In fact, I’m pretty pleased that the WUSA called it quits! I don’t like watching soccer in the least and regard any inroads made into the United States as a bad thing. Soccer may one day burrow into the national consciousness. It may one day take over Monday Night Football (which wouldn’t require a name change, in a way). Its athletes may one day achieve Michael Jordan-like fame and riches.
BUT NOT TODAY!!!
(does dance of joy)
Personally, I think the WUSA might have survived if the teams didn’t have such idiotic names. Courage? Freedom? Power? CyberRays? What the hell were they thinking?
Didn’t mean to come off as harshly as I did - I meant to say that compared to men’s football, the popularity of women’s football is severely lacking here in Europe. Hell, women’s football is probably more popular in the US than it is here, where it’s largely seen as a bloke’s game.
I’m sure you and your friends have a great time playing football.
You know, I read this post, and the abundandtly clear message that I heard was fear. Fear that your world might be changing, and that you don’t like what the unknown might bring.
I’ll say this though… American Football gains nothing by having xenophobes trash other sports on it’s behalf. The only American I can observe at such times is your classic “ugly American”, and I honestly don’t think there’s anything noble in that.
It’s a bit like music. We all tend to identify ourselves by what famous artists we most like to groove to. But some of us are a little bit insecure, and to bolster our decisions, some of us will go out of our way to trash the artists who are held in high esteem by others. That’s a way uncool thing to do. And to trash someone else’s sport just because you’re insecure is just as uncool I reckon.
Now, if, on the other hand, you’d just created a thread extolling the positives of American Football I would have gladly bought into that thread and made some laid back cool comments - but the tone you set in your OP is that your love of American Football is only relative to how much you can trash women’s soccer, and that sucks quite frankly.
Ain’t nothin’ “unknown” about the situation – I don’t like soccer, and increased popularity of soccer I just KNOW will irritate me.
**
And where exactly did I do any trashing? I mean, the part about the names isn’t specific to soccer – I would think such names would be terrible for teams of any stripe. I merely expressed an opinion, and you demonstrated the classic “anyone who doesn’t worship soccer is a bad, evil, terrible person” soccer fan. You sure feel like the world owes it to you to like your sport, doncha? Soccer has conquered virtually the entire world, but THAT ISN’T ENOUGH, is it?
Whaddya mean the Women’s Soccer League folds?!? Link please? Yes, this is a big deal to me. Call me pathetic. The Women’s World Cup was supposed to start on Saturday, and I was all set to sit down in front of the boob tube (no pun intended, although it’s a particularly good one) with some friends and some beers and have me a time!
Rats, does this mean I have to go to an early music concert Saturday night instead?
And this is where your lack of knowledge about anything outside of the USA is doing your arguement in. I live in a country where Rugby Union, Rugby League, and Australian Football are way, WAY more popular than soccer. And Australia is but one of many countries where this is the case. As they say, never assume.
So let me restate my original premise in even simpler terms. I don’t perceive you as being a bad, evil, terrible person. That’s just your paranoia talking. I merely perceive you as being dreadfully insecure and thoroughly xenophobic.
Good job i didn’t go with my second choice guess -
you were once some kind of disco diva in the 70s. Back then you had one top ten hit which peaked at no. 9. You’re subsequent career was a failure and you failed to chart higher than the mid-50s. You tried to stage an unsuccessful comeback last year with a remix of your hit but that too failed.
Now all you have is your memories of that joyous time - hence your decision to name your women’s football team after your original backing group.
I think it’s pretty sad that the WUSA folded. I think it was the best shot we had at having a legitimate* pro women’s sports league. They got badly hurt by lack of a decent television package, and marketing, at least outside of their home markets, was non-existent. I think it was odd that they had no midwest presence, given the sports popularity with women here, but I suppose that they had to choose their markets carefully. While I can understand that many people might not be soccer enthusiasts, I am curious as to what was so threatening about it to non fans in the USA that they would actually celebrate it’s demise. Perhaps it was pre-empting a favorite show on PAX?
Well, I think tha they are on their 3rd or 4th incarnation of a pro women’s basketball league, so maybe another one will come and stick someday. We’ll be in Columbus this weekend for some of the matches, then back up to Columbus the following weekend for the American women’s first round final against PRK.
*Legitimate = strongly supported and attended, particularly by women.
I’m not xenophobic. I find that other countries and cultures have many wonderful ideas and attributes. Soccer I would classify as being, er, less than wonderful.
As for insecure, well, I think I have every right to be! America’s resistance toward soccer, despite this setback, is markedly less than it used to be.
