Posted on 01/09/2014 7:21:34 AM PST by C19fan
Soccer is, without a doubt, the world's most popular sport. Football is, without a doubt, America's most popular. Football absolutely dominates in the U.S., but once you leave North America and nobody cares about Brady vs. Manning, or Auburn vs. Alabama. Messi vs. Ronaldo? That's more like it.
The new year dawns, like always, with a zillion college bowl games and the NFL playoffs, and the over-saturation of football has us puzzled as to why its popularity so outstrips soccer's in this country. Football's flaws, some unredeemable, are there for all to see: serious injuries, drawn-out replay reviews to interpret Byzantine rulebooks, and - let's be honest - extremely creepy commercials for Old Spice. What good reason is there to choose all that mess over "The Beautiful Game"?
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearsports.com ...
Is that why fans of the NFL, for example, have such inferiority complexes about it?
Actually modern soccer was invented by the Brits during the 19th century. When they went around conquering the world and building railroads they brought the game with them.
Wow, when I saw the “Real Clear” heading, I thought it would be okay, like “Real Clear Politics”.
NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THE TEN POINTS HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE MECHANICS OF THE GAME ITSELF. And half of the problems are unique to the NFL.
Some of the commentary was self-contradictory. For instance, we are over-saturated with football, but it’s too bad that NFL teams only get to play 16-20 meaningful games a year.
Pretty much every single one of his complaints is solved without having to resort to watching soccer.
The NHL has everything soccer does (continuous action, satisfying play even when goals aren’t scored, fewer injuries than football, rabid fans), plus international players (if that’s your desire) in two countries, 82 games instead of 38, generous playoff provisions where almost anyone with a winning record gets in, plus an extended playoff round to make sure that a bad team doesn’t make the finals based on luck.
Best of all it is all done at three times the speed of soccer and on skates. That is skill. Heck, even Bo Jackson didn’t pretend to be able to play hockey.
We, in the U.S., prefer our professional athletes to be black. /s
Bingo. The 1994 Cup here in the U.S. was settled by a coin flip, more or less. That’s a clear champion? Until soccer takes itself seriously, it has no right expecting the rest of us to.
12. Can be played on third world dung heaps.
Add to that the "everyone gets a trophy" and "no keeping score" garbage and it's easy to see why it's a continued loser. I hate to offend any soccer fans but, to me it just plain looks wimpy no matter how they try to build it up.
It was the newest shiniest thing in the world of sports. Some people were even predicting it would surpass baseball as Japan's number one sport. But somewhere during that short-lived boom, the shine went off and the Japanese got back to baseball.
They were also giving away free soccer match tickets to all the elementary school kids to help fill the seats. It didn't work so well. I took my kids to one match with the free tickets. It was so boring, more than half of those of us who were half filling the stadium left before half-time.
My daughter’s then boyfriend lost an appointment to West Point because of a brain injury playing hs rugby. I see a lot of the kids wearing soft helmets now.
(referring to Rugby vs. football gear) Point taken. But Rugby isn’t soccer. U.S. football’s roots are in rugby. Even those of us who don’t care to play or watch rugby respect the game, and its players.
As the bumper sticker says: “Give Blood. Play Rugby.”
The Brits never learned to speak english either, ban them both!
Because soccer except at the highest levels is for athletically non gifted or cowardly sailboat shirt children. Its the personification of the wimpification of the US and the world in general. Kids in the US who wash out at baseball beyond 8 or are too frightened to play a contact sport like football, lacrosse , or hockey gravitate towards soccer. You can run around and act like you are in an organized sport but you are actually doing nothing but jogging around in a disorganized mess. The sport is just plain boring, just like tennis(which is in tailspin worldwide). Funny you never see an athlete in any US pro sport woof about soccer, hell even David Beckham has to hang around his emaciated wife's friends for that celbutard factor. Only people defending the sport are former wimpy kids who played that pansy sport.
hahaha! i have had this same conversation with soccer moms the last 10 years or so... to them, soccer is so exciting, something always going on... to me, it does not compare with football, not even baseball... they don't get how i can get into a baseball game... sheesh--with every pitch, every swing, every foul ball, every hit, every play, every fly, every out thrown, my son says, "mom--you experience about seven different emotions in 2 seconds of baseball!" and it is the same with football... every snap... every scramble... every sack, every yard gained, every yard lost, every roll out... every tackle, every catch... the clock running down... every kick, punt, penalty, fumble, interception... i cannot get enough! :)
damn - you so totally win the tagline game
BOING!
Case closed!
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