Soccer

[Raiderhater]

Gheyest sport in the world. That pretty much sums it up.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by niblet

Why do you care? If you hate the sport, just ignore it.

The inferiority complex clearly belongs to the soccer haters, as evidenced by their incessant whining. Do you list soccer hating next to football on your list of hobbies?

Why did you respond?

[Bwana]

The sand is thick in this thread.

[RNR]

Originally Posted by niblet

Why do you care? If you hate the sport, just ignore it.

The inferiority complex clearly belongs to the soccer haters, as evidenced by their incessant whining. Do you list soccer hating next to football on your list of hobbies?

Soccer blows. Why would anyone have an inferiorty complex about soocer

[Just Passin' By]

Originally Posted by niblet

Why do you care? If you hate the sport, just ignore it.

The inferiority complex clearly belongs to the soccer haters, as evidenced by their incessant whining. Do you list soccer hating next to football on your list of hobbies?

1.) I don't hate it. I simply don't consider it a sport worth the time of adult Americans. It's a great game for kids and young teens.

2.) There's no inferiority complex. It's the soccer crowd who've spent decades trying to impose their love of soccer onto the rest of us, and insulting those who've determined that they don't like the game.

3.) ESPN has been battering us with nearly incessant coverage of the world cup, because they had the rights to it. This has interrupted normal viewing patterns, has impacted radio shows who've had to address it since it was being so actively shoved in our face, and forced those of us who couldn't have cared less about the World Cup to hear about it approximately once every 3.231 seconds. Some backlash from that should be expected.

4.) Historically, the world cup has been for soccer what the Olympics are for track and field events. It marks the height of the buildup for the sport involved, and is followed by that sport's quick return to the back burner. The Cup is over. Soccer can now go back on the shelf again.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by Just Passin' By

2.) There's no inferiority complex. It's the soccer crowd who've spent decades trying to impose their love of soccer onto the rest of us, and insulting those who've determined that they don't like the game.

3.) ESPN has been battering us with nearly incessant coverage of the world cup, because they had the rights to it. This has interrupted normal viewing patterns, has impacted radio shows who've had to address it since it was being so actively shoved in our face, and forced those of us who couldn't have cared less about the World Cup to hear about it approximately once every 3.231 seconds. Some backlash from that should be expected.

Yes.


How many times have ESPN radio guys made fun of soccer during the previous decade? All of the sudden they are huge fans.

[WilliamTheIrish]

This has interrupted normal viewing patterns,

What were you normally watching at 0630 CDT and 1030 (CDT) on ESPN Monday through Friday? Those were the television times for the first 2 weeks of the World Cup. They added a 1330 game during the knockout round.

There were 8 games played on ABC starting at 1330 (CDT) on Saturday or Sunday. In June.


What viewing patterns were disturbed?

[WilliamTheIrish]

Originally Posted by notorious

Why did you respond?

I love the SHTSPRYR mode of posting.

[Donger]

Originally Posted by notorious

Yes.


How many times have ESPN radio guys made fun of soccer during the previous decade? All of the sudden they are huge fans.

Did they get new guys with fewer Neanderthal tendencies and higher IQs?

[Baby Lee]

Saying soccer sucks because there's not enough scoring is like saying sex sucks because there's not enough kids.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by WilliamTheIrish

What were you normally watching at 0630 CDT and 1030 (CDT) on ESPN Monday through Friday? Those were the television times for the first 2 weeks of the World Cup. They added a 1330 game during the knockout round.

There were 8 games played on ABC starting at 1330 (CDT) on Saturday or Sunday. In June.


What viewing patterns were disturbed?

Soccer is being pushed by guys that 2 months ago were constantly bashing it.


I applaud them for putting on a promotion clinic, but for the people that don't appreciate soccer it is pretty annoying.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by Donger

Did they get new guys with fewer Neanderthal tendencies and higher IQs?

No,same dumbasses.


Colin Cowherd was the worst. That guy turned instantly when ESPN got the contract. Only Jim Rome busted on soccer worse then Colin.

[WilliamTheIrish]

Originally Posted by notorious

Soccer is being pushed by guys that 2 months ago were constantly bashing it.


I applaud them for putting on a promotion clinic, but for the people that don't appreciate soccer it is pretty annoying.

Yea, I remember you posting virtually the same thing in a World Cup soccer thread that you cared nothing about.

What normal viewing habits were disturbed?

[Baby Lee]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/100701

Bill Simmons actually makes a pretty compelling case why things might change, and it's not that we're different, it's that our appetite has been whetted, and now thanks to digital communication we're not set adrift on an ice floe soon as the WC is over.

Originally Posted by Bill Simmons

When Donovan scored that Cup-saving goal against those spineless playing-for-a-tie-when-they-needed-to-win-by-two-goals Algerians, the moment resonated like no other goal in American soccer history. We didn't have anyone telling us how we should feel, what the implications were, what the moment meant. We knew what it meant. We wanted more games. We wanted our boys to keep playing. Someone scored. We celebrated. We jumped up and down. We ran around the room. We were alive for another game. For once in a fragmented sports world, we all happened to be rooting for the same thing.

When does that happen anymore? In 2010, you can follow any athlete, whether he plays 13 miles away or 3,000. You can watch any game you want. You can read any and every opinion that exists. You can find out information as soon as it happens, instead of 12-18 hours later in a newspaper. You can interact with other fans who love your team; you can butt heads with the people who hate them. You can tweet your thoughts on a big play as the players are still celebrating it. You can root for your real guys and your fantasy guys. You are fanatically autonomous.

We didn't have nearly as many choices when I was growing up. Either you rooted for local teams or you jumped on a successful bandwagon (such as the Steelers' or Cowboys') because they were always on national TV. The days of "I'm going to fall in love with Oklahoma City because I love watching Kevin Durant, even though I live in Maine" were still decades away. Eight-Year-Old Me rooted for the four Boston teams, Ali, Nicklaus, Connors and Leonard. I hated the Yankees, Raiders, Dolphins, Canadiens, Flyers, Sixers, Munson, Nettles, Stabler, Clarke and Kareem. I liked Earl Campbell and the Oilers' uniforms. I liked David Thompson and George Gervin. I loved all Topps cards. I loved Gerry Cheevers' mask. I loved Terry O'Reilly and Mike Haynes. I loved Freddie Lynn more than anything. And those were the only real sports opinions I had.

Fast-forward to 2010. What shapes Eight-Year-Old Me? How would EYOM settle on 10-12 things to love and hate? How would EYOM differentiate substance from nonsense? How could a moment stand out for EYOM when everything gets televised or covered? It's total sports overload. Too many choices, too much noise, too many extremes, too many niches, too many forums, too many opinions, too many people trying to stand out. You become numb after a while. The only thing that never gets old? Winning in the most dramatic way possible, then basking in the glow of that dramatic victory with as many people as possible.

Recently, Tiger Woods came closest to uniting everyone for a common rooting interest -- remember the 2008 U.S. Open? -- but his career imploded and he squandered that momentum indefinitely (if not forever). There is no "Wildly Popular American Athlete" or "Wildly Popular American Team." We even turned on Brett Favre. We only share the Olympics together, every two years. A rotating cast of athletes that fleetingly capture our affection, and after that, we never consider them again.

The U.S. soccer team could own that "everyone" domain for the simple reason that it's unattainable for anyone else. We always want our national soccer team to succeed; it would be un-American to feel differently. There's continuity through the years when certain players (such as Donovan, Howard and 2010 breakout star Michael Bradley, locks to make the 2014 World Cup) stick around for a prolonged time. There's always a finish line (the Cup every four years), with dozens of exhibitions, smaller tournaments and World Cup qualifying strewn in between. If you want, you can extend your attachment by following American stars on their club squads. Add everything up and it feels like following the Lakers, Red Sox, Niners or whomever.

(Note: I knew I was hooked on Saturday, after Bob Bradley started Ricardo Clark over Maurice Edu, when I was sending e-mails back and forth with friends much like I would have done had Doc Rivers started Tony Allen in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. What the hell is going on? Why are we doing this? Is Edu injured or something? This is terrible! WHY??????? You may have been sending those same e-mails to your buddies, too. That's the "everyone" domain.)

A cynic might say, "Come on, you could have said the same thing when we beat Colombia in 1994." No way. You need time with these things. Decades. You need kids like me to grow up with soccer in their lives. You need a few memories to stack up. You need it to happen organically. The theory that soccer would never catch on until we found our own Pelé or launched our own successful pro league was dead wrong. We only needed to be exposed to great soccer for a prolonged period of time. We're American. We only respond to the best. The cream of the crop. Nothing else is going to fly.

We don't care that much about Donovan playing for the L.A. Galaxy with guys who couldn't sniff the Premier League, just like English people wouldn't care about seeing Dwyane Wade playing with a bunch of D-Leaguers in London. We want to see Donovan tested against the best. In the months leading up to the 2010 World Cup, I watched Donovan play big games for our national team, for the Galaxy (in the playoffs), then overseas for a solid Everton team. I knew he was a world-class player. I knew he was legitimate. I wasn't stealing that opinion from a magazine or a talking head. The hours I logged with Donovan made me feel invested in him.

It's just easier to care about soccer now. Actually, it's something of a perfect storm -- the technology in place, the flaws of our own professional sports, the efficiency of soccer games, our longing for the pre-JumboTron days when people just cheered and that's what fans did, our best-of-the-best fetish, ESPN's unwavering commitment to pushing the sport, the urgency of every game -- that makes more sense as a whole than it did 10 years ago. After that crushing Ghana defeat, the U.S. players weren't devastated just because they blew a winnable game, but because they knew a growing number of Americans actually cared and it wasn't simply a bandwagon thing. (The TV ratings backed it up: an astonishing 19.4 million U.S. viewers.) It was like pining for the same girl for four years in college, finally hooking up with her one night, then getting kicked out of school the next day.

Dammit! I blew it! I had her! We could have had something!

Regardless, the U.S. completed Stage 1. Soccer is no longer taking off. It's here. Those celebratory YouTube videos that started popping up in the 24 hours after Donovan's goal -- all unfolding the same way, with a stationary shot of nervous fans watching the game in a bar, going quiet for a couple of seconds during the American counterattack, reacting to Dempsey's miss ("Nooooooooo!"), holding their breath for two beats ("Wait a second …"), exploding on Donovan's finish ("Hi-yahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"), then chanting "USA! USA! USA!" afterward -- tapped into a collective American sports experience unlike anything since Lake Placid.

I would never compare Donovan's goal to Mike Eruzione's goal, or compare the significance of an early-round World Cup game to the best American sports night ever. But you can't tell me Donovan's goal was a fleeting moment or a lark. Each celebration clip that landed on YouTube could have been any American bar, any group of American friends, anywhere. Like John Cougar Mellencamp's annoying Chevy commercial sprung to life. Only it wasn't annoying. I thought it was glorious. Those clips choked me up. Those clips gave me goosebumps. Those clips made me think, "I forget this sometimes, but I'm glad I live in the United States of America."

Rasheed Wallace loved to say "ball don't lie." YouTube don't lie, either. We will always have the Algeria game. Always.

[notorious]

Originally Posted by WilliamTheIrish

Yea, I remember you posting virtually the same thing in a World Cup soccer thread that you cared nothing about.

What normal viewing habits were disturbed?

I didn't say anything about viewing habits, just that they have did a masterful job of promoting the World Cup.

I think you are recalling the posts where I listed factual TV ratings from U.S. viewers. I never slammed the sport, but I stated that the US interest will drop off a cliff when they get knocked off. Was I right?


Even I was interested in it until I tried to actually tried to watch the matches. It's not for me, but I don't want people spouting off bullshit like "you don't understand the nuances" or "you are slamming it because you have an inferiority complex". That is laughable.


I never slammed the sport, nor will I. It is the fan's that talk down to others that can take an anti-freeze enima.

[Just Passin' By]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Saying soccer sucks because there's not enough scoring is like saying sex sucks because there's not enough kids.

Yes, it's just like saying it, only completely different and unrelated.