Don’t want to pour cold water on everything Roberto Carlos did, because without doubt he was one of the best wingbacks ever and he could hit the ball harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, but I’m not sure whether he meant that or not.
As we’re talking American’s here’s two great pieces of skill by American Clint Demspey from last season:
(what’s not obvious from the video is that the conditions were poor as it was actually snowing heavily during the match, making that kind of precision skill all the more difficult)
(this goal is all the more amazing as it came close to the end of the game and due to the away goals rule was the difference between Fulham getting and not getting to the next round of the UEFA cup in what was arguably, up to that point, the most important game in their 115-year history against one of the most succesful club teams in the World).
Well, I haven’t made any claims about soccer being tested on the Boring-o-meter or what have you. So obviously some people could find it to be quite interesting, but for my money (and lots of Americans’) it’s freaking boring.
Don’t be depressed. We are all just one people mostly just the same and separated only by small differences. Unfortunately, people are really good about picking up on those small differnces. Real wars have started over matters smaller than this one. We just use message boards now.
By the way, I am not a great soccer fan at all, I preffer tennis…
However I have watch all the games in discussion and this is what I think about them:
(1) Hockey: a fast game that requires a lot of skating skills. A sort of “Hollyday on ice” a little bit rought. It is a very exciting game, but players are a bit brutal in the contract with the oponents. My favorite: The Oilers.
(2) Baseball: A very interesting game, that requires lot of concentration to follow, and a teacher to explain the rules. It has some amazing moves. Interesting. My favorite: Toronto Blue Jays.
(3) American football: An interesting game, but where the action is cut quite often. Although it is a game were force and roughness is common, there are also players that display speed and skills by catching the ball on the air and escaping opponents! Although it has a lot of contact, fair play predominate. My favorite team? Saskatchewan Roughrides! (I only saw Canadian football!)
(4) Soccer: A continuosly played game of teamwork, where players play “chess” with the feet.
Soccer is a game of strategy and skills. Not very rough, but very interesting… if you are a fan of a given team. My favorite: Colo Colo!
Baseball is absolutely a real team game. It may involve a lot of one-on-one duels but every sport does this. Just because the role of the offense and defense of the two teams in baseball is extremely different doesn’t mean that there isn’t teamwork involved. Every man on the field has a specific position without which the team could not function.
You can play a one-on-one game of basketball or soccer. You cannot play a one-on-one baseball game. It’s totally impossible. (You also can’t play a one-on-one game of football.)
Only if you’re engaged in creative reading to back up a feeling of persecution, I guess. Stating that most Americans find the game to be boring does not, in any case, “piss on people who like soccer”, let alone “because it’s not red, white and fucking blue”.
It’s actually fairly interesting that someone might go from “some people could find it to be quite interesting, but for my money (and lots of Americans’) it’s freaking boring” to " let’s piss on people who like soccer because it’s not red, white and fucking blue".
Soccer seems to be some sort of shibboleth to you.
Yes, it’s almost like instead of someone else saying, as I did, that it’s subjective and people will simply have their preferences, things like “This doesnt work well for such a sedentary culture, one that uses the handy excuse of advertising to mask the fact that they cant run for more then twenty seconds without taking a breather.”
Rather obviously you’re not unaware of that fact, as you were aping the post where I pointed that out.
American Dopers have seen this play many times (and maybe you have too) but I’m posting this for people outside of the US and Canada as an example of American football at its best.
Well, yes, which is why I pointed out subjective preferences which you took as a jingoistic attack on all people who aren’t Americans. I see you’re now also trying to change the subject from the fact that there was actual “let’s piss on Americans” nonsense, that I cited and quoted, in a post that you responded to… to the fact that I was “snarky”. In one case, amusingly enough, you’re upset that I pointed out that there is no objective standard for boring and I was of course discussing subjective preference.
But nevermind. Someone stated the fact that many Americans don’t like soccer, and that’s just obviously an insult and an affront to non-Americans. In your interpretation, at least.
A precursor of Real Madrid was largely founded by ex-pat British students and professors in the city. Barcelona’s first president and some of its players were British. Hamburger SV took up soccer when a number of Brits joined the sporting club in 1891. I’m sure there are other examples.
I’m sure it makes you feel better to think that threads like this are nothing but America-bashing, with a few poor Americans simply describing their subjective dislike for soccer, but that’s simply delusional.
Those comments, while occasionally couched as merely personal, subjective preferences, are actually more like definitive pronouncements about the objective nature of the game.
There have been quite a few people in this thread honest enough to say that, even though they don’t like soccer, they recognize that it is not inherently less skillful or less interesting than other sports. But there have also been, as usual, quite a few who are clearly seeking to do nothing but dismiss both the sport and the people who follow it as boring and stupid.
As someone who loves soccer and rugby and cricket and hockey and baseball and American football, and who has strongly defended baseball and American football on these Boards against non-Americans who ridicule those sports while knowing almost nothing about them, i think it’s just as sad when Americans get all sneering and superior about soccer. And it happens plenty on this board, your apologetics notwithstanding.
As Mahaloth says, the whole thing is pretty fucking ignorant and depressing.
Hear, hear. To be fair, some people have doggedly repeated the one correct answer – that other sports got there first – but this topic always seems to be a showcase for poor reasoning on both sides. Many of the arguments don’t stand up to a moment’s thought. Soccer is apparently inherently boring, despite somehow being one of the world’s most popular spectator sports. We hear that it doesn’t work on TV and is not suitable for advertising (someone should tell the networks across the world who spend billions on TV rights).
