Posted on 06/27/2014 7:10:30 PM PDT by 1rudeboy
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — In late March, just before Jurgen Klinsmann, the coach of the United States national men’s soccer team, went into the meeting in which he demoted Martin Vasquez, his longtime assistant, he asked a staff member with U.S. Soccer to knock on the door and interrupt after about five minutes.
Klinsmann wanted the meeting to be as friendly as possible; after all, the two men first worked together in 2008. Yet Klinsmann never wants to linger over a decision either, and this move — reassigning a top deputy just three months before the World Cup — was no exception. Klinsmann was kind with Vasquez, but after a short conversation, Vasquez was gone.
Decisions like that, and the calculating, surgical way in which Klinsmann has executed them, are the back story to the United States’ captivating run at the World Cup. Despite being roundly picked to crash out in the tournament’s first round, Klinsmann steered the Americans to a win, a tie and a narrow loss against stout competition: Ghana, Portugal and Germany. That was enough for the Americans to escape one of the most difficult groups in the tournament and advance to the knockout rounds in consecutive World Cups for the first time. They will play Belgium in the Round of 16 in Salvador, Brazil, on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I had the soccer game on an outdoor TV. As I watched, my eyes were strangely drawn to my lawn. Watching my grass grow became oddly more compelling than what was happening on TV. But don’t let me stop you from liking it.
Then baseball is for you!
But. Is there anything that could stop you from making such an ignorant , gratuitous remark? Let us know.
Nope.
Most Americans simply do not understand the complexity of soccer, the incredible level of skills required.
Just as most Americans no longer understand and appreciate the thinking man’s sport - baseball. In years past, when baseball was the American pasttime, Americans were educated thinkers.
Today most Americans are not thinkers, but feelers.
And like immature teenagers who want constant thrills and action, we are spoiled by the hundreds of thrills provided in a football game - so we cannot stand a sport where a score is so difficult that only a few happen in one match. It’s contrary to everything in our degraded culture. Soccer has maybe 10 or 15 very short exciting moments in 90 minutes of play. A football game has hundreds in 60 minutes.
I could go on, but perhaps this is sufficient to induce many flames -
So be it.........
I came to appreciate soccer only after seeing my sons learn the game and spending a lot of time in Latin and South America and actually playing the sport some with those who learned it soon after learning to walk........I have come to learn to love it......
My brother is a cricket fan. CRICKET. He will drone on endlessly about how Jamaica is vastly superior to Sri Lanka in the upcoming world cup. He loves it, I could care less. But I like golf, and followed the recent world chess championship live on the Internet. To each his own. I do not apologize for my interests, and (my mocking of soccer notwithstanding) I have no quarrel with what you chose to follow. I just don’t appreciate having soccer being shoved down my throat. I will not watch it, nor will I care, but if you like it, more power to you.
It seems you feel it’s appropriate to inform us about your brother and yours interest. How generous, isn’t it?
In the meantime, NO ONE shoves anything down your throat. Don’t like soccer - don’t effing watch it!
These soccer guys is touchy, ain’t they?
Baseball is the abslute best but I’ve enjoyed the World Cup so far———my sons have filled me in when I had rule and procedure questions.
I follow USA and Brazil.
.
Agree, especially with last sentence. Different strokes for different folks.
We are spoiled here with so many choices in sports - the variety is almost as great as we are as people.
Soccer will never be here what it is to the rest of the world: the dominant sport by far - for that very reason. In most of the world, it’s all they have. Nothing wrong with that there - or here. And why we will probably never attain the level other nations do. That’s ok.
I just don’t like to see soccer dissed for reasons that are mostly out of ignorance - any more than I like seeing American football being dissed for its “violence”......which is very real............
Here is what nags at me about soccer. Well, one of the things. I feel like it is THE NWO approved sport. I am continuously seeing images of a kid or two kicking around a soccer ball in dilapidated third world conditions. Shanty huts, poverty, etc.
I can't help but feel it is going to be the state approved sport for our new Hunger Games world the elites are engineering.
Excellent point, and right on.
I was trying to purely deal with the game itself and our culture.......
One other point about soccer: football, futbol, etc. in the rest of the world.
It may be the most simple of all sports with a foundation of the most simple and difficult thing: you cannot touch the ball with your hands. Totally contrary to nature and life. Our hands are the “doer’s” of our body, and no other part comes close. Our hands express who we are in every way.
Take them out of the game, and everything becomes 100 times more difficult. There is something beautiful in the simplicity of that.
And it’s about the only physical sport that you only really need one thing for: a ball.
I don’t want to spiritualize it, but there is something profound in those two elements. One is the core of so many sports: a ball. The other is the opposite: no hands.
Think about it.
BTW - my favorite sport is.........baseball. I don’t think any other sport requires more brainwork, and mixing it with an instant reaction.....
No quarrel from me. Like what you like. I count that as a good thing. But it is hilarious that you find watching your grass grow more compelling than watching soccer in one breath, and then in the next breath profess to liking golf.
How, exactly, is soccer being shoved down your throat? I think TVs are almost all equipped with multiple channels and off switches.
Find a copy of "Soccer Against the Enemy" and read it. You'll feel differently. Actually, there is no more tribalistic, nationalistic sport than soccer.
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