones that astonish me are the ones who dismiss soccer players as “sissies in shorts” yet claim, without irony (being Americans), that basketball players are the opposite! I agree that American soccer supporters often come across as obnoxious and snobbish (Europeans don’t like them either*) but the American soccer-haters who comment at Powerline and other conservative blogs reinforce the foreign view that American soccer-haters are bitter People of Wal-Mart patriotards. Republicans, if you will.
(Europeans who mock baseball as a kiddie sport are just as ignorant, parochial, and annoying).
* Link
Which is the problem, all you foreigners commenting here. American soccer supporters are the most obnoxiously SWPL bunch you’ll ever find, hectoring us great unwashed about the joys of this multi-culti jamboree. Democrats, if you will.
If it’s any consolation to you Americans, we don’t care for soccer either. Up here it’s a game for fuzzy foreigners and SWPL types who don’t have the disposition to play hockey.
I enjoy neither golf nor baseball, nor (American) football, but never in my life did I comment on a thread dealing with these sports, trying to tell golf and baseball and football fans how boring their respective sports are. Had I done so, I would never have been surprised by the reaction of the fans of these sports. By chance I have also never proposed ways to improve football or baseball, because I’ve never watched them in my life, so I wouldn’t know.
If someone thinks there needs to be more score, than the soccer with a lot of score already exists: it’s called futsal (mainly indoors soccer) or (sligthly different) five-a-side football. There’s a lot of goals, because the pitch is much smaller, there are just five players per side (one goalkeeper plus four others), and even though the goal is also smaller, it’s much easier to score in futsal.
Incidentally very few people are interested in futsal as a spectator sport (many people are playing it, though), its popularity is nowhere near soccer in countries where soccer is the number one sport.
Right. And the thing is is that these SWPL types would be the first to lose interest in soccer if it ever became truly popular in the US. They would move on and latch on to some other niche sport most people aren’t fans of.
I despise Keith Olbermann, but he’s right when he says that the World Cup is “the most overhyped sporting event in America”:
Soccer > Knockout Game