This thread. Seriously. I love both Football and Handegg.
You have to see the value in the build up. A 0-0 tie can be won by either team at any point for 90 minutes. In comparison, once a basketball team gets up by 12 points or so you may as well turn it off. Football the threshold is 15 points. You may think a soccer game is over at 2-0, but this is known as the most dangerous score mentally for the winning team.
A 0-0 game with lots of shots is fantastic, even if it is a little disheartening to not get a win. The US-Algeria match was a 93 minute heart attack and for 91 minutes it was nil all.
[quote]Kerley wrote:
did anyone else know soccer is the most watched sport in america.[/quote]
This ‘watched’ likely includes all the moms watching their kids playing soccer all over America.
I think where much of the ‘hate’ comes from is we ( in N. America) all know someone who talks about soccer every 4 years and won’t shut up and uses the fact that much of the world enjoys the sport as proof that it’s the best sport.
It’s juvenile to talk about which is best (as opposed to which one is your favorite) and the fact that most of the world enjoys it doesn’t really mean anything.
What if the whole world started believing in The Flying Spaghetti Monster tomorrow?
[quote]Nards wrote:
[quote]Kerley wrote:
did anyone else know soccer is the most watched sport in america.[/quote]
This ‘watched’ likely includes all the moms watching their kids playing soccer all over America.
[/quote]
If there was really a market for ‘watching’ professional (or any soccer) in North America, there would be no shortage of TV coverage. Think: Monday Night Football, Sunday Football (on several network channels all day), Saturday Baseball coverage. Canada has “Hockey Night in Canada”. Hell, they even have pretty good Curling coverage. Soccer? Gotta really hunt that down.
ESPN has been making some progress by shoving it down the viewers’ throats, but guess what? They’re happy with 90k-300k viewers (slightly more than Keith Olberman-- big socccer fan):
http://www.epltalk.com/espn-reveals-tv-ratings-for-epl-debut-of-chelsea-v-hull-city/10210
versus Sunday Football, which is spread over several channels and still enjoys several million viewers per channel consistently every week.
“Soccer = Most watched” argument is (very) weak when you start looking at real market share versus heresay.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
If there was really a market for ‘watching’ professional (or any soccer) in North America, there would be no shortage of TV coverage. Think: Monday Night Football, Sunday Football (on several network channels all day), Saturday Baseball coverage. Canada has “Hockey Night in Canada”. Hell, they even have pretty good Curling coverage. Soccer? Gotta really hunt that down.
ESPN has been making some progress by shoving it down the viewers’ throats, but guess what? They’re happy with 90k-300k viewers (slightly more than Keith Olberman-- big socccer fan):
http://www.epltalk.com/espn-reveals-tv-ratings-for-epl-debut-of-chelsea-v-hull-city/10210
versus Sunday Football, which is spread over several channels and still enjoys several million viewers per channel consistently every week.
“Soccer = Most watched” argument is (very) weak when you start looking at real market share versus heresay.
[/quote]
I agree with you that soccer is not the most watched sport in this country and it’s hard to figure out where that guy got that idea. But, for those who do like to watch it, you don’t have to hunt it down very much. A minor upgrade to most basic cable package gets you Fox Soccer Channel and Gol TV. With those channels you can watch the top leagues in England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Argentina…etc… The length of the season (August-May) along with international tournaments in the summer means that it’s actually easier to watch top level soccer almost year round than any other sport. ESPN televised English Premier games and Spanish La Liga games weekly this year as well.
This whole thread is about nothing anyway as there’s nothing to “get”. Either you like watching soccer or you don’t. I like it so I watch it along with football, basketball, and hockey. Throw in some motocross (outdoor, not supercross please) and the Olympics every couple of years and I’m pretty entertained. I don’t like watching golf or baseball though but I also haven’t spent one minute thinking about why I don’t “get” it. Again, there’s nothing to “get”. They’re fine sports that I don’t like to watch.
As others have said some of the dislike for soccer in this country sometimes come from a friend or acquaintance telling someone else that they don’t understand the nuances or the strategy of the game. Bullshit. Soccer is a very simple sport: move off the ball to get open and/or pull the defenders away from where you want them to be. When you’re on the ball pass it forward when possible to the open man. On defense, be compact as a team and hard to break down. It’s really going to be the same basic strategy as any team sport, basketball, Lacrosse, hockey, even football on a fundamental level with different technical skill sets involved.
[quote]thefederalist wrote:
[quote]Alpha F wrote:
Maybe if they got rid of those gay tights more men around the world would want to play it.
I can’t see one male from Latin American wanting to be caught wearing leggings.
[/quote]
caught you. please don’t compare the rampant faggotry of soccer to american…borderline homoeroticism. [/quote]
Cristiano is Portugese, if that matters.
But yes, soccer can get a little ghey. Not that I mind (hi-o!).
We could do that! How to fix other sports!:
Basketball: Raise the nets! WTF kind of score goes over 100?!?!
Hockey: Stop fighting all the fucking time! I’ll watch UFC after the game!
Baseball: (Cannot be helped)
Football: Have some sort of girl in a bikini before each game explain the downs thing and yards stuff.
Cricket: Games cannot last longer than one day.
Tennis: Obstacles!
[quote]Sharp4850 wrote:
[quote]Marzouk wrote:
This thread makes me laugh. Football is exciting game if anyone has bothered watching it, I guess most Americans don’t like it because the game doesn’t stop for long enough to go and get a pizza, a hot dog, some nuts, a burger another pizza and whatever shit can be bought it at a stadium. American sports are so long and boring that people just go to eat I guess, hence the 66% obesity rate.
They should make American Football players play a season of Rugby then find actually know what it’s what its like to play a man’s sport. [/quote]
- Check your statistics. 66%? Where did you get that number from?
- We’re not talking about rugby here.[/quote]
Sorry i mean 66% overweight and 31% obese. But even that is still pretty fat.
Nards i totally agree, but you forgot golf.
Maybe set the ball on fire and on the 4th hit it explodes and covers the guy in tar, then a girl in a bikini pours a bucket of feathers over the guy.
Who ever the mystery girl is, Tiger would of probably tapped that ass as well.
[quote]Sharp4850 wrote:
[quote]Marzouk wrote:
This thread makes me laugh. Football is exciting game if anyone has bothered watching it, I guess most Americans don’t like it because the game doesn’t stop for long enough to go and get a pizza, a hot dog, some nuts, a burger another pizza and whatever shit can be bought it at a stadium. American sports are so long and boring that people just go to eat I guess, hence the 66% obesity rate.
They should make American Football players play a season of Rugby then find actually know what it’s what its like to play a man’s sport. [/quote]
- Check your statistics. 66%? Where did you get that number from?
- We’re not talking about rugby here.[/quote]
I think Rugby does have some relevance here. Football(soccer) is the granddaddy of Football (Handegg), the link between the two= Rugby (the superior sport to both IMHO) Rugby came from soccer (by some variation on the William Webb Ellis fairytale) and then in America, supposedly Teddy Roosevelt before he was president went to his son’s rugby match, thought it was too rough and demanded the rules be changed, which led to more of the stop and go of Handegg as we know it today.
Either way it’s the culture you’re raised in, I played Soccer as a fall sport until I was old enough to play American Football, and after I got out of college and done playing American Football I picked up Rugby, and was fortunate enough to play with a club that had a great rugby culture that helped me appreciate it with a greater understanding than just it being “Football without pads”
I have a level of respect for soccer, a good match when you have something invested into it is great to watch, but if I don’t have a dog in the fight then I’d rather watch paint dry, whereas American Football and Rugby I could watch anytime, regardless of who is playing.
As far as strategy goes, American Football is far and away superior to nearly every other sport, a weeks worth of planning goes into each game specificly geared toward the opponent for the week. Both soccer and rugby are slightly more unpredictable as far as team/coaching tendencies.
Let’s face it-- it’s fun just observing soccer fans get butt-hurt when you say how [insert insult here] soccer is.
It’s funny when folks say “American football sucks” to football fans. Football fans just say “Who gives a fuck what you think?”… LOL.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Let’s face it-- it’s fun just observing soccer fans get butt-hurt when you say how [insert insult here] soccer is.
It’s funny when folks say “American football sucks” to football fans. Football fans just say “Who gives a fuck what you think?”… LOL.[/quote]
This whole thread is basicly a sissy fight between butt-hurt football and handegg fans. I have yet to see one of these handegg fans say “who gives a fuck what you think”…
Football is too fucking boring. Hand-egg stops too often. The best solution? Watch porn.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
It’s funny when folks say “American football sucks” to football fans. Football fans just say “Who gives a fuck what you think?”… LOL.[/quote]
Not true at all, actually. And I say this as a guy who likes football and only watches soccer during the World Cup.
[quote]Nards wrote:
Football: Have some sort of girl in a bikini before each game explain the downs thing and yards stuff.
[/quote]
I’m surprised Fox hasn’t done this already.
[quote]Sick Rick wrote:
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
Let’s face it-- it’s fun just observing soccer fans get butt-hurt when you say how [insert insult here] soccer is.
It’s funny when folks say “American football sucks” to football fans. Football fans just say “Who gives a fuck what you think?”… LOL.[/quote]
This whole thread is basicly a sissy fight between butt-hurt football and handegg fans. I have yet to see one of these handegg fans say “who gives a fuck what you think”…
Football is too fucking boring. Hand-egg stops too often. The best solution? Watch porn.[/quote]
Who gives a fuck what you think?
[quote]Totenkopf wrote:
This thread. Seriously. I love both Football and Handegg.[/quote]
Me too.
If you think soccer is gay then that’s your opinion. As gay as it might be it is still the most popular sport in the world and that’s FACT.
But that doesn’t really mean anything.
There are people beating their kids all over the world, doesn’t make it right.
There are people cheating on their spouses all over the world, doesn’t make it right.
There are people pissing on public toilet seats all over the world, doesn’t make it right.
Popularity doesn’t mean anything. Trust me, I learned that in high school. As in I didn’t have any.
[quote]ADvanced TS wrote:
[quote]krsoneeeee wrote:
the fact that you guys like NFL gives you no right to comment on other sports. jesus its a slow game, lets get 10 thousand players and dress them in fucking armour and play for 3 hours, terrible.
[/quote]
spoken like every girl i’ve ever met who didn’t understand the rules.[/quote]
You’ve just inadvertently proven the point of a couple people previous to our posts. but it doesn’t take a away from the fact NFL is a slow, stop start, pussy sport, i mean sure there’s big hits…but they have layers of protection MAN UP… IE my sport, rugby league(NRL not rugby union), arguably the toughest sport on the planet…
each to their own tho no need for you to call me a girl for playing a tougher sport than you ayyyy
[quote]milktruck wrote:
You have to see the value in the build up. A 0-0 tie can be won by either team at any point for 90 minutes. In comparison, once a basketball team gets up by 12 points or so you may as well turn it off. Football the threshold is 15 points. You may think a soccer game is over at 2-0, but this is known as the most dangerous score mentally for the winning team.
A 0-0 game with lots of shots is fantastic, even if it is a little disheartening to not get a win. The US-Algeria match was a 93 minute heart attack and for 91 minutes it was nil all.
[/quote]
Even though I don’t like McGrady, I’m posting this to blow your “once a basketball team gets up by 12 points or so you may as well turn it off” comment off the page. This is why basketball is the most exciting sport in the world, 'cause one dude can get hot and shut down an entire team. Have fun with your soccer ladies.