Check the forum you're in, I don't think you're where you think you are.
Ann Coulter on Soccer
- Thread starter Argus Skyhawk
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Check the forum you're in, I don't think you're where you think you are.
Whoops. My bad. 
And yet, I find myself agreeing wholheartedly with her...
It’s really just such an ill-informed article:
She says there are no heroes and villains in football whereas we’ve seen several of both in just the last couple of weeks. Far from some kind of socialist paradise football can be all about the individual; Neymar, Robben, Suarez, Messi, Ronaldo, Roony. And are American Football or Baseball or Basketball not team sports also? I’m sorry do teams not win games or is it all about the individual? Surely golf, tennis and the like are individual sports. And she talks about MVPs, well football has man of the match, which would seem to be the same thing if you ask me?
The scoring thing never makes a lick of sense to me, do (some) Americans have such short attention spans that they have to see a goal every few minutes or their brains stop working? Is it a Douglas Adams like thing? Are near misses in American Football not exciting? Same with the notion of draws, the idea of the draw is nothing to do with nobody winning and everybody going home happy, quite the reverse, the draw gives the underdog a chance, and for a smaller club playing against a bigger one a draw can be a victory in itself, whilst for the big club it’s like losing. And whilst I guess it’s theoretically possible for a national side to draw every game in the world cup and still lift the trophy (and actually even as I think about it clearly it isn’t) certainly in league football a team that always draws won’t ever win the league (again in a knock out competition like the FA cup it’s possible, but given the games will go to penalties so one side will always win.)
I say this a lot, but it is true. Some of the most exciting football games I’ve ever seen have been 0-0, and I once saw Derby put five past Tranmere Rovers and it was actually boring.
She says there are no heroes and villains in football whereas we’ve seen several of both in just the last couple of weeks. Far from some kind of socialist paradise football can be all about the individual; Neymar, Robben, Suarez, Messi, Ronaldo, Roony. And are American Football or Baseball or Basketball not team sports also? I’m sorry do teams not win games or is it all about the individual? Surely golf, tennis and the like are individual sports. And she talks about MVPs, well football has man of the match, which would seem to be the same thing if you ask me?
The scoring thing never makes a lick of sense to me, do (some) Americans have such short attention spans that they have to see a goal every few minutes or their brains stop working? Is it a Douglas Adams like thing? Are near misses in American Football not exciting? Same with the notion of draws, the idea of the draw is nothing to do with nobody winning and everybody going home happy, quite the reverse, the draw gives the underdog a chance, and for a smaller club playing against a bigger one a draw can be a victory in itself, whilst for the big club it’s like losing. And whilst I guess it’s theoretically possible for a national side to draw every game in the world cup and still lift the trophy (and actually even as I think about it clearly it isn’t) certainly in league football a team that always draws won’t ever win the league (again in a knock out competition like the FA cup it’s possible, but given the games will go to penalties so one side will always win.)
I say this a lot, but it is true. Some of the most exciting football games I’ve ever seen have been 0-0, and I once saw Derby put five past Tranmere Rovers and it was actually boring.
It's instructive how a mod with an av of someone in a pink bunny onesie can command so much instant contrition.
I was gonna suggest that if the US won the World Cup that we should be able to make the world start calling it "soccer" from now on.
The US team needed a European coach to get that far.
I don't really mind the term soccer actually, unless it's used derisively, but clearly American football is not the football.
That article reads like a Stephen Colbert 'The Word' segment.
So soccer is unamerican because it's accessible, it doesn't humiliate fat kids in gym class, because there's less distance between the skill level of men and women mostly due to not being based on upper body strength, and because you have to work together as a team.
You could argue American football is just as team-oriented if not more team-oriented than soccer. On any given play if every man on the field doesn't work together perfectly, horrible things will happen. Just, it's easier to pretend in American football that one person is solely responsible for the team's success because the TV camera only points at the quarterback and the receiver on any given play. In front of every great quarterback is a great offensive line.
And you know who REALLY believes in teamwork and working together? The military! You heard it here folks, ANN COULTER HATES OUR TROOPS!
With people like Ann Coulter, just replace the word 'American' with 'Dickish' and it reads more believably.
This does seem like it plods around the real reason it's hard to sell soccer in the US: Good dramatic narratives are harder to make up.
Anyway, this neither increases nor decreases my estimation of Ann Coulter's intelligence and sanity. This article seems about right.
I think a better critique of soccer from the POV of Americans is the episode of King of the Hill where a bunch of the football players on Bobby's team start jumping ship to soccer. Soccer isn't approached as competitively for children in American culture and it's often treated as a non-competitive alternative to football. However, Europeans and South Americans are just as crazy competitive about it as we are about football.
So soccer is unamerican because it's accessible, it doesn't humiliate fat kids in gym class, because there's less distance between the skill level of men and women mostly due to not being based on upper body strength, and because you have to work together as a team.
You could argue American football is just as team-oriented if not more team-oriented than soccer. On any given play if every man on the field doesn't work together perfectly, horrible things will happen. Just, it's easier to pretend in American football that one person is solely responsible for the team's success because the TV camera only points at the quarterback and the receiver on any given play. In front of every great quarterback is a great offensive line.
And you know who REALLY believes in teamwork and working together? The military! You heard it here folks, ANN COULTER HATES OUR TROOPS!
With people like Ann Coulter, just replace the word 'American' with 'Dickish' and it reads more believably.
This does seem like it plods around the real reason it's hard to sell soccer in the US: Good dramatic narratives are harder to make up.
Anyway, this neither increases nor decreases my estimation of Ann Coulter's intelligence and sanity. This article seems about right.
I think a better critique of soccer from the POV of Americans is the episode of King of the Hill where a bunch of the football players on Bobby's team start jumping ship to soccer. Soccer isn't approached as competitively for children in American culture and it's often treated as a non-competitive alternative to football. However, Europeans and South Americans are just as crazy competitive about it as we are about football.
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I've always thought soccer would be more popular in the US if the field were smaller. As it is, there's just too much damn distance.
Kick the ball really far...run after it...dribble it around for a while...kick the ball really far...run after it...dribble it around for a while...attempt to score a goal and only succeed 2% of the time...repeat ad nauseam....
I dunno. There's certainly a tremendous amount of athleticism involved, but sometimes it feels like you're watching someone run a marathon while eventually having to kick a ball.
There's small court soccer too, and recreationally it's actually more common (a couple kids kicking around a ball after school aren't playing on a full field), but as a spectator sport it's vastly less popular, for a variety of reasons.
In fact, thinking about it, I think you've got it all wrong; it's true that much of the time there isn't much happening in a soccer game, but there's always the potential of something happening any second, and I think that tension fuels the excitement of the sport. Constant action would destroy that aspect.
In fact, thinking about it, I think you've got it all wrong; it's true that much of the time there isn't much happening in a soccer game, but there's always the potential of something happening any second, and I think that tension fuels the excitement of the sport. Constant action would destroy that aspect.
If soccer catches on in the US it's not going to be because the media pushed it more, it's going to be because the attitude toward kids' soccer competition becomes more competitive.
In Europe in South America, kids who are seriously competitive go into soccer. They grow up playing soccer, become obsessed with it and dream about playing professionally.
In North America kids who are seriously competitive go into football, basketball, hockey, etc depending on what's regionally popular. Soccer in the US is oriented at less seriously competitive kids who want activity on the weekend, so fewer of the kids who play it become professional athletes.
In Europe in South America, kids who are seriously competitive go into soccer. They grow up playing soccer, become obsessed with it and dream about playing professionally.
In North America kids who are seriously competitive go into football, basketball, hockey, etc depending on what's regionally popular. Soccer in the US is oriented at less seriously competitive kids who want activity on the weekend, so fewer of the kids who play it become professional athletes.
The counter argument from the rest of the football enjoying world could look like this:
Start to play - make one attempt - interrupt the game to decide on next play - make that play - interrupt again for commercial - fail to get 1st down - kick the ball away as far as you can etc.
I like american football very much for the strategy it involves and for the sometimes brilliant single actions, especially when the ball gets carried right through the middle and the player weaves around the opponents.
However there's little flow in the game and i've heard it from many friends who have watched american football with me.. they are irritated by the constant breaks, stopping and rearranging the game for a few seconds of action each time.
Football has much strategy, especially at the highest pro level. It's about controlling the territory, disrupting the opponents game and creating open areas where you can punch through and try to score. Sometimes all it needs is a single key player missing to put the whole team at risk because the near blind understanding between experienced players is vital (and often enough beautiful to look at when they blindly pass the ball to each other).
Every game has its fans and like it or not football is much more popular around the world than american football. This alone seems to bother americans sometimes so much that you get such idiotic rants by Coulter though i believe she couldn't care less about sports but just wanted to be in the spotlight again.
They're obsessed by football because they want to become the stars the medias are selling to them.
The Nike ad was perfect : this is really how kids are playing football (well, in France when I was a kid, they would add some Captain Tsubasa characters
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