Posted on 07/11/2014 6:44:37 AM PDT by Objective Scrutator
I’ve always been a big sports fan, which explains why I have absolutely no interest in soccer. The fact is, I’d rather watch my accountant get his toenails clipped than take in a soccer game — and that includes the World Cup final, which I’m sure will be as scintillating as any other soccer game.
In soccer, they spend hours frantically trying to score. That’s not sport. That’s a young guy trying to convince his date that he likes her for her personality. If you could bottle soccer, you’d have a cure for insomnia.
But it’s not just because it’s so dull that I don’t like soccer. Another reason I don’t like it is because of the Americans who do like it. Most of these sports fans — a term I use with no regard for either word, “sports” or “fans” — wouldn’t know a fumble from a first down, a hit-and-run from a double play. But every four years they show up at bars and go wild when the American team ties the Tunisians zero-zero, or nil-nil, as they call it.
I’m not much of a fan of Ann Coulter either (though she’s infinitely more interesting than soccer), but she’s right when she says that soccer is “excruciatingly boring” and that “the reason there are so many fights among spectators at soccer games is to compensate for the tedium.”
Which brings us to how, for many Americans — almost always liberal elite Americans — soccer isn’t really about soccer so much as it’s about proving the superiority of the young over the old, of liberals over conservatives.
Take Peter Beinart, a liberal journalist and professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York. Mr. Beinart was with Fareed Zakaria on CNN the other day and had a lot to say about how soccer just might save America — from its narrow-minded, insular self.
Soccer fans in America, he said, show us that “we have a less nativist sports culture and we’re more open — at least some groups in the United States — young people, immigrants, political liberals — are more open to liking the same kinds of things that people in other countries do. Things don’t have to be ours and ours alone.”
Part of the attraction of soccer, Mr. Zakaria says, is that we’re sharing the sport with the rest of the world; we’re following something the rest of the world is following. Yes, Professor Beinart says, but it’s much more than that. Younger Americans, who like soccer more than older Americans, “are far less likely than older Americans to say that American culture is superior or to say that America is the greatest country in the world.”
In case you were wondering, this is a good thing to Mr. Beinart, and I suspect many other liberals. Because “it reflects a more cosmopolitan temperament, more of a recognition that America has things to learn from the rest of the world, and that in fact maybe we have to learn from the rest of the world if we’re going to remain a successful country.”
After taking that in, Mr. Zakaria observes that soccer fans in the United States look a lot like the Obama coalition. To which Beinart replied: “That’s exactly right, and if you look at the states where soccer is most popular, they’re overwhelmingly blue states and the states where soccer is least popular are red states.”
You see: Soccer is much more than a game that puts people like me to sleep. It’s a bunch of guys running up and down a “pitch” in short pants teaching us an important lesson — a lesson about how the tide is turning, about how the same people who embrace soccer embrace the idea that despite all the talk from those old right-wingers, America isn’t so special after all. Or as Peter Beinart explains it: “Younger people are far more likely than older people to say they like the United Nations. There’s a willingness to accept the idea that America is one of many nations. Yes, we have a special affinity for it. But it doesn’t mean in some objective sense [that] us, and everything we do are necessarily better.”
So there you have it. He grants us that as Americans we might have “a special affinity” for our homeland, but thanks to soccer we can learn a lot from the rest of the world. We can learn that we’re not as great as we think we are — or, more precisely, that we’re not as great as old, conservative, red-state Americans think we are.
Turns out that soccer is teaching me a lot more about elite, liberal intellectuals than it’ll ever teach me about the rest of the world. In fact, soccer has already taught me that smug, liberal elites are the single biggest reason I have no use for soccer, and that Ann Coulter isn’t crazy when she says, “Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation’s moral decay.”
— Bernard Goldberg is a news and media analyst for Fox News and the author of Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. His website is BernardGoldberg.com.
Have you ever attended an international game with the US playing? I have and there are plenty of flags and patriotism. Besides the USA chants, there are people dressed up as patriots like Teddy Roosevelt for example. Ever hear of the American Outlaws?
” Close to 800 million will watch the final on Sunday (compared to the 110 million who watch the Superbowl).”
actually if you count my husband, my daughter/son-in-law, and I the number watching Sunday’s match will be 800,000,004. If someone doesn’t like soccer (REAL football), then fine. Don’t watch, but don’t be so idiotic as to put down a great sport that many Americans who are not liberal truly enjoy. Personally American football is so boring I would rather watch bark grow on a tree, but I certainly won’t put down those who love it.
But why bother even expressing an opinion about a sport you don’t like? Nobody’s forcing them to even pay attention to soccer.
And I think calling someone a liberal or an America-hater because they enjoy soccer is a bit more than just expressing one’s opinion.
Where else can you get 15 minutes of action during a 3 hour broadcast?
Michelle Obama?
But with the exception of golf, the point is to score. And to score more runs/goals/baskets/points than your opponent. So where is soccer any different from that?
Or maybe soccer lovers here are just a little sensitive because most of what Goldberg asserts in his article about the sport and the left is true.
“Where else can you get 15 minutes of action during a 3 hour broadcast? “
Exactly my point. But in all honesty when my son was in high school we went to all the football games. Now THOSE were good because the action kept going and those youngsters played hard. Not standing around so much as the pros do. It was great rooting for the kids you know in my small town.
Is it ok for me to continue cross-country skiing? Cross-country skiing is a tool of the Left. I mean, the Scandinavians are best at it.
Baseball must not be a sport then since I've been to a lot of games where the number of runs scored doesn't differ much from the numbers of points scored in a soccer game. If a soccer game was scoreless after regulation time then Goldberg would call that boring. If a baseball game is tied at zero after 9 innings Goldberg would call that a 'pitchers duel'.
I see no difference between Goldberg's comments and Zakaria's and Beinart's. All of them are trying to politicize it. It is nonsense. The attraction of the game has nothing to do with one's politics any more than it does for football, basketball, hockey, tennis, etc. They are all full of it and I don't have to buy it.
AGAIN, you can like or not like soccer, but it is important to recognize that the left loves it, and it’s good to know WHY they love it.
The Left may love strawberry ice cream. So I should stop eating it because the Left loves it? This is all so silly. We are reacting to a handful of pundits who don't know sh*t from shinola.
The left has always and will always seek to rule the culture. It is VITAL to them to destroy the culture. Dumb-ass Americans who did not recognize or care about their cultural take over of movies, tv, education, literature, etc., helped America into her grave.
If we allow the Left to "rule the culture," then whose fault is that?
Don’t change the subject. Find where I said, “can’t cheer for the US National Team every four years because the Left hates America?”
I think the structure of the tournament play turns a lot of Americans off. Here’s how we fared this year...makes no sense to me:
Game 1: We beat Ghana 2 to 1
Game 2: We tied Portugal 2 to 2
Game 3: We lost to Germany. Now this is where it gets screwy. Portugal won their 3rd game, beating Ghana 2 to 1, just like the US had. But Portugal went home, and the US progressed. Why? Because Portugal had also lost to the Germans...and had scored fewer goals up to that point than the US had. So, even though the US lost, apparently Portugal would have had to beat Ghana 6 to 1? to progress. It just sets up a screwy situation - the US lost, but all the nouveau soccer fans are celebrating anyway....they progressed! because Germany beat up on Portugal more than the US. And frankly, after seeing Germany beat up so hard on Brazil, I suspect Germany was sandbagging it with the US...under this screwed up system, that ploy could get your better competition eliminated early, which may have been their intent.
Game 4: US lost to Belgium 2 to 1.
So all the US world cup fever, complete with celebrities cheering the team on with Twitter posts etc, was because the US won ONE game. That’s it. The team won ONCE, but advanced to the fourth round.
Sorry, but I can’t get excited over watching a tournament with that structure.
“Or maybe soccer lovers here are just a little sensitive because most of what Goldberg asserts in his article about the sport and the left is true.”
No, it’s because Goldberg is incredibly ignorant. Maybe you should also suggest we conservatives are “just a little sensitive” about what Obama asserts because what he says is true? Nope.....I bet not.
Don't get me wrong - I love football & really don't follow soccer.
I just find it ridiculous when people (such as football fans & columnists attempting to get more clicks on their articles) bad mouth soccer for being unexciting or some sort of leftist plot to rule the universe.
I am an avid fan of both. It is not an either/or choice for me. I will be watching at a local soccer pub. The atmosphere is electric. Great fun.
I asked you who was behind it. It’s a bad thing, so I blame the left. Who do you blame?
Who said you “should stop” liking soccer? Just be aware of why your enemy loves it.
Yes, we are in agreement—it is the sub-human filth that is the average American who let the left kill this country. Part of the flaws of that sub-human filth is the inability to recognize what the left was up to.
Yes, I’d say you guys are a little too sensitive about this subject.
Strawberry ice cream is a tool of the Left because the Left hates America. Real Conservatives only eat vanilla ice cream. No sprinkles.
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