Originally posted by: brxndxn
Originally posted by: Playmaker
Originally posted by: dudeman007
Originally posted by: Playmaker
Originally posted by: nakedfrog
Originally posted by: Feldenak
Originally posted by: brxndxn
My guess is they're trying to at least get people to acknowledge that soccer is a worthy sport.. and definitely worthy of being an American past time too.
And, if the American soccer announcers were anything other than off-season football/baseball/basketball fans, and were ANY good at announcing soccer, perhaps American soccer games would be more fun to watch and have a larger fanbase.. But then again, they can't blast commercials for more than 10% of the time in soccer while they can blast them for 50-65% of the time in baseball and football..
Soccer is incredibly boring to watch...there's nothing the commentators can do about that.
Better than watching baseball, that's for sure.
Eh, I can watch baseball. There's so much more strategy invovled in it than any other sport, so I find it entertaining now, but didn't when I was younger.
In contrast, basketball is all action, but for me it lost its entertainment value when I turned ~16 because it's so one-dimensional and redundant.
Soccer lacks action and significant strategy.
Football FTW, because it has both.
A big WTF for you. Soccer doesn't involve "strategy", because to Americans strategy involves stopping the game and thinking things out. Soccer is the smart man's sport where the game changes constantly and players are forced to adapt with only one break in the 90 minutes of play instead of 20.
Note the qualifier "significant," as it was integral to my statement.
Yes, you are correct, strategy to Americans does involve thinking. Bravo. The breaks allow for it and also allow for increased intensity during play, leading to higher-quality entertainment.
Soccer is more about adaptation, reaction, and endurance, sans thinking.
Here's why soccer is boring to most Americans.. who have or have not played the game. If you've played, but were never competitive, you don't see soccer in the way the rest of the world does.
Next time you watch, watch where they kick the ball. Notice how they never just kick to each other while standing still.. though sometimes it's done so expertly that it looks effortless. Every time a defender commits, the ball is typically kicked to open space where the friendly player and the ball will meet in perfect harmony.
Like.. the Simpsons makes fun of soccer for being boring by showing them standing still and passing back and forth. Soccer is never like that. The entire point of the game entails possessing the ball.. and keeping that possession. You do not do that by kicking to where players are.. or trapping the ball to a stop. The entire game is about redirection and placing the ball where players will be.. not where they already are.
Also, one of the only reasons soccer is boring is that you hardly ever get to see the same player twice in the US. If you were able to start seeing stats of players.. and recognizing their names, you would take an interest as in any other stat-oriented sport.
One of the downfalls of televised soccer is also it's advantage.. The game is continuous.. so perfect replays are few and far between. Say Renaldo fakes a defender out and takes a shot on goal.. Two seconds later, the ball is booted out by the goalie and already on the opposite side of the field - no time for a replay.. much less a NFL-style football replay where 30 seconds of commercial time and play stoppage allows them a perfect replay that has everything diagrammed.
