Soccer Critics Are Right, But it’s Time to Zip it and Cheer

Townhall.com ^ | June 27, 2014 | Mark Davis

[Steely Tom]

Google has gone absolutely berserk trying to ram this down our throats for the last - it seems like - month and a half.

Today they’ve stopped, for some reason.

[1rudeboy]

Anyone have a link to the Thiessen column? Is he an economist?

[1rudeboy]

No games today.

[cdcdawg]

Soccer and the metric system. Both communist plots. Obviously.

[pfflier]

I watched programming yesterday in a local store. All the discussion was about the USA team and there was a lot of flag waving with countless fans being interviewed most wrapped in the American flag.

The show was all in spanish...

[dinoparty]

I am by no means a soccer fan. But wouldn’t it be absolutely fantastic if we could over the next decade or so become one of the top soccer nations, and Americanize the sport with cheerleaders, Budweiser commercials, stadium rock, etc. and see the libs cry about how the ugly Americans have taken over this “beautiful sport”?

[cripplecreek]

I just don't have any interest in Soccer. I don't really care about it beyond being confused by this winning while losing things.

I like win or lose games with a mountain of stats and averages.

[AppyPappy]

I made my son play football. It is safer.

[FamiliarFace]

I love soccer, and really enjoy the World Cup, but I don’t care whether or not anyone else cares about it, as long as I am able to watch it.

I also love to watch most other sports. I don’t care if someone doesn’t like those. To each his own.

I say live and let live.

[sphinx]

Conservatives in particular have had a great time savaging soccer— from Ann Coulter, who properly taps the brakes on any sport where girls compete alongside boys

Huh? Girls play soccer alongside boys up to about U-10, and later in some coed rec leagues, but competitive soccer differentiates just as rapidly as do other sports. Boys and girls are different, as even Ann may have noticed. A WNBA team would lose to a good boys high school basketball team, and the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team would lose to a good men's college team. I'm glad women's sports have gotten much more competitive, but they are a different game.

[1rudeboy]

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Well, no, I can't say I have.

[oh8eleven]

The show was all in spanish...
I hate soccer, but will watch some of the World Cup - but only in Spanish (which I don't speak) ... very entertaining.

[1rudeboy]

It's starting already. The European football clubs are instituting salary caps next year, I believe. (An American concept that penalizes rich teams and favors poor ones).

Which is why I'm interested to read why Thiessen thinks soccer is "socialist."

[Sherman Logan]

Soccer: agree.

Metric system: disagree.

As a scientist, why stick with a dysfunctional way of measuring things when an objectively better system is available?

Perhaps stupidest of all is our present (non)system of using “normal” for measuring some things and metric for measuring others.

[Steely Tom]

It’s too bad you couldn’t get a frame that shows Mandrake glancing uncomfortably at Ripper’s hand on his shoulder.

I am something of a Peter Sellers fan, and I think that scene is one his best.

[Kaslin]

I agree with you 100%

[1rudeboy]

Peter Sellers was a treasure.

[Kaslin]

Who is Thiessen and what does he have to do with soccer and this column>

[1rudeboy]

'Bout halfway through:

Conservatives in particular have had a great time savaging soccer— from Ann Coulter, who properly taps the brakes on any sport where girls compete alongside boys, to Marc Thiessen, who crafts a sublime argument that soccer is socialist.