World Cup!

[phillyone]

I know we're all busy .. but we've all been enjoying the world cup (I know it!) :biggrin

Now it's getting interesting! Let the games begin!!! :hihi

[SageDad]

heh.. I'm hoping Mexico can beat Argentina... so that they can play the US and lose   They have a history of losing to Argentina though.

The US leads Group C (which includes England.)  Hoping to see them do great things this year.  Would also like to see them take down Brazil ...but I don't see that happening either

[KarlHindle]

England will beat Germany - then beat Argentina - then they will beat Portugal to meet Brazil in the final.

England will then win 5-0 on penalties.

I'm not at all biased in this opinion  :biggrin

[Bob D'Amico]

I'm sure you guys will just love this Op/Ed piece. It was posted on one of my commercial websites. Personally I would prefer to watch Rugby or even 4 day long Cricket Test Match rather than 90 minutes of "futball."

Soccer: The Perfect Socialist Sport
By C. Edmund Wright

The world's most popular sport? Puh-leeze. This is like saying that dirt is more popular than gold simply because there is more of it. Last time I checked, soccer was very popular where starvation, archery, and badminton were the alternative activities. Where soccer has to compete with the NFL, college football, and basketball -- not to mention WWE, the X Games, cheerleading contests, and cage-fighting -- not so much.

And no, I am not some redneck soccer newbie who has never been exposed to the sport. Actually, I attended the prep school that brought the sport to the Research Triangle area of North Carolina -- one of the first soccer hotspots in the country. We are talking multiple decades ago. And frankly, I rather enjoyed playing it in one of the southeast's first little league soccer organizations and in high school PE class.

But watching it? Oh my God. The only thing more predictable than Barack Obama blaming George W. Bush and BP is that when you flip over to World Cup coverage, the score will be 0-0. I don't care who is playing or where you are in the game...er, match. It will be 0-0. And for those who think watching the grass grow is more exciting, I think these matches are so long they do have to mow the pitch at halftime. (Hey -- I know they call it a pitch, not a field. Told you I was not a redneck newbie.)

At its heart, soccer is the perfect socialist sport. That's why it will never catch on among Americans the way football or basketball has -- regardless of how hard ESPN or ESPN Deportes tries to force feed it to us. Soccer is a redistributive dreamer's delight, with most of the potential risk-reward strategy of the sport removed by rule. It is a self-esteem cornucopia, where a blistering rout of, say, 2-0 seems so close in the score book. No one's feelings get hurt at 2-0. And on and on the socialist feel goes.

A liberal's only complaint with soccer is that it entails such low scoring that there's no point trying to have a youth league where no one keeps score. It's 0-0. We all know that already. You can't even pretend not to know the score. Then again, 0-0 is the perfect score for a "no score" league, I guess.

Consider other ways in which it is the quintessential socialist sport:

Soccer is biggest where the "national teams" are the main sports focus of a nation. Hey, you can't get much more socialist than that. And everyone on every street and in every town pulls for the same team. Wow. Isn't that exciting? Whom do you pull for? Oh yeah, the national team.

And let's not forget the off-sides rule. Without getting buried in minutiae, suffice it to say that off-sides in soccer is like making the bomb illegal in football or the fast break illegal in basketball. This is a socialist sport. We can't be having any risk-reward equations here. You see, in soccer, it's not fair that you might take a chance to weaken your defense in order to spring a man deep downfield behind the defense. That would be unfair in a free-market, venture-capital-type way. No, no, no! You must let the defense be behind you. You cannot beat them downfield until you have the ball. That would be unfair and, no doubt, mean-spirited.

So ingrained is this into the soccer psyche that many of the world's best defenses employ what they call "the off-sides trap." In other words, they use the socialist rules to the hilt. Here, a defenseman gets beaten downfield on purpose to get a call against his opponent.

It's a lot like using high tax rates and the IRS to keep everyone's financial strata the same.

This leads to the another socialist issue, which is the low scoring and the self-esteem protection involved in that. In international soccer, 2-0 is a rout and 3-0 an absolute blowout. And yet, it seems so close. Hey, we only lost by three.

In reality, it's like losing by 21 in football -- or worse, actually, given the paucity of scoring. It's a total destruction, but it sounds so innocent at three-nil.

Another way soccer is the perfect socialist sport is the power vested in the nameless bureaucrats and their ability to never have to answer for their screw ups. This sounds like big government to me for sure.

Consider "stoppage time." In soccer, the official clock does not stop for out of bounds or other play stoppages. No, it rolls on, I guess to keep the carbon footprint of the clock operations low. You see, like socialists, the bureaucrats don't actually want to trust the real movers and shakers with information like, well, how much time is left. It's kind of like not knowing how much longer you can keep your current health plan if you like it.

The little bureaucrats on the field -- the referees, kind of like lawyers -- keep the time to themselves. No one else knows. It's the perfect case of untalented bureaucrats having power over the real talented people who make things happen (such that anything ever happens in soccer).

And no liberal or socialist sport would be complete without a generous dose of self-importance, arrogance, and snobbery among its followers. I mean, it's bad enough that we have to see the kids running around in almost soft-porn thigh-highs and sandals every Saturday as they pile out of mini-vans at every Shoney's, Applebee's, and Hampton Inn everywhere. But it's the "yeah, but it's the worlds most popular sport" attitude that really gets to me.

No it isn't! See the perfect dirt and gold analogy in paragraph one, please. Where people have a choice, soccer is not the most popular sport.

And it really gets bad every four months -- or is it four years -- when the World Cup rolls around. That's where the arrogance of soccer folks meets up with the one-world feeling and the can't-we-all-just-get-along crowd and all sorts of international bodies that want to treat the U.S. like just another country like Cuba or Iran. It's nauseating.

And what's so deliciously ironic is that when push comes to shove, the international referees will always manage to screw the United States, even as our PC crowd does all it can to convince the planet that we can love soccer, too.

No, we can't. Not as spectators. Hey, I am all for the fitness involved in soccer or any sport that involves that much cardio activity. But please don't make me watch it -- and please stop insulting my intelligence with the "most popular sport in the world" stuff.

Now, back to the game. It's nil-nil. Still.

[phillyone]

Bob,

I think it's the Vuvuzelas???

Ya think??

 :hihi :hihi

[:: ultranol ::]

I personally hate watching soccer - boring as hell - but you simply can't deny that's the most popular sport in the world. Yeah, in the US, it won't rival NFL, basketball... but almost everywhere else there's no match for the passion that soccer evokes. Will you say that in those places there is absolutely no other sport? Of course there are. They are just not as popular as soccer. I can't understand why but it's simply true.

The argument that it's popular only in impoverished countries also is not based in reality, unless there's a lot of people starving in England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Argentina, Netherlands...

Anyway, you can tell just by the title of the piece that the author is an angry right-winger that's foaming at the mouth seeing that a sport that's popular everywhere else is getting more and more popular in the US (given that the ratings of this WC are at an all-time high).

[KarlHindle]

I'm with Bob - I played rugby though I'm sidelined in my dotage - a far superior game in every respect. 

Nevertheless, this has been a really enjoyable world cup - even if England did get mullered 4-1 against the Germans this morning.

One thing that makes soccer tournaments very different is clear when you look at how many different countries are playing - it really is a world tournament.

Now I'm going to upset Carlos and root for Mexico against Argentina this afternoon >

[FC_Florida]

Ultranol,

You couldn't have said it better...I'm with you all the way.  And no, it's not because I'm Brazilian (soccer is popular amongst women in Brazil but they don't play in school and colleges like here in America - perhaps that's why men here don't dare to say they like the sport?  :confused:)

I involves a lot of skill to keep that ball rolling (keywords "ball" and "rolling"). Yes, it can be violent at times (more than Football?Rugby?Hockey)and the referees sometimes are not paying attention... but like basketball, volleyball, soccer is a sport of movement, regardless if the score remains 0 x 0 until the end.

There are so many things the author got it wrong that's not even worth rebuffing it...Anyway, just to finish my comment, I will leave a sound-byte I heard a long time ago from a fellow British friend about the differences between "futball" and "football".

"American Footbal? It's nice....when they play the ball..."

[:: ultranol ::]

I involves a lot of skill to keep that ball rolling (keywords "ball" and "rolling"). Yes, it can be violent at times (more than Football?Rugby?Hockey)and the referees sometimes are not paying attention... but like basketball, volleyball, soccer is a sport of movement, regardless if the score remains 0 x 0 until the end.

I don't actually think that you need lots of skills to keep the ball rolling. I won't get into the "which sport is better" anyway, because it's a matter of taste. I personally like American football better - the only thing that bothers me is the endless sequence of 10 seconds of play and 30 seconds of commercials. I'm currently enjoying ice hockey a lot, matches are electrifying from start to finish.

I was specifically stating the obvious - soccer is indeed the most popular sport in the world.

I feel sorry for the guy that wrote this text, because the more he wants the US to be more capitalist and less socialist, the more inequality of income will increase - which is already happening - and since people won't be able to "afford better alternatives", more and more people will resort to soccer... there's no escape for him.  :hihi

[FC_Florida]

I involves a lot of skill to keep that ball rolling (keywords "ball" and "rolling"). Yes, it can be violent at times (more than Football?Rugby?Hockey)and the referees sometimes are not paying attention... but like basketball, volleyball, soccer is a sport of movement, regardless if the score remains 0 x 0 until the end.

I don't actually think that you need lots of skills to keep the ball rolling. I won't get into the "which sport is better" anyway, because it's a matter of taste. I personally like American football better - the only thing that bothers me is the endless sequence of 10 seconds of play and 30 seconds of commercials. I'm currently enjoying ice hockey a lot, matches are electrifying from start to finish.

I was specifically stating the obvious - soccer is indeed the most popular sport in the world.

I feel sorry for the guy that wrote this text, because the more he wants the US to be more capitalist and less socialist, the more inequality of income will increase - which is already happening - and since people won't be able to "afford better alternatives", more and more people will resort to soccer... there's no escape for him.  :hihi

come on Ultranol, you might not like soccer but if you don't think that's skill what a Messi or Robinho can do with their feet to keep the ball rolling while a bunch of guys keep pushing and shoving...
Anyway, I don't know if after the World Cup excitement runs its course the American people will embrace soccer as another major sporting event. It all comes down to sponsorship money, major advertisers and so forth. Look at Formula One. Finally someone here had the guts to gamble on hosting a race in America - it's going to be  in Austin, Tx in a few years. It would be a shame not to invest in soccer as well. Team USA is way more competitive now compared to the other World Cup campaigns.

[liesl78]

I have to feel sorry for the fella who wrote the article above posted. Seriously, just because you don't like a sport you don't have to bash it.

The cover of the NY Post was ridiculous: USA lost, but we didn't want it anyway, right?

Really?
The World's Reaction to Landon Donovan's Game Winning Goal


I can't stand volleyball. But people like it. Same as golf. I don't follow baseball or American football, and no longer have the passion I used to have for the NBA.

But soccer... oh, I love soccer. Or rather, football, as the rest of the world calls it.

World Cup is what I look forward to the most, every 4 years. I will watch every single match. It doesn't matter how important or how big/small a country is... Netherlands, Korea, Vanuatu, Brazil, Iran... it doesn't matter who's playing. I'll watch it. Well, it happens that Brazil is really good at it, so that's the icing on the cake.


I wish that, however, Brazilians would unite, and take the energy and willpower they gather for partying and cheering for the team towards other goals: protest for better schools, better hospitals, better education, for the end of corruption and some other really important issues.

[ANALE]

I have been watching the soccer matches too.  Even though my three boys never got into it (they only liked baseball, football and hockey) for some reason I really am enjoying it.  Of course, I would have liked the US to have gone on further, but I am rooting for Germany since I am of German descent.  The Brazilians have a really strong team and are known for that.  Good luck to all of them. 

[phillyone]

I'm enjoying the games.. if anything it brings people together ...

too bad the US and Uk are out of it.. but good luck everyone else! may the best team win!

[Lexi]

Never mind soccer, I hope the practice of wearing socks with sandals doesn't grow in popularity (see article)! What's with that? 

Contrary to what the Post writer says, I know of a bunch of soccer-crazy American varsity players from college who would have loved it if the US had won the cup - including my ex-bf. And my lovable nephew plays too which is enough to make a fan out of me.

If I had to pick favorites though, it would be lacrosse and tennis.   

[Bob D'Amico]

Sorry people, soccer will never be popular in the US until they get rid of that stupid offsides rule. Hopefully after this world cup, the aristocratic leaders of FIFA will wake up and join the 21st century by implementing technologies to prevent the DUMB calls that effected multiple games.

I'll be rooting for the Netherlands on Friday, I lived there for 12 years.

For what it's worth, the most intricate (need brains) and difficult professional sport is Baseball. +100 million people paid to attend Major League games in the US, Canada, and Japan in 2009. America's professional, National Football League, is a distant second.