Soccer in the USA?

[rikadik]

Originally posted by: spunkz
soccer is fun to play or watch at an amateur level. once you get the best of the best on the field, it becomes such a dumb game.

first of all, most of the goals are scored on penalty kicks and random headers from a big clusterfvck near the goal. the entire rest of the game is not only boring, but frustrating, since the only exciting moments are quickly ended by an offside call.

secondly, any time there is the slightest physical contact, both "men" fall on the ground crying. and that's a CRUCIAL part of the game, since it's how you get penalty kicks and also how you get people carded. players have to sell the foul in basketball too, but they don't need to cry and they don't get 100 points for a foul shot.

finally, because of the aforementioned silliness, at the end of the game, you have no clue who the better team was. this is why noone cares about soccer.

You're making some massive generalisations here. Soccer IS a physical sport, and players do NOT usually go down "any time there is the slightest physical contact". If you believe this to be the case, it's probably because you watched this year's World Cup where diving was a big problem and for a lot of the time the referees were totally ineffective in dealing with it. But just because a few slimey scumbags want to bring the game into disrepute it is plainly wrong to describe soccer as you do. If you watched a good match from the Premiership, you would see that soccer is exciting and physical.

In my opinion the main reason why the majority of Americans don't appreciate soccer is that their domestic league is imcomparable with European ones, it's not a traditional American institution (and therefore evil) and they simply don't "get it", in the same way that I don't see why baseball is so exciting. Whilst I wouldn't go and criticise a game like baseball, despite not being able to watch more than 10 minutes of without losing interest, I'll always defend soccer from people who, I believe, just have no idea of what soccer is all about.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Originally posted by: ThePresence

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy
In order of popularity in the US:

Football = Lots of action - plays last 5 seconds
Baseball = Occasional action - plays last 5-8 seconds
Basketball = Lots of action - plays last 40 seconds
Hockey = Lots of action - plays last 2-4 minutes
Soccer = No action - plays are timed with a calendar

Note the length of a play. The popularity of a sport falls off exponentially with the amount of time we have to pay attention to it to follow the action. Soccer is an affront to the average american's attention span. If you can go make a sandwich and not miss anything... why bother?

Five seconds
5-8 seconds
40 seconds
Couple minutes
Ages and ages

Hard to imagine Soccer being big in the US.

BS. The strategy in football and baseball involve thinking. People like to think what the next play should be. People try to manage and coach in their heads. The true fans anyway. Soccor doesn't really have that. Sure, there are plays drawn up, but not nearly on the football and baseball scale.

True, but not entirely. World Football, aka "soccer", makes you think on-the-fly the entire time you're out there, not just a few seconds for the play. It also requires much more endurance. The field is 20 yards longer, and twice as wide as an american football field. To anyone who argues, go play 90 minutes on a piece of land that size and then post.

IMO, there is no comparison to REAL Football.

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
No. It's boring as hell to watch. It's a niche sport to watch.

you could say the exact same thing about baseball and its still really popular...

soccer is an awesome game and can be really exciting to watch... i reckon its already grown a lot in recent years but team USA would have to put on a good international display for starters to get ppl excited about the sport...

 

[0]

Soccer is seen as wimpy in the US. Seeing incidental contact on the field with the guy getting hit wriggling on the ground like he's wounded time and again just to draw a penalty is
silly for the US, which sees that is being a pansy. How many NFL players do that?

There is not enough scoring.

So, to make it work: 1. play like a man. 2. get some scoring.

 

[irishScott]

Originally posted by: rikadik

Originally posted by: spunkz
soccer is fun to play or watch at an amateur level. once you get the best of the best on the field, it becomes such a dumb game.

first of all, most of the goals are scored on penalty kicks and random headers from a big clusterfvck near the goal. the entire rest of the game is not only boring, but frustrating, since the only exciting moments are quickly ended by an offside call.

secondly, any time there is the slightest physical contact, both "men" fall on the ground crying. and that's a CRUCIAL part of the game, since it's how you get penalty kicks and also how you get people carded. players have to sell the foul in basketball too, but they don't need to cry and they don't get 100 points for a foul shot.

finally, because of the aforementioned silliness, at the end of the game, you have no clue who the better team was. this is why noone cares about soccer.

You're making some massive generalisations here. Soccer IS a physical sport, and players do NOT usually go down "any time there is the slightest physical contact". If you believe this to be the case, it's probably because you watched this year's World Cup where diving was a big problem and for a lot of the time the referees were totally ineffective in dealing with it. But just because a few slimey scumbags want to bring the game into disrepute it is plainly wrong to describe soccer as you do. If you watched a good match from the Premiership, you would see that soccer is exciting and physical.[/Q[

QFT

The diving in the last world cup was pathetic. I can endure diving if it's done right (would never do it myself though) but there were some extremely obvious ones where a guy got the ball stolen and went down for no reason. IMO it should be on the level of a red-card penalty, but refs will be refs.

spunkz: if you think those headers are random, you have obviously never played higher-level soccer. Other games like football and baseball are like Chess games with some improvisation. There are set plays, set players, and set positions, with a small bit of initiative on the part of the players. Soccer is ALL initiative. Its a Chess Game on the fly, and every split-second matters. There are no set plays (short of simple concepts like the generic "give-and-go")

Also, soccer isn't the most physical game out there, but it does get its share of injuries (I've seen players get CONCUSSIONS from trying to head a high-speed ball). Even so, its more about endurance. I was playing a pick-up game with a football player just a few weeks ago, and about 15 min into it he commented on how he had a whole new respect for soccer players as he couldn't imagine jogging up and down the field for a 1.5 hours.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCHIt's a niche sport to watch.

If by "niche" you mean the most popular sport in the entire world... :roll:

 

[chcarnage]

Soccer is like Starcraft: Easy to learn, hard to master. A member of a team with bad tactics and coordination will have to run until he vomits his lungs out, or the team will encounter series of dangerous situations. I like that the basic strategies are quite visible to a somewhat informed viewer, last world cup there were some very defensive teams like Italy (no comment ) or Ukraine, which in fact had a 9-1-1 distribution... Interesting how the systems clash. On the other end of the scale I've seen a team (don't know which one it was) with a powerful offensive, I swear there were moments you could've put a ruler on your TV screen and all four offensive players were moving uncoveredly in the opponent's half of the field... in line!

It's not that much of a problem for me that relatively few goals happen. It just means that one minute of inattentiveness can shift a balanced game decisively in one direction. In fact, some of the best games I've seen ended 0-0 or 1-0.

This is my opinion about soccer, I can't really compare it with the other sports since they aren't played often at a professional level here. About soccer and the USA... I've read that there are many fans of the other popular team sports who like statistics - but newspaper here normally just report the goals plus yellow and red cards. If you're interested in ball possesion or individual stats you have to look for these online. Maybe US TV stations should insert statistics more frequently in simulcasts (and good commentators would not be amiss either).

 

[IronOxide]

Soccer is awesome. I think it's up and coming in the US for sure. I live in Dallas now, and whenever I go for a long bike ride on the weekends, all I see are fields and fields of kids playing soccer. Honestly, it was one of the first things I saw down here.

Secondly, I sure hope that soccer becomes huge in America. I was in Europe this summer (during the world cup) and it was so awesome seeing how passionate everyone else in the entire world is about one sport. It is so much cooler seeing Ecuador play Spain or something as opposed to seing New York play Chicago. I just think it's really cool to see so many people from so many backgrounds come from all over the world to play one sport and have one winner. No other sport in America will ever touch that. Especially since you can go to most any third world country and you will see kids playing soccer with whatever they can get their hands on. It's billions of peoples dreams to grow up and become the professional soccer player from their country!!

 

[Excelsior]

No....just no.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: JS80Nevertheless, learning curve is not as steep as the big 3.

quit while you are behind moron...

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: JS80
Gad dam you guys aren't getting what I'm saying:
Soccer: a noob can get on the field and you can just start playing. ball here, then kick.
Basketball: a noob getting on a bball court probably won't be able to make a shot, unless he's born with natural "it" talent.
Baseball: a noob probably will not be able to hit the ball in his first tries.
football: [insert here]

any sport takes years of practice to get good. i am just saying any group of people can get on a field and kick the ball around. you cannot do that with other sports.

We aren't getting what you are saying because you are an idiot.

If you take some schlub and put him on the field with a bunch of guys who have been playing their whole lives, he will probably never touch the ball. If he does manage to touch the ball, it will either be instantly taken away from him or he will pounded into the ground and then the ball will be taken from him.

To use your argument in reverse. Any schmoe can strap on some pads and lay a hit on someone, and how hard could it be to put on a glove and stand in centerfield?

Soccer, like any other sport, takes an immense amount of skill to excel at. the fact that you have no understanding or appreciation of that just makes you naive or ignorant. Choose which one you are...

 

[Czar]

it doesnt work in the USA because it doesnt generate enough ad revenue for tv stations compared to football or basketball

 

[ThePresence]

Originally posted by: Czar
it doesnt work in the USA because it doesnt generate enough ad revenue for tv stations compared to football or basketball

Yes, but that is the original question.
A popular sport generates revenue.

 

[FrustratedUser]

Originally posted by: ThePresence

Originally posted by: Czar
it doesnt work in the USA because it doesnt generate enough ad revenue for tv stations compared to football or basketball

Yes, but that is the original question.
A popular sport generates revenue.

The my earlier post about TV and comecials.