As usual I am being misunderstood. ** Tranquillis** - I am happy for USA to win things. If you had paid attention you would have understood that I was unhappy about the reaction to winning yet another thing being the type of reaction that would be more appropriate for a country that doesn’t win much.
I would accept, even welcome huge excitement from a country about winning something if that country seldom won things.
If (by some amazing brain fuckup) I was a man-u fan or an American, my reaction would be -
“so we are winning yet another thing, so what, how boring, I’d be more excited if this were a rare thing but it’s not”
post-submit-pre-post-arrive edit - when I said (by some amazing brain fuck up) I was refering to being a man-u fan, not an American, I wouldn’t mind being one of those, then maybe I wouldn’t be the outsider in this place.
Not really. You don’t know the difference between ‘pedantry’ and ‘waffle’ - how are you on ‘incoherence’?
You are certainly correct that you are now an embarrassment.
Unfortunately the fact that you think something is true (e.g. 300 million Americans all think the same way about soccer :rolleyes: ) does not make it valid, regardless of whether you can express it or not.
As charitable US posters have said, why not think carefully before posting.
There is a tremendous fund of wisdom here on the board, and you could benefit from it.
You have considerable work to do on your reputation - now would be a good time to start making amends.
And permit me to add that we are certainly having a failure to communicate. When I read your response to me, I could swear it said essentially what I thought you’d said before, which, if I may paraphrase, was essentially:
Americans win a lot, and thus have no business being excited about winning.
Is this correct…? And if so, why should we not be happy about winning…? Obviously, if we are (as a nation, more or less) playing a sport, it’s because we’d like to win, or at least do well. Why should we (as a nation, more or less) not be pleased when we we win or do well? Why should we not celebrate…?
This is seriously intended, as I’d like to find where we’re not communicating (if that’s the case), or what your resoning may be, if I am understanding you correctly.
Eeek! There must be something in the air today! I’m working in London at the moment and a Spurs fan and a Chelsea fan were giving me stick all day in the smokers’ room. Until someone shouted (and I think he may have been a bit pissed) “We’re all friends now! It’s the World Cup!”
RexDart, btw I’m a girl…and I’m still undecided on the level of sarcasm in your post!
lobley I send thanks to the Babby Jesus that you’re not a United supporter.
I now leave this thread with my head held high (and hopefully not with the back of my skirt tucked into my knickers).
Of course Man Utd is pretty much the universal favorite of American fans. We Americans love a winner, and apparently you don’t.
It’s a big country. People without local ties to a sports team often pull for a winner. Sometimes that’s an up-and-coming underdog with charasmatic players. Sometimes it’s the rival of a perennial champion whose players are particularly disliked. Most often, however, we pull for winners.
The basketball team at Duke University wins everything in sight more years than not because they have the exciting, talented players. They’re fun to watch.
Should the Lakers fans have been less excited about winning the NBA championship because they’d won the two previous years? Only the Jersey Nets fans deserved to be excited had they won instead?
No matter how much you win, no matter how much you have, you could always have more. Every Duke team, no matter how great for how many years, lives in the shadow of Wooden’s UCLA teams of 25 years before. This Lakers team lives in the shadow of their own teams from 20 years past. There’s always a goal to strive for if you look, a level of excellence to meet and surpass. You could win one championship and say “well, that was good, let’s settle for that and be glad we have it,” or you could push yourself and see what more you can accomplish. That’s what winners do, and that’s why we love them.
So can you blame Americans for getting excited when the quality of play in yet another sport is rising here? Have we forfeited our right to be excited about a strong performance in the World Cup because of past successes elsewhere? Only someone with a loser mentality would think so.
I’m curious about what America is “always winning” at. I guess we’ve got baseball pretty much sewn up. AFAIK, the only other nation to ever win the World Series is Canada, but then again, they’re pretty much the only other nation competeing in the World Series. The same pretty much goes for basketball and American-rules football. Seems to me that American sports teams are “always winning” because they’re only playing other American teams. When it comes to international competition, we’ve soccer and the Olympics. We do pretty good during the Olympics, but we’ve hardly got a lock on it, especially during winter. As for soccer, well, we’ve got the women’s team, but I’ve just been informed that’s not “real.” They’re doing some marvelous work with holograms these days, apparently. And correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve never won a World’s Cup, and seldom (if ever) do as well as we’re doing right now. Why shouldn’t we be excited?
lobley, I just know you’re a beer-swillin’ motherfucker. Were I in your neck of the woods, I’d look you up, take in some sport at the pub, chase some birds, and get pissed. And chances are you wouldn’t mind my company at all.
But if things break right, and America faces the U.K. for the Cup, and my side loses, I’m gonna say “congratulations” to all my Limey pals, and be happy with my nation’s unprecedented success.
If we win, I’m gonna whoop it up like the redneck that I am. I’ll crow and strut and do some goofy dance. And I will thank you for being such a worthy opponent.
I was talking about Americans like myself, who not being from a city in England have no natural favorite at club level. There was no MLS when we were growing up, remember. A team doing well is most likely to grab attention for those fans without a club home, so to speak. This and the coverage on TV mostly accounts for myself and other fans here in the States being Man U fans.
The tendency to follow a team with a winning tradition is present in most American sports. If one grew up in Montana, FAAAAAR from any NFL franchise, you might be more likely to be a Cowboys fan, since their success in years past and their persistent appearances on national broadcasts made them a good team to follow. Those fans wouldn’t all stop being fans when the team does poorly (like last year and the year before, when they went 5-11) but the success of the team is what drew media attention, which is what led to a scattering of fans throughout rural America. Same thing seems to hold true for the Red Wings in the NHL (go to any arena when the home team plays the Wings, you’ll be seeing ALOT of Red), and somewhat for the Yankees and Braves in baseball.
If you have no local team to support, you pretty much just start watching the sport and pick a team. Perhaps you pick a team because they’re on TV alot, or you like their style of play. There’s nothing wrong with that. America isn’t like the UK, where just about every city on the map seems to have some team of local interest. The distance between a city like Bozeman Montana and Minneapolis Minnesota is longer than the entire length of England, so these people are not natural Vikings fans.
I was talking about Americans like myself, who not being from a city in England have no natural favorite at club level. There was no MLS when we were growing up, remember. A team doing well is most likely to grab attention for those fans without a club home, so to speak. This and the coverage on TV mostly accounts for myself and other fans here in the States being Man U fans.
The tendency to follow a team with a winning tradition is present in most American sports. If one grew up in Montana, FAAAAAR from any NFL franchise, you might be more likely to be a Cowboys fan, since their success in years past and their persistent appearances on national broadcasts made them a good team to follow. Those fans wouldn’t all stop being fans when the team does poorly (like last year and the year before, when they went 5-11) but the success of the team is what drew media attention, which is what led to a scattering of fans throughout rural America. Same thing seems to hold true for the Red Wings in the NHL (go to any arena when the home team plays the Wings, you’ll be seeing ALOT of Red), and somewhat for the Yankees and Braves in baseball.
If you have no local team to support, you pretty much just start watching the sport and pick a team. Perhaps you pick a team because they’re on TV alot, or you like their style of play. There’s nothing wrong with that. America isn’t like the UK, where just about every city on the map seems to have some team of local interest. The distance between a city like Bozeman Montana and Minneapolis Minnesota is longer than the entire length of England, so these people are not natural Vikings fans.
You’ll be happy to know that here in the Bay Area, soccer (the WC at least) is kicking hockey’s ass.
The Sharks’ games generally had a 0.2 to 0.4 viewrship rating during the season. Each point (1.0) is somewhere over 26,000 households. Meaning there were more fans AT the games than watching them on TV.
Despite being aired at ungodly AM hours (I think they were all started between 12am and 4am), WC games last week were over 2.0. The USA game was at 4.0.
Please don’t make me look up cites. I’m good for it, really I am.
Being born in North London meant I became a Spurs supporter. I watched them do the double in '60/61 and have stuck with them ever since, even though we haven’t had much success since…
Actually it’s not clear you have learnt anything from this thread. But, as a teacher and a poster dedicated to fighting ignorance, I must try to help you.
Demean: to lower the dignity or status of people
As many posters have pointed out, your thoughtless and illogical posts have given a poor impression. But you did it to yourself - no-one else was involved.
Maliciousness: a desire to do evil, to harm or to tease
Well I am very disappointed that a British guest on a free American message board should choose to make silly generalisations about their hosts, then use words wrongly, admit they are incoherent, yet refuse to retract.
None of my postings (including the ones quoting you) are to do evil or cause harm. I may be guilty of teasing you , but there is a genuine sadness and desire to help behind it all.
This is the last straw!!! Being your friendly neighbor to the north, all I can say is “LET IT GO!!”. I seem to recall a certain Olympic sport…hockey comes to mind and…what’s that?..You got THRASHED? The US don’t OWN sports, you guys have football and baseball, CANADA OWNS HOCKEY and let the rest of the world have their chance. I’ll fight on the American side anyday but it erks me to know you guys are such poor losers. I don’t think you guys represent your country too well as goodwill ambassadors because all you guys care about is conquering the world in every aspect. Give it up already, for gods sake your President didn’t even know about soccer until your victory over Mexico of which was a fluke, just as the whole showing in the World Cup. Tonight, GERMANY 2-0 WIN, nuff said. No chance and thanks for coming out, try again in 2082 World Cup.
:rolleyes: ) does not make it valid, regardless of whether you can express it or not.
