That right there is why soccer will never fully catch on in America

[UnitedDawg]

I like soccer, or try to. Been following our national teams, and European soccer since Athens hosted the 96 olympics, it's probably become my 3rd favorite sport after football and baseball. But I never have been, and never will be excited by a f-ing scoreless draw. Seeing the twitter reaction of soccer people, acting as if that was just the greatest spectacle ever... how about No. No one scored. Sweden parked the bus for the most part and just tried to hit us on the counter. It was boring. I can get into further reasons why, (might wanna skip to the next paragraph now) such as the new US coach sticking with an outdated 4-4-2 formation that has no chance of working with a 50% Morgan and over-the-hill Wambach, as no other striker partnership has developed any chemistry whatsoever in the last 4 years, our midfield is being overrun, former playmakers now non-existent... but such analysis is just as boring as the game was tonight.

We've been hearing about how soccer is going to explode in this country since the 70s, or so I'm told... I was born in the 80s. But either way, with all the diving, injury faking, and no emphasis on scoring, I just don't see it ever fully happening (with our legal citizens anyway). Sure, Americans will support anything in stars and stripes every 4 years due to blatant nationalistic pride / patriotism, whether it's world cup or olympics... but are you really gonna follow the Atlanta MLS franchise? I'll give em a chance, but as soon as I found out that even MLS has imported the beyond retarded 'away goals' rule that goes along with the whole aggregate scoring system for their playoffs, I basically scrapped it in my mind forever. I remember back in the day when MLS was the plucky underdog league whose clock counted down and ties went to penalty kick shootouts... y'know, the (old) American way, screw this everybody-gets-a-trophy BS, we want a winner! But now they've scrapped that and kowtowed to a bunch of wannabe euro hipsters, importing awful FIFA rules and naming every other franchise something ridiculous like Real United FC, just blatantly copying Europe instead of doing our own thing... it's pathetic really.

Even our men's national team lately features a bunch of Mexican and German rejects outside of the elder stars, and as good as they've been doing, as well as they've been progressing under our German coach, kind of takes away the fun a bit doesn't it? Does to me anyway, it's not like beating the red army with a bunch of American college kids... probably because many of them are barely American at all, and wouldn't even identify as such if it weren't for them getting on the field sooner.

Well this rant went on longer than I intended, no one is probably reading anymore anyway. tl;dr. Ties suck. Scoreless draws suck even more. Also, this is my first time seeing the new board format. Change=bad. No likey. Later DawgNation.

 

[DeafDawg.]

Concur.

 

[UgaTom]

You may like soccer, but it doesn't sound like you appreciate the game. Soccer is a game of scoring opportunities, and it's the build up to those opportunities that is fascinating to watch. Whether a three-goal score fest or a scoreless tie, there will be plenty of opportunities created. It's like in baseball when the bases are loaded - even if no runs score, it is still an exciting part of the game.

Soccer may not have "exploded" in the US, but it still keeps getting a bigger following all the time as evidenced by the fact that there are more opportunities to watch it than ever before. The MLS will never be big simply because the level of play is not even close to that of leagues in England, Spain, and Germany.

 

[JungleRecon]

I like soccer, or try to. Been following our national teams, and European soccer since Athens hosted the 96 olympics, it's probably become my 3rd favorite sport after football and baseball. But I never have been, and never will be excited by a f-ing scoreless draw. Seeing the twitter reaction of soccer people, acting as if that was just the greatest spectacle ever... how about No. No one scored. Sweden parked the bus for the most part and just tried to hit us on the counter. It was boring. I can get into further reasons why, (might wanna skip to the next paragraph now) such as the new US coach sticking with an outdated 4-4-2 formation that has no chance of working with a 50% Morgan and over-the-hill Wambach, as no other striker partnership has developed any chemistry whatsoever in the last 4 years, our midfield is being overrun, former playmakers now non-existent... but such analysis is just as boring as the game was tonight.

We've been hearing about how soccer is going to explode in this country since the 70s, or so I'm told... I was born in the 80s. But either way, with all the diving, injury faking, and no emphasis on scoring, I just don't see it ever fully happening (with our legal citizens anyway). Sure, Americans will support anything in stars and stripes every 4 years due to blatant nationalistic pride / patriotism, whether it's world cup or olympics... but are you really gonna follow the Atlanta MLS franchise? I'll give em a chance, but as soon as I found out that even MLS has imported the beyond retarded 'away goals' rule that goes along with the whole aggregate scoring system for their playoffs, I basically scrapped it in my mind forever. I remember back in the day when MLS was the plucky underdog league whose clock counted down and ties went to penalty kick shootouts... y'know, the (old) American way, screw this everybody-gets-a-trophy BS, we want a winner! But now they've scrapped that and kowtowed to a bunch of wannabe euro hipsters, importing awful FIFA rules and naming every other franchise something ridiculous like Real United FC, just blatantly copying Europe instead of doing our own thing... it's pathetic really.
Total agrreance, with everything you said, Would just add, the faking of injuries is everything you teach you kids not
Even our men's national team lately features a bunch of Mexican and German rejects outside of the elder stars, and as good as they've been doing, as well as they've been progressing under our German coach, kind of takes away the fun a bit doesn't it? Does to me anyway, it's not like beating the red army with a bunch of American college kids... probably because many of them are barely American at all, and wouldn't even identify as such if it weren't for them getting on the field sooner.

Well this rant went on longer than I intended, no one is probably reading anymore anyway. tl;dr. Ties suck. Scoreless draws suck even more. Also, this is my first time seeing the new board format. Change=bad. No likey. Later DawgNation.

 

[JungleRecon]

Total agreeance, would just add, faking injuries goes against everything you teach your kids about sport. It is cheating and goes against the American mantra of "Rub some dirt on it" "dont let therm know they huirt you" The NBA has even acknowledge deception as cheating, they are addressing faking fouls next year, soccer should do the same.

 

[louman90]

I started playing soccer in 1977 in first grade. I had no idea what soccer was but played it all through high school. It's a great game and really fun because you can practice on your own. I think it has gotten more popular but so are the NBA and NFL and those leagues are exploding from what they were 20 years ago. If anyone can sell a product it's Arthur Blank. Still there's a LOT of stuff going on in this city. Went to a Braves game Wed with a big group from work - 80% of the people left by the end of the 7th inning to go pick up kids, ect.

 

[''M'']

I started playing soccer in 1977 in first grade. I had no idea what soccer was but played it all through high school. It's a great game and really fun because you can practice on your own. I think it has gotten more popular but so are the NBA and NFL and those leagues are exploding from what they were 20 years ago. If anyone can sell a product it's Arthur Blank. Still there's a LOT of stuff going on in this city. Went to a Braves game Wed with a big group from work - 80% of the people left by the end of the 7th inning to go pick up kids, ect.

White kids need a sport to play, since football, baseball, and basketball opportunities to play are declining so much

 

[UnitedDawg]

You may like soccer, but it doesn't sound like you appreciate the game. Soccer is a game of scoring opportunities, and it's the build up to those opportunities that is fascinating to watch. Whether a three-goal score fest or a scoreless tie, there will be plenty of opportunities created. It's like in baseball when the bases are loaded - even if no runs score, it is still an exciting part of the game.

Soccer may not have "exploded" in the US, but it still keeps getting a bigger following all the time as evidenced by the fact that there are more opportunities to watch it than ever before. The MLS will never be big simply because the level of play is not even close to that of leagues in England, Spain, and Germany.

Meh, BS. The first part of your post reminds me of the whole NL vs AL thing in baseball, re: DH. The funny part there is, I'm actually an NL purist, but I wonder if that would be the case had I grown up in Boston or Oakland.

You wouldn't happen to be a Chelsea fan by any chance, are ya? Because all that stuff doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. You can be a soccer fan, and appreciate the game, and still loathe parking the bus "tactics." Hell, many South American and European soccer fans consider diving to be a legitimate tactic... sorry, I'm American, I don't. There's a big difference in watching Brazilian, Dutch, even the modern German teams play beautiful, attacking minded soccer, and watching Mourinho's recent teams play. Chelsea recorded the least number of shots on target this year than they have in ages... it worked, but there's a reason loads of people are calling what he's been doing the past several years "anti-football."

As for the whole MLS vs other leagues thing, my gripe was never with the level of play. There are myriad reasons we're further behind other countries when it comes to domestic leagues, just as there are multiple reasons why you might be right and MLS may never rival them. Some of it could be cliche arguments such as the US having so many more, other home grown sports for our better athletes to play... and further still is the treatment at the youth level, and all throughout the teens. Where as Europe and S. America have academies and are buying/selling teens at a very early age, sometimes even earlier, we still have the NCAA and draft system, which Europeans constantly mock for rewarding failure, while most of them, with soccer being the main sport in their countries, have so many levels they're able to have the relegation system, which I find neat to be honest. I like it, makes for great drama on the last day of the season, more often than championships being decided it's who gets to stay up. Even Jurgen Kinnsmann was recently calling for MLS to implement the relegation system here... but I just don't find that to be realistic in the way our franchises are run, no one is going to invest in that.

No, my gripe with MLS is how we went from trying to put our own unique spin on soccer to just capitulating to the FIFA way, from the rules themselves to the naming of our teams, where we just blatantly copy others. And along those same lines I also loathe tryhard American soccer fans, like your average Arsenal loving Brooklyn hipster. You've seen em before, you might be one for all I know. But nobody likes the a-hole who corrects someone for saying field instead of pitch, game instead of match, goalie instead of keeper or United instead of Man Yoo. I will never be that guy, and they hurt the name of soccer here just as much as the divers and injury fakers do IMO (used to see a lot of that junk back when I was posting regularly on the old rivals mainboard).

 

[whitepug6]

Some foreign gentleman asked me what I thought about soccer. I told him where I am from, in Georgia, we only recognize two true sports: high school football and college football.

 

[Coyote89]

Meh, BS. The first part of your post reminds me of the whole NL vs AL thing in baseball, re: DH. The funny part there is, I'm actually an NL purist, but I wonder if that would be the case had I grown up in Boston or Oakland.

You wouldn't happen to be a Chelsea fan by any chance, are ya? Because all that stuff doesn't have to be mutually exclusive. You can be a soccer fan, and appreciate the game, and still loathe parking the bus "tactics." Hell, many South American and European soccer fans consider diving to be a legitimate tactic... sorry, I'm American, I don't. There's a big difference in watching Brazilian, Dutch, even the modern German teams play beautiful, attacking minded soccer, and watching Mourinho's recent teams play. Chelsea recorded the least number of shots on target this year than they have in ages... it worked, but there's a reason loads of people are calling what he's been doing the past several years "anti-football."

As for the whole MLS vs other leagues thing, my gripe was never with the level of play. There are myriad reasons we're further behind other countries when it comes to domestic leagues, just as there are multiple reasons why you might be right and MLS may never rival them. Some of it could be cliche arguments such as the US having so many more, other home grown sports for our better athletes to play... and further still is the treatment at the youth level, and all throughout the teens. Where as Europe and S. America have academies and are buying/selling teens at a very early age, sometimes even earlier, we still have the NCAA and draft system, which Europeans constantly mock for rewarding failure, while most of them, with soccer being the main sport in their countries, have so many levels they're able to have the relegation system, which I find neat to be honest. I like it, makes for great drama on the last day of the season, more often than championships being decided it's who gets to stay up. Even Jurgen Kinnsmann was recently calling for MLS to implement the relegation system here... but I just don't find that to be realistic in the way our franchises are run, no one is going to invest in that.

No, my gripe with MLS is how we went from trying to put our own unique spin on soccer to just capitulating to the FIFA way, from the rules themselves to the naming of our teams, where we just blatantly copy others. And along those same lines I also loathe tryhard American soccer fans, like your average Arsenal loving Brooklyn hipster. You've seen em before, you might be one for all I know. But nobody likes the a-hole who corrects someone for saying field instead of pitch, game instead of match, goalie instead of keeper or United instead of Man Yoo. I will never be that guy, and they hurt the name of soccer here just as much as the divers and injury fakers do IMO (used to see a lot of that junk back when I was posting regularly on the old rivals mainboard).

Hate to see people who obviously are knowledgeable and love the game ready to give up on it. Yes, the injury faking and Euro copycat issues are annoying, but it's still a great sport that is thankfully continuing to grow in the US.

MLS is still a long way behind other pro leagues, and the growth hasn't been explosive. But avg attendance is up 40% since 2000, despite league expansion. More than 6 million fans attended a MLS game the past 3 years in a row. That's almost triple the number the league was experiencing just over a decade ago and there are several new expansion teams about to be added in major cities. Clubs are investing in $100 million soccer-only stadiums, the new TV deal more than doubles the revenue of the old contract, and it will put a lot more games on TV, and the designated player and retention rules have enabled the league to attract and retain better talent. As attendance and TV viewership rises, payrolls will continue to expand which will mean even more talent in the future.

Plus, the interest in the sport should continue to get a boost from the success of the USMNT in international play. After a 40-year drought, the USMNT has made the last 7 consecutive World Cups, advancing beyond group play 4 times, including 3 of the last 4 World Cup tourneys. They're also the defending CONCACAF champs and, over the last decade, have surpassed Mexico as the top national team in North and Central America.

Also, I honestly don't care if much of the support has been bandwagon fans just riding a wave of patriotism. The interest has to start somewhere, and the massive game-watching gatherings and celebrations we saw for the last World Cup were downright magical. Those giant throngs of fans were as enthusiastic as any group of fans in the world.

So, although it may not evolve into the exact version of the game some fans want, it's continuing to grow and I would hope the die-hard fans would remain optimistic about that. I still say that MLS could surpass the NHL in attendance and viewership within the next 10 years.

 

[Radi Nabulsi]

I think it is growing in popularity rather quickly. Other sports are falling by the wayside.