Wait, what? I don’t follow the EPL that closely, but I just checked and as I read it, Chelsea are two points behind the leaders with half the season to go. And Mourinho is talking them down?
Yeah, false modesty.
Please don’t put words into my mouth. The conversation was, very generally indeed, about the progress of US soccer on the world arena. In response to a comment about the US becoming a significant factor in 20-30 years, I suggested that it would be a lot longer than that before we even turned our full attention in soccer’s direction. Nothing was said about us dominating the sport. And Russia has far less than half of our population and probably far fewer sports resources, too.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch, however, to think that if American kids were raised with the sport as others were, that our numbers and proven athleticism would serve us pretty well. If you want to take that as confidence in our inevitable domination, then we have a mutual understanding problem.
Indeed, as of Sunday’s defeat of Crystal Palace, and the Chelsea v. Manchester City result yesterday, Arsenal have once again returned to the top of the table, as is right and proper. Go Gunners!
But yes, Chelsea are two points behind and obviously contenders to anyone with an ounce of honesty and reason, despite being the enemies of football.
There are threads for discussing ongoing games, aren’t there?
Couldn’t give a monkies to be honest.
To many of us, American soccer is still the place where older players go for one last paycheck and some warm weather to see out their careers. If that ever changes, if the MSL ever starts actually getting the big players in their primes, thats when people might start taking it seriously.
Well I’m with the OP: soccer would benefit as both a game and a spectacle if the goal was larger.
I am a rugby union supporter and enjoy the more complex scoring available in that game. Low scoring games are rare these days.
The thing is, every time points are scored in a team sport (of any kind) the pressure on one or other team is increased. Equally spectators share the highs of their team scoring or the lows of possible defeat. The more times this is experienced in a game, the greater the emotional involvement of the supporters.
I appreciate soccer as a technical display of skill but after an hour with maybe one goal scored the game becomes bland. Sort of like pinball without any points.
The big problem with soccer IMHO is that one player becomes the fall guy. The goalie. No matter how good he is, inevitably he gets beaten - and blamed by fans players and coaches. Its a horrible position to play.
I can’t think of another team sport where the goalie is quite so alone.
This is simply not true in those parts of the world where the sport is taken seriously. No keeper is expected to stop a perfectly directed blast by an unmarked striker at reasonably close range. Heck, I’m a novice and even I can tell when the other defenders have fallen down on the job.
What Red Wiggler said. Ken001 is simply incorrect in his assessment. Goal keepers are often the most honored and respected member of the squad. A keeper, aside from the duties of keeping the ball out of the goal, is often significantly tasked also with keeping the defense organized, especially on the inevitable set pieces.
It’s quite clear when the keeper is just beat, which is the by far most usual result that achieves a goal, or rather makes an error. Everyone makes errors, though, and errors from time to time are typically forgiven.
The players most regularly castigated for allowing goals are the defenders.
Neither of these things will happen. For one, American-style football is not 20 years from its demise, or 40, and probably not 60. No matter how many concussions there are, it is going to remain a major sport for generations.
And then if it does go away, why would soccer take its place? It would remain way, way behind baseball and basketball in popularity by any measure, and it’s still a pimple on the ass of even the NHL. There’s no particular reason at all to think soccer will, for some reason, become the most popular sport in the United States.
And you’d appreciate the similarities with (particularly the northern hemisphere teams) spending so much time trying to kick the ball between a set of posts. Maybe soccer should follow rugby’s lead and award a goal when it’s kicked over the cross-bar? 
Field hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse, gaelic football, hurling, shinty, water polo for starters … quite a lot really.
Do you think the emotional involvement of the Man. City supporters was low on Monday night? there was only one goal scored and that was in the first half so they should have been pretty subdued yes?
Would they have been more or less emotionally involved had Chelsea scored another 3 goals without reply (which, with bigger goals they would have done)
er…those who know the sport know that this is utter nonsense. Your opinion is that of one who simply does not appreciate it for what it is. It is a low scoring game with each precious goal being massively important and each near miss or opportunity bringing huge excitement.
Ok, but if you’re going to give them swords, you will have to give them body armor as well. And if you do that, you may as well allow each side to possess 2 motorcycles. That would also help address the field-size problem you alluded to earlier.
ETA: Hey, it beats penalty kicks.
A regulation game takes less than two hours to complete. American football takes up an entire afternoon – close to four hours – thanks to all of the commercials they like to tuck in between every play.
But if playing time is shortened, to maybe 75 minutes a game, maybe overtime could then be extended to as much as 45 minutes to break a tie, in three periods played only if the game continues to be tied.
[QUOTE=Teuton]
I remember a conversation I had once in which it was suggested that any goal that broke an “even” scoreline (so from 0-0, 2-2, etc) should count double, to give teams encouragement to score it. Before we could discuss it at any length, though, time was called and the pub shut.
[/QUOTE]
So then every first goal in a game would be worth two points. It would make it impossible for anyone to ever again say, “Soccer is so low-scoring. Enough of these 1-0 scorelines.”
Seriously though, the double for one goal idea is something that was discussed as an alternative to PKs, when it comes to overtime anyway. But then what happens if the trailing team scores two goals to tie the game? Why not award 1.5 goals to the first team to score in overtime (a bronze goal, to continue the silly naming pattern)? It doesn’t have to be 1.5 in value. It could be 1.000001. The point is that whoever scores first would then win if the game ended tied after that point. In this way, the only way PKs would be needed is if overtime ends up scoreless. But, I’m certain that most games that go to PKs have scoreless overtimes anyway, so it probably wouldn’t help much.
I’m obviously not as confident of the NFL’s enduring popularity as some. If history offers any guidance, sporting tastes change with the generations. I suggest we save the Death of Football debate for another time.
As far as those other sports go, somewhere around 20 million pairs of eyeballs in this country will be watching US World Cup matches this summer (25 million watched the 2010 final – between two non-American teams). Baseball, basketball and hockey would kill for those numbers for their biggest games. It’s only one measure, true, but the sport is hardly a “pimple on the ass” of any of those others. Whether it becomes our major sport in the future is indeed questionable but, like I said, things change. Things always change.
Fair enough.
I think you are looking at the game as a interested enthusiast which is fine. However I suggest that many spectators watch and enjoy sport at a less focused level being happy to see moments of brilliance and hoping to share the joy/agony of goals being scored.
I draw that from my own experience of rugby: some enthusiasts are able to see subtle moves by players which are undetectable to me. Other people simply enjoy the match and their recall later is only of the exciting moments - mainly scoring.
My opinion is that soccer (a game I admire for its simplicity and athleticism) would be enhanced if more goals were scored in a game. Simply more moments of excitement for everyone.
I’d like to make a couple of comparisons.
American Football is designed to work very well on TV, with plenty of breaks in play to allow for commercials.
There’s also time to show replays of the best plays, so you don’t need to watch continuously (and there are those lovely cheerleaders to help keep the spectator interested.)
The numbers of American Football franchises are carefully controlled, so there is enough TV and spectator money to go around. The stadiums are large and comfortable, with plenty of parking.
Each play takes less than a minute, so you have time to buy food and drink at the stadium - or discuss the game at home. You don’t need to know much about the rules to follow the game.
…
In contrast Soccer spectators have often played the game themselves (in parks as kids; at school; in a works or weekend team.)
They are prepared to watch 45 minutes of action with only a few breaks in play (and those only lasting seconds); understand how important the ‘first touch’ is; how running into space matters and how keeping the ball can put pressure on the opposition. They sympathise when the goalkeeper is beaten by a powerful strike or an elegant free-kick.
There are massively more levels of soccer teams and a system of promotion and relegation which means you might be supporting a team with only a couple of hundred other fans - or watching a class team that cost a billion to assemble.
I enjoy watching both games, but they are very different.
As a bitter, twisted individual…I found that goalies made great strikers because of their great field vision. And their lack of delusions of grandeur prevent them from blasting away from 35 yards out.
I like the idea, from another thread, to start with the penalty shootout, before the game itself.
Knowing the result of the shootout would force the “losing” team to attack during overtimeand not simply try to “not lose” and wait for the penalties.
If this idea ever comes to pass, I think it should take place before the overtime and after ninety minutes, but not before the game itself. I’ve heard this might be a problem with keeping the flow from 90 minutes of action and then continuing the half hour overtime. Maybe only three kicks could be taken. But I don’t like the idea of the pk’s being taken before every elimination game. It would be boring and likely meaningless in most games. It would also introduce an inequality right from the start of the game instead of in overtime when it would be necessary.