How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad (In honor of the World Cup)

First Things ^ | 3/5/2009 | Stephen H. Webb

[antiRepublicrat]

Aussie rules football!

Or, how to make every other sport in the world look wimpy.

[dfwgator]

NFL = Revenues shared among each team equally regardless of won-loss record.

English Premier League = Bottom three teams are relegated to a lower division, and the three-best teams from the league below are promoted.

So which sport is Communist, again?

[dfwgator]

. The rest of the world looks at our power and says "So, you've never even come close to winning the World Cup."

We came very close to making the semis in 2002, when we lost to Germany in the Quarterfinals, and even afterwards the German players said that the US outplayed them, but were just unlucky.

[antiRepublicrat]

George Will said that football promoted the two worst aspects of American life in that it was violence punctuated by committee meetings.

So true! The violence is okay with me, after all I like Aussie rules football. It's the committee meetings that mostly turned me off of football. That, and the mostly one-way play direction. Unless there's an interception things just mainly go one way for a while, then the other way for a while. Soccer is quick back and forth, you never know where the ball will be ten seconds from now.

[dfwgator]

And we’re underway, Mexico vs South Africa, Go South Africa!

[montyspython]

Americans think soccer sucks because they themselves suck at it.

Funny thing about baseball is that for a sport that moves so slow I can’t understand why it requires so much steroid use... go figure.

[Sam's Army]

Torsten Frings handball on the line...no PK called.

[dfwgator]

Yep. We got hosed.

[Grunthor]

“How Soccer is Ruining America”

I don’t know anyone who watches this euro-weenie “sport.” I’ts more boring than watching golf, bowling or hockey.

[Dr. Sivana]

Which is why we, as the most powerful nation in the world, with the best athletes in the world, have never won the biggest and most prestigious sporting event in the world.

It isn't the most prestigious sporting event in the world. 90+% of the world's largest economy is indifferent to it. If the U.S. decided to train/buy players to win the World Cup, we would be dancing to their tune. L.A. doesn't need an NFL team to be a big league city . . . the U.S. doesn't need the World Cup to be a big league country.

What messes with their heads more is that we don't even care about soccer, and won't call it football or futbol or whatever.

[1rudeboy]

Sometimes I like to imagine what MLB would be like if it had relegation rules. Can you imagine the Toledo Mud Hens playing in MLB?

(I know it will never happen, but still . . . .)

[dfwgator]

Or the Pittsburgh Pirates becoming a Single-A club?

[Grunthor]

Watching little kids play soccer is just about as boring as watching paint dry.

[1rudeboy]

It isn't the most prestigious sporting event in the world. 90+% of the world's largest economy is indifferent to it.

When all else fails, just make up a number.

[antiRepublicrat]

We haven’t been to the semifinals since the first World Cup in 1930.

Still, this year is probably the best chance we’ve had in a long time.

[Grunthor]

Americans think soccer sucks because you can waste 3 whole hours watching a bunch of weenies kick a ball around and if you’re lucky, the game ends 1 nil.

How exciting. Not.

[dfwgator]

You could say that about any sport. If the players aren’t very talented, I don’t care what sport it is, it won’t be exciting.

But anyone who watches an ‘El Classico’ between Real Madrid and Barcelona, or a Manchester United-Chelsea match, will know that soccer at the highest levels is not boring.

[dfwgator]

We’ve done well when the WC has not been held in Europe.

[1rudeboy]

Would you prefer watching little kids play . . . ?

Pee-wee hockey is fun to watch, but I can't think of anything else.

[Dr. Sivana]

Funny thing about baseball is that for a sport that moves so slow I can’t understand why it requires so much steroid use... go figure.

I don't know of a kicked soccer ball that travels at more than 90 miles per hour at 90 feet. I don't know of anyone who has cranked a soccer ball 450 feet and out of the park. If you simply want speed, hockey has many of the attributes of soccer, but at a MUCH faster speed, and unmistakeable skills that can be discerned even by the novice.

Why does it bother Europeans so much that grown-up Americans really dislike soccer? I don't particularly care if the French like football or not.