Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Well, it’s over. Some team from Europe won and it was—surprise—by a score of 1-0. Hundreds of millions of people watched all over world, including a few million here in the United States. However, if you read our nation’s sports pages (and front pages), you would think this event compared to the Super Bowl in terms of national interest.
Newspapers have traditionally tried to force-feed Americans on soccer, especially the World Cup. There’s a no-so-well-disguised scolding attitude to their coverage as they keep pointing out it’s the most popular sport in all the world except in this backwater nation of ours. If only Americans would embrace the grace and majesty of the game and join the rest of the world and hold hands and yada yada yada.
When I travel to Europe, I hear very little talk about Major League Baseball and the National Football league, and I find that neither surprising nor troubling. Those things are not parts of their culture, and if they prefer soccer or cricket or rugby or synchronized swimming, more power to them. As for me, and most Americans, soccer has not been part of our culture (even if it's played in schools quite a bit), and, while we may have a passing interest in events like the World Cup, we don’t much care about the sport as a whole.
I have nothing against those who love soccer and follow it; it’s just not my cup of Diet Coke. And I certainly understand the rabid interest of immigrants who came here from soccer-crazed nations. In other words, when it comes to sports, I figure it’s to each his own.
The coverage overkill in this country’s press hints at various causes Americans’ lack of interest, none of them especially complimentary. They suggest everything from xenophobia to a lack of appreciation of the subtleties of the game. (You know, like grabbing your leg, falling to the ground and writhing in pain when someone brushes against your elbow.) They’re also convinced that we hate it because they don’t score enough goals, implying, I guess, that we have a case of national A.D.D. Whatever the reasons, they all boil down to an apparently inescapable fact: we’re a bunch of rubes who just don’t get it.
Well, I do get it. I just don’t like it. So please stop trying to ram it down my throat. Go back to covering sports instead of trying to sell them.
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Jul '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Bravo! Someone finally saying what many of us are thinking.
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Absolutely, Pat. Plus, soccer doesn't have fans, it has supporters. I am not a fan of most sports, but I really would not prefer to be an athletic supporter. Puts "World Cup" in another light, as well as the fact that your hands can't - oh, never mind.
Jul '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Learned the game in junior high like many in my generation. Better than baseball because you could move around more and shake off the gnats, but still the sort of thing one only does under the tyrannical rule of a "Progressive" public education. The best scenery chewers in the drama club inevitably ended up on varsity.
Jul '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
One thing that I find amusing, there is at least one octopus that will not be turned into tapas by the Spanish, but may end up in an octowurst in Germany!
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Huzzah. I usually skim just enough World Cup news to mingle comfortably around the office coffee pot. I went for a hike in the Santa Cruz mountains with my wife yesterday, blissfully unaware that I was missing the Game of the Century, or whatever it was. Today I realized too late that I had no idea who won the dang thing.
May '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I travel quite a bit, although not too much to Europe these days. What I found interesting is when I was in Australia, they all wanted to show me how much they knew about American sports, mainly NFL and NBA. They actually broadcast quite a few NFL games in Australia I found. They of course wanted to see how much I new about Australian rules football and Rugby. Soccer barely came up, even leading into the World Cup.
Interest in NFL was similar in Chile, and I was able to watch quite a few games there too.
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I watched the game yesterday, in the United Airlines Red Carpet Club at Logan airport. I lived in Holland when I was a kid, and so I had a rooting interest in the game.
For the first hour.
And then my rooting interest faded. After an hour of scoreless play, my thoughts began to wander. I thought of Holland, of my old school chums. Wonder what Jan and Jeroen and Piet are up to these days? I thought of the cold winters, the canals, and then I began to think of Spain, of the Spanish coast, of jamon, and then I began to doze, drooling all over one of those club chairs.
And then they called my flight.
So, who won?
May '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
ESPN/ABC Sports has become an arm of the liberal elite. Their attempts to ram PC down the throats of American Sports fans is distasteful.
Pat, thanks for taking a principled stand on Soccer. I'm in total agreement. To boring for me.
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I don't watch much television on the road. I have a decent one in the 18 wheeler, but I spend most of my down time reading. I remember seeing the world cup on TV in a truck stop last week and thinking that this thing drags on longer than an ear infection...
May '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Here we go again. IMNSHO, this is "conservatism" at its worst. What, we have nothing better to do than to bash a sport?
I understand if it's not most Americans' cup of tea, that's fine. Take it or leave it.
Not being a big sports fan myself, I enjoy basically two sporting events: the Super Bowl and the World Cup. That's it. I can't bring myself to watch much more of any sport-- I could say the same thing you have all said about soccer, about almost any sport. Boring most of the time.
Speaking of boring-- Americans complain soccer is boring, but are then riveted to the TV watching-- golf.
May '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Where does conservative principle say anything about soccer? This is revolting.
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Chris, we seem to be saying the same thing. I'm not knocking the sport, but rather the selling of it by American media. I love baseball, but I can only imagine how boring it must seem to some.
May '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I understand some of the reaction against people who say or insinuate that our relative lack of interest in soccer says something about our relative lack of interest in other nations and the world in general. It's just grating to me that a sport which I enjoy (in great moderation-- once every 4 years) has to become politicized by one side or the other.
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I like the metric system only quadrennially, too.
May '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I'm sure the Dutch could have won, if they hadn't insisted on wearing wooden shoes.
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Chris Deleon: Here we go again. IMNSHO, this is "conservatism" at its worst. What, we have nothing better to do than to bash a sport?
I understand if it's not most Americans' cup of tea, that's fine. Take it or leave it.
Speaking of boring-- Americans complain soccer is boring, but are then riveted to the TV watching-- golf. · Jul 12 at 7:02pm
Hi Chris, I think you actually are on the same page with Pat (literally)! I actually enjoy the World Cup quite a bit, like you, but I also bristle at this media push for ALL people to love it. There's a snootiness to the coverage: like, Americans are dumb, Johnny-come-latelies to culture, what can you expect? Isn't a basic conservative idea to live and let live? I believe that's Pat's message, offered in his usual fun and funny style. If Pedro and Basil live for soccer, awesome. No need to force feed it to us. I fully agree with you, Chris, that golf is dreadfully boring. I might watch the Masters on a Sunday -- but that's about it.
May '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I'm far from a soccer fan but I watched part of the World Cup and actually enjoyed it. In my opinion one of the reasons soccer has not taken off in the US is because the best players do not play in the US. Watch an MLS game and then watch the game (excuse me, "match") between Germany and Spain. Both are technically soccer but there is a vast difference in the level of play. The World Football League did not take off, in part, because the best football players did not play overseas and it was an inferior game.
The selling of soccer, on the other hand, is all part of the Obamafication of America. Make us more like Europe and less like our imperial past. Don't we know that soccer is enlightened and nuanced, which is why it's so popular in Europe. If we as a bunch of violence loving Neanderthals can't understand that, well that's exactly why we need Obamacare, higher taxes and fewer freedoms to enlighten us. Telling us why we should love soccer is just another way for the MSM to sell us the (Eur)Obama plan.
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
Chris, I confess: I watched a lot of the World Cup. And so did Peter. But be fair: that final game was a snooze -- and it's not just me saying that. I watched it next to a guy from Spain, and even he was complaining. Up until they won, of course.
May '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I came into work Monday morning and a bunch of guys working construction in my building were standing around discussing the game. What held their interest? The incredibly brutal fouls visited on the Spanish team by the Dutch. There was plenty of action that had nothing to do with scoring or ball handling.
There might just be a future for this sport in the U.S. after all...
Jun '10
Re: Soccer: Take Your Medicine, America
I've tried very hard to like soccer, but haven't quite been able to cross over. Yes, there are great athletes who can move with elegance. Yes, the rare goal is worth seeing. And I love the nationalism aspect of it--phooie on all this gooey EU crap. It's great to see someone beat the crap out of the French (when they're not doing it to themselves).
But each time I watch, I find after fifteen minutes or so remembering errands I need to run or wondering whether it's time to fix the leaky toilet my wife has been reminding me of for months.
On the other hand, I've concluded that if life seems to be slipping by too fast, you should watch soccer (it can make two hours seem like a lot more), get regular root canals, or MRIs on your head (the combination of claustrophobia and noise can make 15 minutes seem like a year).