Yes.
World Cup 2010 - South Africa Thread
- Thread starter Jax
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Who said anything about "glorious"
Who said anything about "glorious"
Some qualifications mean something, some don't.
Who said anything about "glorious"
Some qualifications mean something, some don't.
On the contrary, a qualification by its very definition means something
Indeed, but that's different to the original point that you made, in that qualification must equate to you being good. It doesn't. It simply means that you're the best of a very mediocre qualification group.
Qualification should be regional. That way the finals would be truly representative of the best 32 sides in the world, instead of us having nations from footballing backwaters, whilst superior European and South American nations sit it out.
The point was that you like sports that you're good at, and dislike sports that you're not. The result of the Beijing olympics was that a number of your broadcasters were such bad losers that they had to change the way the medals table was displayed to show The US at the top, whereas in truth China actually finished top of the table.
Yes, but I think you missed my original point. This was that there's a general complaint that football is too stop-start, where in truth, this is ironic given the stop-start nature of your own sports like Grid Iron and Baseball.
Baseball's your national sport isn't it?
You've got the biggest, and most prestiguous league structure in the world, and the actual world cup of Baseball AFAIK, is relatively low profile/low key, hence I'm not surprised that's it's still incredibly popular in the US.
Mirth aside, football's lack of popularity in the US is two-fold;
1) You're not as good at it as a country with your sporting enthusiasm and drive should be.
2) Football has to compete with a number of socially and historically engrained sports already in the US; Grid Iron, Ice Hockey, Basketball, Baseball etc. The only way this would ever have a chance of changing is if you became very, very good at Football. Unfortunately, this is a chicken and egg scenario which is unlikely to be broken.
The USA does have a very easy path to qualifying for the World Cup (Mexico too), but it's not their fault that there are a lot of countries in the CONCACAF zone - which therefore holds a significant amount of power in the FIFA (Jack Warner of Trinidad is a legendarily powerful (and corrupt) player in FIFA politics), of which surprisingly few have strong national teams. The USA deserves their spot in the World Cup.
A few years ago Australia switched qualification region, going from Oceania to the Asia qualifiers.
The US would be as well going into the South American qualifying group. They'd have a tougher route to navigate, but in the long run would help them improve immensely.
The US would be as well going into the South American qualifying group. They'd have a tougher route to navigate, but in the long run would help them improve immensely.
Who said anything about "glorious"
Some qualifications mean something, some don't.
On the contrary, a qualification by its very definition means something
I think we're facing a cultural difference here : you're focusing on the result while I'm focusing on the style.
The medal table is traditionally sorted by overall number of medals first and not gold-silver-bronze in the USA.
And the issue of why association football isn't more popular in the US is much more complex than that they aren't very good at it.
Whilst possibly true of some broadcasters, certainly not true of all.
A moot point either way, given that the correct representation IS gold>silver>bronze rather than total.
That was never my point. My point was that American's don't hate soccer because we aren't the best at it
I know that's your point. I disagree however
I can't judge either way, I had military obligations that prevented me from watching the Beijing Olympics. That being said, I don't see how your statements about commentators impact this
I've never heard anyone make this complaint before. I have heard people say that it is boring but not because it is stop-start
Most would argue that it's football (the American one). There is only one American baseball team worth more than a billion dollars. There are multiple football teams worth more than a billion dollars, which is pretty impressive since they only play 16 games a year. It might also interest you to know that there is a large segment of the American population who find baseball boring, so no it isn't just a soccer thing.
I remember being surprised at seeing a US style medal table during the 1992 winter olympics when I was a kid, I think they've always done it that way.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time our cultures clashed
And in regards to France and qualifying for the World Cup in style - sooo, you're saying Ireland should have gone to South Africa, Carrie? 
Indeed. As someone who loves to play soccer and played in school I have a pretty good view of what happens. It's a combination of factors. One of the absolute biggest is that soccer never caught on long ago (were talking a hundred years ago).
As a result professional leagues never really developed in the US to the same extent that Baseball (which traces its roots to around the mid 1800s) or American Football (goes back to the 1800s as well). Basketball is sort of similar, though it's rise has more to do with being cheap and easy to play in crowded cities.
Since those two sports became fairly well entrenched early on, they're clearly going to have more influence. That leads to a chain of events where those two sports are where the scholarship money is going to go to. If that is where the scholarship money goes then the athletic kids are going to spend more time with those sports than with soccer. It should be stated that soccer is a very very common sport for elementary school kids through middle school. It's around high school where you see a shift.
American's don't hate soccer because we suck at it nor is it because we have issues with the outside world. American's just don't get it because it isn't part of our culture like it is to Europeans.
I think that's how they were doing it for the 2010 Winter Olympics as well. To be honest, I never really paid much attention to it until I read this thread
The USA had one of the strongest, maybe even the strongest professional soccer leagues in the world in the 1920s, and it was very popular too. >> wikipedia link
I read an article once that - in short - made the argument that the FIFA itself is in large part responsible for the lack of interest in the USA because when this league collapsed during the Great Depression due to conflicts with FIFA (they didn't like the league and tried to destroy it, for a variety of reasons), the American public was so disgusted by the way a European sports organisation tried to influence a domestic league that the sport never really recovered until many generations later.
I read an article once that - in short - made the argument that the FIFA itself is in large part responsible for the lack of interest in the USA because when this league collapsed during the Great Depression due to conflicts with FIFA (they didn't like the league and tried to destroy it, for a variety of reasons), the American public was so disgusted by the way a European sports organisation tried to influence a domestic league that the sport never really recovered until many generations later.
Fair enough, but that's not how the intent of your response came across.
Quite easy, you like to win, hence the manipulation of the medals table. Unfortunately you can't blag your way to a world cup win.
I've heard it plenty, but I've never understood the complaint myself. Especially considering that if anything, when the WC was in the US in '94 you wanted to have more stops and turn games into 3 periods rather than 2 halves. As I said, ironic. Perhaps it's no longer as rife a complaint as it used to be, but like I said, I've heard that complaint from Americans plenty of times.
Generally, any ball not involving 'ball into net' is boring. There are a couple of exceptions to this however; Rugby which doesn't involve a net, and Basketball, which does.
Good for you.
Can't speak for the Winter Olympics as I rarely watch much of it.
As far as the Summer Olympics go, I think it differs between broadcasters. I certainly remember seeing some of them showing the traditional medal view (ie. G>S>B).
Indeed. Much better for the sport in this country than previous world cups, where games like Urugary and Iraq are bad memories. But tonight, my sporting mind is disappointed for another sport and reason.
