Then you must absolutely despise football and basketball, because those fans make soccer fans seem apathetic by comparison.
Bah! I’ve read the replies and I stand by my post 100%. 
I’m not denying that soccer isn’t a true sport, or that it’s really fun to play. But, again, it’s too simple a game for an adult to take seriously as a professional sport. It’s like comparing Chutes & Ladders to chess, one is simplistic with very few rules or strategies or scenarios and therefore specifically meant for children (and, consequently, pointless and un-entertaining to any adult) and the other is a million times more complex, difficult, and structured and correspondingly that much more entertaining and ‘adult’ (at least as far as board games are concerned!) Or like comparing the Tour De France to NASCAR or Indy racing. Really? You expect me to watch a bunch of latex catsuit wearing guys riding what are essentially high-tech versions of children’s toys going in a small oval hitting maybe 40mph?! Other than once every four years in the Olympics, and even then it’s not exactly the highlight of the games, how could anyone consider that having mainstream, adult spectator appeal compared to automobiles racing at 200+ mph?!
As far as baseball not needing equipment, nonsense. It needs more than American football even for casual play. You don’t just need a bat & ball, you need a field with at least four ‘things’ reasonably representing bases, and for anything above grade-school level play ever defensive player has to have a glove. Plus it requires very specific and precise (and rather constant) officiating.
As for the whole xenophobic thing, bullshit. I couldn’t care less about the ethnicity of soccer players. American sports teams have increased exponentially in ethnic diversity in the last twenty years, so that argument has absolutely zero merit (and to an American is more than a little insulting).
I’ll still admit that you like what you know, and you know what you grew up on. But I still maintain that soccer’s lack of any sophisticated strategy, diverse game-play, and looooooooong periods of monotonous activity make it an inferior spectator sport.
WTF?
You are providing a worthy follow-up for your Marine umbrella thread.
Many years back, the first time the USA hosted the World Cup, MAD Magazine published a helpful guide to help Americans understand soccer. My favorite bit:
“To help understand why soccer scores are so low, go to a soccer field and discover for yourself just how difficult it is to kick a ball through a goal that is only 26 feet wide.”
Me, I just don’t like “rectangle” sports, particularly basketball, soccer, and hockey.
Please don’t make me defend soccer. I won’t like it, you won’t like it. Just admit that you’re wrong :smack:
Why? cricket manages just fine without gloves and the ball is heavier, harder and the fielders stand closer? Doesn’t that suggest that baseball players are weak and incapable of catching a ball without assistance. The additional equipment is taking the emphasis off the sporting ability of the player.
Considering the number of outstanding baseball players who come from poor Latin American countries, who learn to play without any proper equipment…
I say again, any soccer player caught faking an injury should have this inaccuracy rectified.
Is that the same game that is known as Snakes and Ladders in the UK?
That just seems like a bizarre claim. First of all, how often is this attitude actually displayed? I mean, sure, there’s a stereotype of a greasy haired frenchman ranting on and on about how his sport is ze best in ze world and ze foolish Americanz are just eegnorant, or whatever, but really, how often do you actually encounter such a person?
More seriously, the fact of the matter is that soccer is incredibly globally popular across a wide range of different countries from a wide range of different cultural backgrounds. If it’s not popular in the US that’s fine, people have different tastes. But it’s monumentally arrogant to claim that there’s actually something objectively inferior about soccer (as you seem to be doing by describing it as “mildly interesting”, and as many others have very explicitly done), as the evidence is clearly not on your side. The Occam’s Razor explanation is that soccer is an entertaining sport to watch and be a fan of, and that it just hasn’t caught on in the US for any of various reasons (which is fine, it’s not a criticism of the US, just an observation) – as opposed to the “soccer is a lame and inferior sport that somehow has fooled 3/4 of the world’s population” explanation.
There was a sports radio talk show host I used to listen to who would go on over-the-top rants about his hatred for soccer. Ultimately, what his complaint boiled down to wasn’t a problem with the game itself. His issue was that young kids are playing soccer instead of baseball. The guy was a huge baseball lover, and he bemoaned the idea that there were some potentially great baseball players we’d never see because their moms are enrolling them in soccer instead of Little League baseball. IIRC, one of the reasons he gave for the mom-soccer connection was the perception that soccer is “safer” than baseball and mommy doesn’t want her little baby getting hurt.
I just realized that it wasn’t you who started the Marine umbrella thread. It was someone with a similar type of user name. My apologies.
I actually like soccer, to an extent (just not enough TV coverage of it 'round here, sadly). However, if I could make a point:
For a while I had this sense that it was being shoved down my throat. You MUST get into soccer!!! It’s The Most Popular Sport in the World™! If you don’t get into soccer you are just a xenophobic Murican!
The thing I don’t understand is how Canada gets a pass on this whole thing. I mean they would even rather watch Curling then Soccer. But somehow these threads always end up as America vs the soccer playing world.
If I could make a point:
There’s not much coverage of soccer on TV–or anywhere else in the US for that matter. But try walking into any bar or grocery store during football, basketball, or baseball season. Then tell me what sports get shoved down people’s throats. (Hint: It isn’t soccer.)
Canada gets a pass because there are only three or four days out of the year when there isn’t snow on the ground and that’s not exactly the best environment for soccer to thrive.
My experience is based solely on message boards like this but whenever I see someone start a thread like “Messi or Ronaldo: Who’s better at football?”, it’s mostly the Americans who come in with a “oh you mean soccer?” attitude. That or they’ll say Peyton Manning or something:)
Australians, in my limited internet experience, don’t get mad/annoyed when they realize the topic isn’t Aussie rules;)
Not an Australian,
Cerebus
ok, fair enough. I shall be more charitable in my opinions of soccer fans.
I remain amazed that after years of debate on this very subject we STILL have people who honestly believe there is some objective superiority or inferiority to soccer versus other sports. It’s like people turn your brains off when this subject comes up.
Soccer is not more or less entertaining than other major sports, and the objective and logical reasons why this is so obviously the case are so stupidly out in the open that I cannot be bothered to explain why.
The answer to the OP is equally obvious, and is essentially stated by Procrustus; many Americans hate soccer because it has become a point of contention between them and non-Americans. It is nothing more than two cultural memes that boost each other, both outside America (“Americans suck because they don’t get real football”) and inside it (“Everyone else sucks for trying to foist soccer on us and hating our sports.”)
That’s it. It has nothing to do with soccer being low scoring (there is no obvious correlation with a sport’s frequency of scoring plays and its popularity, or whether it even has scoring plays at all), or boring (soccer is not more or less objectively interesting than most sports) or needing less equipment (this is so dumb I cannot believe it’s suggested) or there being anything wrong with Americans or their preferred sports (as pointed out, nobody makes a fuss about the other countries where soccer is not the most popular sport, like Canada or Australia or Japan or the Dominican Republic.) Such arguments are so easily batted away I cannot believe they are still being made.
Man, as an American I just don’t get either side of this supposed issue. I definitely don’t think soccer is “shoved down our throat” as evidenced by it’s popularity in youth league sports, nor do I think America suffers from some kind of inferiority complex when it comes to professional soccer either.
What it ultimately comes down to is MONEY when it comes to pro sports, and soccer pays very little in the USA compared to NFL football, MLB baseball, NBA basketball…while players in soccer like Ramundo (or whatever his name is) get millions per year to play for a club that may not necessarily represent his home country, plays abroad for his AC club and only has national roots when it’s time to play the World Cup…bah.
Soccer players are every bit the mercenary that American sports figures are. So why root for something outside of your comfort zone? Answer: you don’t.