OT World Cup Thread

[Nukem2]

Take away field goals - is there any more useless play in football - and you're left with about the same number of scores between a typical contest in football and soccer. You just have more points awarded in football. But there are many, many more scoring opportunities in a typical soccer contest.

VS

Hockey is a lot more exciting than soccer, especially if one is sitting close to a net. Both are boring. NFL $$$ are much greater in the US.

[Alan Bykowski, "brewcity77"]

OTOH, watching people run around for a couple hours achieving virtually nothing is rather like watching grass grow.

Fallacies like that are why people like Ann Coulter are employed and the sport is so misunderstood in this country. No offense taken, but it's simply untrue. The thing with soccer, if you walk away you actually miss something. Watching NFL, you can walk away for 5 minutes and come back and literally nothing will have happened. A few replays, maybe a measurement, and a commercial break. That's why I can't watch it, because there's really so little to watch.

I agree that Hockey is fantastic. Love the sport. For me, soccer and basketball are 1 and 1a, then hockey, then pretty much everything else. Baseball and American football are really tough for me to actually invest myself in. Just so slow paced.

[Nukem2]

Fallacies like that are why people like Ann Coulter are employed and the sport is so misunderstood in this country. No offense taken, but it's simply untrue. The thing with soccer, if you walk away you actually miss something. Watching NFL, you can walk away for 5 minutes and come back and literally nothing will have happened. A few replays, maybe a measurement, and a commercial break. That's why I can't watch it, because there's really so little to watch.

I agree that Hockey is fantastic. Love the sport. For me, soccer and basketball are 1 and 1a, then hockey, then pretty much everything else. Baseball and American football are really tough for me to actually invest myself in. Just so slow paced.

To each his own. Let's talk basketball here.

[unclejohn]

Anne Coulter is an idiot who makes lots of money saying outrageous things. To suggest that a particular sport is contributing to the "moral decline" of the country is ridiculous. Even if one were to accept that, a much better claim could be made for football, which has been shown to cause lasting disabilities to the people who play it. The fact that soccer is gaining in popularity in part because of the increase in immigrants from the countries that play it is true, but most people would think that a good thing. She may have a point that fewer people whose great-grandparents were born in this country like the game, But that would exclude most of the population. How many people have eight great-grandparents who are native born? (Ironically, a large number of the people who do are African Americans. She's right. They tend to like basketball.)

It comes down to a matter of taste. The main reason soccer has not caught on in this country to the extent it has in the rest of the world is that other sports became established first. Add to that the fact that it has often been popular in other countries because it is cheap and easy to play. You do not need lots of equipment or uniforms, the rules are pretty simple, and kids can play it for endless hours. In this country, that role was filled by basketball, but even in that sport, it is just about impossible to play without a regulation hoop and ball.

Personally, the reason I am an every-four-year fan is that the game has not caught on in this country yet, and I did not grow up cheering for one team or another, and I am not interested enough to follow a league in a foreign country. But I find the tournament fascinating and the games enjoyable. Like any other sport, you can enjoy it more when you figure out what is going on. I skip over the posts here suggesting strategies and line-ups. Frankly, I do not know enough to understand them. But the games have been great and very exciting. It is really fun sitting in a big crowd of people and cheering together on every play. As for the lack of scoring, that again is a matter of taste. I am a big baseball fan. I love the game, its history, its rhythms, its strategy. It is fun to watch a game with lots of scoring, but the most exciting game I ever saw was the seventh game of the 1991 World Series, which ended 1-0 after ten innings.

[ValiantSailor]

To each his own. Let's talk basketball here.

Not in this thread!

And I love hockey, too!

VS

[Nukem2]

Not in this thread!

And I love hockey, too!

VS

Well,as suggested very early in this thread, this subject could move to IWBs OT board.

[CaribouJim]

Take away field goals - is there any more useless play in football - and you're left with about the same number of scores between a typical contest in football and soccer. You just have more points awarded in football. But there are many, many more scoring opportunities in a typical soccer contest.

VS

I watch incrementally less football each year, particularly college - barely watch college games anymore - games take way, way too long (hate the OT rules) and it is dominated by the blue bloods (right now the SEC) year-in-year out even way more than college b-ball.

Growing up in Western NY I was an AFL fan (Bills) - liked their more wide open style of game with passing a much larger part of the game than in the NFL. But overall there was more of a balance between running and passing. Now it has swung way, way too far to the passing game IMO. Running back back used to be the sexiest position and now it is almost a commodity. I miss those types of runs that you see from NFL Films - Jim Brown, Gale Sayers, O.J. (murderer), Walter, Barry Sanders, Dickerson to name a few. A good run is a thing of beauty.

That and it is way overexposed for my taste and they take themselves so damn seriously -saying "National Football League" instead of "NFL" for example. ESPN's programming is 24/7/365 - just non-stop.

All that and it is just an absolutely brutal game - the cliche' fits - they really are modern day gladiators, although well paid and participate voluntarily.

[Mucrisco]

The World Cup is getting huge ratings this year in the US. The US has bought more tickets than any other country besides Brazil. There is a greater amount of interest in the World Cup this year than even four years ago. Last Sunday, they had to shut down Brady St because people were overflowing out of the bars because they wanted to be there for the game. The older generation is still has that,"I hate soccer attitude," but for the younger crowd, most everyone I know is following it. Soccer has caught on in this country. I am fine with that fever only happening every four years, but that's part of what makes the World Cup special.

[Mucrisco]

great-rant-on-an-english-soccer-podcast-2.jpg

My buddy sent me this. Great rant.

[Mucrisco]

From ESPN:

"The three U.S. group-stage games averaged more than 18 million viewers between English-language ESPN and Spanish-language Univision. The 2-2 Sunday evening draw with Portugal was the most-watched soccer game in American history with 24.7 million TV viewers.

The finale against Germany started at noon ET Thursday when much of the country was at work -- or at least supposed to be. A record audience of 1.05 million streamed that match on WatchESPN.

"Four years ago, it was impressive, and the fact that it seems even bigger now is a testament to our country," Howard said. "I don't know if we can get that type of electricity every weekend. I don't think that's where we're at as a country in terms of the soccer fanaticism."

By comparison, Boston's six-game World Series win over St. Louis in October averaged 14.9 million viewers on Fox, San Antonio's five-game victory over Miami in this month's NBA Finals averaged 15.5 million on ABC, and Los Angeles' five-game win over the New York Rangers in the NHL's Stanley Cup finals averaged 5 million on NBC and NBCSN.

But American football is still the king in the U.S. The opening weekend of the NFL playoffs last season averaged 34.7 million viewers for four games."