Would Americans Like Soccer Better if There Was a Shot Clock?

[Baron_Greenback]

@GargoyleWB

Much of the full field strategy and nuance are absent, so that low level Scottish club soccer is still an aesthetically superior game to the best that America can field.

I’ve never watched an MLS game, but I have been to a lot of lower league Scottish games and “aesthetic superiority”, “strategy” and “nuance” are almost wholly absent.

[Hostile_Dialect]

@Struan

I’ve never watched an MLS game, but I have been to a lot of lower league Scottish games and “aesthetic superiority”, “strategy” and “nuance” are almost wholly absent.

Which says more about the MLS than the lower level Scottish leagues, BTW. Try watching an MLS final sometime. As in, the best two teams in the league. Yuck. I almost fell asleep during the last one.

[RickJay]

@GargoyleWB

I don’t even think this is quite correct, since this makes it sound more like ego. American pro soccer still suffers greatly on play quality. MLS gameplay is essentially unchanged from youth league soccer, except that the pros run faster and kick harder. Much of the full field strategy and nuance are absent, so that low level Scottish club soccer is still an aesthetically superior game to the best that America can field.

So I don’t think that the new viewers in America trying to discover soccer as a spectator sport are ever going to get an appreciation of the subtelties that make the game so appealing.

I don’t see where we are in disagreement.

[Hostile_Dialect]

Re camera angles, I totally agree with the inditement of American camera crews, but check this out:

@AP

Major League Soccer is teaming up with Germany’s Bundesliga to promote the sport in the United States and exchange knowledge…

@AP

Bundesliga, which has created its own TV production company, also will teach the MLS about producing soccer matches with proper camera angles and other details.

As for now, the agreement seems mostly focused on the exchange of American expertise on salary caps for the German mastery of safe stadium lighting or some such bullshit, but the agreement sets up a semi-annual intercontinental meeting of the minds for an indefinite period of time. I’m often the first to criticize the MLS at every turn, but I’m thinkin’ there could be something good here. The Bundesliga is not my favorite league in the world, but show me someone who can say with a straight face that it’s not one of the world’s top 5.