It’s not compulsory to watch football. Failing that, you could always move to Mogadishu where the ruling Muslim (it’s always the Muslims) militia has shut makeshift cinemas that were showing football as being heretic.
[quote]Julius_Caesar wrote:
Soccer will NEVER be popular here, like baseball is. Because it is boring as fuck. I don’t even think that Bush making 20 million illegal immigrant soccer fans legal here will even make it popular here either.
This game is for kids and emasculated soccer mom types. It’s the reason why so many Euro-poofs are such a lot of wimpy looking pencil necks.
Why the fuck it is being jacked off about on a weightlifting webboard is beyond me. At least baseball players lift weights and get big. Soccer players just run and look like pencilnecks.
[/quote]
So can I put you down for a “no” then?
Myself, I am not a big football fan, but then neither am I a follower of most sports, however, with any international event, I will always support my national team, whether I like it or not.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
I know I’ll get flamed by the soccer crowd on here. Go ahead…it’ll certainly be more lively than soccer, ice dancing, and curling, and all such other ‘sports’.
HH[/quote]
The Female USA curling team was very interesting to watch this year.
[quote]malonetd wrote:
I don’t hate soccer, but I don’t like it either. I just don’t enjoy watching it. I’m entertained by a lot of things, but this is not one of them. Hell, I hurried home from work so I could watch the end of the Spelling Bee a couple weeks ago.
I’m sure there are some great athlete’s in soccer, but I can’t believe anyone would call them the greatest athletes in the world. Let’s make a comparison. An athlete running, dribbling a soccer ball, with very good control, kicking it to precisely where he wants it to go. Or a wide receiver in football running full speed, across the middle of the field, catching a bullet of a pass, taking a blind sided hit, and still keeping possession of the ball. It seems to me the wide receiver is showing a wider set of athletic skills and thus a greater athlete.
I find soccer much more boring than baseball to watch. I know many will disagree with me, and yes, baseball has its share of boring games, too. But I see baseball as a duel with every pitch – the pitcher vs. the batter. All it takes is one mistake by either to lose “the duel.”
Additionally, soccer has the low-scoring factor. Baseball can be low-scoring too, but has the potential for for a four-point swing in a grand slam. What is the soccer equivalent?
I don’t hate soccer, but it doesn’t interest me. I know everybody has their preferences, and I would prefer to watch chess over soccer. And I mean that seriously.
Speaking of chess, I think a lot of people dislike football for a lack of understanding. It is slow paced, because it as a chess game. Each play has to serve a purpose, whether it is to advance the ball, set up a future play, or read the defense and look for weaknesses. It’s like chess in that each play is like a move. It really is a complicated game all about strategy. In fact, I would argue that it uses more strategy that any other sport, i.e. the coach makes the most difference in the game.
I look forward to some educated and intelligent responses and I think this thread has the potential to help people understand different sports. I hope we can steer away from comments like “football sucks” or “soccer is for sissies.”
Oh, one last thing about the perception of soccer in America. Doogie made a comment about soccer being for kids under. That’s a common perception because it’s really such a simple game. Yes I know it can get much more complicated, but at its roots it’s simple. Kick the ball into the goal. Try explaining football or baseball to a 9-year-old in one sentence.
I used to coach youth football and I refused to coach anyone below 10 years old. Kids that young are just too dumb too comprehend football at that age.[/quote]
Good post.
[quote]supermick wrote:
So from this we can take it that all sports that dont require masses of muscle are populated by pencilnecks?[/quote]
Soccer players are pencilnecks. Are you really going to tell me otherwise?
Who gives a fuck if our sports are “global”? Just because Osama Bin Laden keeps a soccer ball next to his dishrag, should I give a shit?
Us Yanks kicked the shit out of you limies 300 years ago and we don’t need your bullshit pencilneck sports anyway.
[quote]doogie wrote:
hotsauce wrote:
doogie wrote:
silencer wrote:
do any american soccer haters plan to watch their team play today just to give it a shot and support your country?
who knows, you might (gasp) be entertained.
I’m trying my hardest to watch it right now. It’s pretty painful.
Of course it is painful for you to watch! Your team sucks!!!
How can you tell? They only got beat by 3 points after 90 minutes of running around. 3 points is pretty close, right?
[/quote]
It is only a field goal. You think with all the great kickers they have they could have kicked a field goal to tie it up.
[quote]alstan90 wrote:
… Also, the U.S army, while significant in number is well known to be the worst trained in the developed world. …[/quote]
Stupidest post yet.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
alstan90 wrote:
… Also, the U.S army, while significant in number is well known to be the worst trained in the developed world. …
Stupidest post yet.[/quote]
That must be some good crack he’s on.
“Soccer players are pencilnecks. Are you really going to tell me otherwise?”
But who cares?! If you can’t enjoy a sport because the men playing it aren’t 250 lbs then there just has to be something wrong with you. Soccer players are still more “buff” than the average man and extremely well trained.
I don’t get what you’re all trying to prove here. Are you somehow saying that all the people who watch soccer (once again, it is the most popular sport in the world) aren’t really enjoying it? That they’re just misguided or retarded? That you are right and billions of people are wrong? I don’t get it. But since someone actually made a thread about it and then that several people had multiple posts in it about… something (as I said I don’t get what you’re trying to say) it must be satisfactory in some way. So, good luck, hope you enjoy it.
[quote]Julius_Caesar wrote:
Who gives a fuck if our sports are “global”? Just because Osama Bin Laden keeps a soccer ball next to his dishrag, should I give a shit?
Us Yanks kicked the shit out of you limies 300 years ago and we don’t need your bullshit pencilneck sports anyway.
[/quote]
I take it that you work in the field of international diplomacy, or perhaps conflict resolution?
I like donuts!
[quote]OKLAHOMA STATE wrote:
Soccer not a sport? You’re a friggin moron.
Soccer beats the hell out of baseball any day of the week.[/quote]
Do baseball players even break a sweat througout nine innings? Seriously, there is ABSOLUTELY no way you can even start to compare the conditioning of soccer players to baseball players. In fact, soccer players cover as much as 6 to 7 miles over the course of 90 minutes. Baseball players? Hmmm homerun, that’s 360 feet around the bases.Your right on this one, soccer wins hand down.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
alstan90 wrote:
… Also, the U.S army, while significant in number is well known to be the worst trained in the developed world. …
Stupidest post yet.[/quote]
This post was made by the man who thinks cricket is the best game in the world, enough said.
I was speaking to an army friend of mine the other day who pointed out that the military in the UK is so depleted that it doesn’t even qualify as an army any more, rather a “defence force”, so can you limit your ignorant jingoistic comments on this US message board you plonker.
[quote]IL Cazzo wrote:
Soooo most of you jumped on the douche for hating soccer,…yet you then bash american football? Smart. [/quote]
Yep, American football is a joke. 350 pound slabs of beef that would probably have a coronary just running up a flight of stairs.
This has always been my thoughts on American sports and their attitudes to sports they suck at:
If you can’t beat them, ridicule their sport to make yourselves feel better. If that fails, turn their sport into such an abomination that only a handful of other countries will ever bother to play it.
But despite that, I still enjoy american football, if I am gonna waste 4 hours of my life, might as well watch 250 pounds juggernauts crash into each other.
Soccer still has the most skilled athletes.
[quote]JACKED71 wrote:
Yep, American football is a joke. 350 pound slabs of beef that would probably have a coronary just running up a flight of stairs.[/quote]
Yep, soccer is a joke. 150 pound marathon runners that would probably get crushed by 135 pounds.
Yep, Baseball is a joke. Bunch of roided up freaks that can fail 70% of the time they are at the plate and still be considered great.
Yep, the spelling bee is a joke. Bunch of pencil neck, etymology nerds who wouldn’t know a differential equation if it hit them in the face.
It’s stupid and ignorant to sit here and belittle sports and the people that play them. Each sport requires different skill sets. So what if a soccer player couldn’t make it in the NFL, or an NFL lineman wouldn’t last 5 minutes on a soccer pitch. They’re good at their chosen sport.
Your not going to sit and tell me just because a soccer player can run around all day that he is a better athlete than a football player. I don’t even think I would say he’s better conditioned. He’s better conditioned for soccer, but that’s about it. I just think there are many more sports that require a wider range of athletic skills than soccer.
Americans don’t like soccer and the rest of the world doesn’t like American football. Get over it. I prefer football. I prefer the strategy, the start-stop flow, the clock management, the individual feats. I just don’t get off on watching a bunch of running and kicking for 90 minutes straight, but if you do, then enjoy. It’s ok, I don’t expect to turn anyone onto football here.
[quote]Ren wrote:
Soccer still has the most skilled athletes.[/quote]
How so? Other than kicking and foot control, what skills do they have? I think you could almost argue that they are some of the least skilled athletes.
[quote]superscience wrote:
American’s think Football is for Pussy’s ? Think again…hardest sport in the world.
soccer if far from the hardest sport in the world, its easy to play and easy to become good at. its not at a very high standard either the average vo2 max of a pro soccer player is 50 which is shit. [/quote]
V02 max compared to what? Elite cyclists? Sprinters? Soccer is easy to play and become good at…think about that statement for a moment. One final note, have you ever seen an out of shape soccer player sporting a gut? Can’t say the same for football and baseball players, or even ( gasp!) pro bodybuilders.
[quote]JACKED71 wrote:
One final note, have you ever seen an out of shape soccer player sporting a gut? Can’t say the same for football and baseball players, or even ( gasp!) pro bodybuilders.
[/quote]
A gut means nothing more than body fat. Is that what you base being in shape or out of shape on? Body fat levels?
[quote]malonetd wrote:
Ren wrote:
Soccer still has the most skilled athletes.
How so? Other than kicking and foot control, what skills do they have? I think you could almost argue that they are some of the least skilled athletes.[/quote]
We are defiantly on the same page here, and your last post hit the nail on the head, but saying that soccer players don’t have any skills is like saying PGA golfers don’t have skills because all they do is hit a little ball around with a stick. To play soccer at the level these guys are playing requires a tremendous amount of skill, just like it requires a tremendous amount of skill to pitch a baseball well, hit a home run, or run a timing route right and catch one over the middle.
I will argue that athletes competing in the elite levels of ANY sport posses very high skill levels.