American Sport

[pmcd9]

I happen to find myself on one of the Spanish language stations the other night and they were broadcasting the news.  I think I stopped because they were doing a report on a boxing match.  But then they started covering a "football" match that ended in a 0 - 0 tie.  Despite there being no scoring they had a lot of "highlights" to show. 

It was at this time that it occurred to me why Americans don't care for this sport.  To compare it to American football it was like watching drive after drive after drive that went deep into the red zone and then culminated with a missed field goal.  It was very frustrating to watch.

[littlefallsmets]

It's like throwing a superball into a small room as hard as you can while people scream in languages you can't quite identify.

There's a lot of action and yelling but after the shock of the cacophony, you start to realize that...

Nothing quantifiable is actually happening.

A series of frenetic bounces here and there, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[Drygioni]

I happen to find myself on one of the Spanish language stations the other night and they were broadcasting the news.  I think I stopped because they were doing a report on a boxing match.  But then they started covering a "football" match that ended in a 0 - 0 tie.  Despite there being no scoring they had a lot of "highlights" to show. 

It was at this time that it occurred to me why Americans don't care for this sport.  To compare it to American football it was like watching drive after drive after drive that went deep into the red zone and then culminated with a missed field goal.  It was very frustrating to watch.

It is the eternal football vs. American sports argument.

All your popular sports are high scoring games. This lends itself to the kinds of stats obsessed wizardry American fans seem to crave, whilst also meaning that the status quo is, normally, upheld. The better team on the day normally wins in a high-scoring game. This is not a bad thing. It's also more enjoyable for families and those not as versed in the sport, I am guessing.

For football fans, like myself, there is a lot of beauty in those highlights. Yes, it can be frustrating watching your team ALMOST score a goal multiple times only to finish scoreless. It is even more frustrating if your team does this but the other team nick a last minute goal. There are a lot of 'lucky' results. But at the end of the day I love it for that, it goes for you as often as it does against you and a match is never predictable and hence always watchable.

I appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the game itself when played well. Something as small as the creation of space to keep possession, a crunching but fair tackle, or a beautiful piece of trickery to create an opening, are 'highlights'. There are often a lot of these each game. Even if it's a physical aerial slug-fest there's a certain visceral pleasure that derives from the physical battle between centre-forward and centre-half and the midfielders.

Of course, compared to your favourites sports, it's different and will therefore seem uninteresting.

America/Canada are probably the only two nations in the world where football is not the first or the second most popular sport, off the top of my head. It seems strange that the most popular sport in the world is so relatively low-key there, maybe in Canada less so. The MLS is growing though apparently and your national team has been impressive recently so maybe things are turning around. You don't produce a lot of natural footballers (yet) due to the lack of footballing culture but you do produce finely-tuned athletes who are well-disciplined tactically and very professionally minded.

Anyway this is a movie thread so that's all I have to say on the matter. And I am tired.

Oh wait LFM is here

It's like throwing a superball into a small room as hard as you can while people scream in languages you can't quite identify.

There's a lot of action and yelling but after the shock of the cacophony, you start to realize that...

Nothing quantifiable is actually happening.

A series of frenetic bounces here and there, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Actually screw it. I've had this debate many times and it's clear cultural differences are the only thing mattering here. I could get the most eloquent, passionate football expert in the world to explain to you why football is a great sport. Equally, you could get a similarly erudite and engaging speaker on why American sports are better. But neither of us will change our opinions and only grow further entrenched in our own beliefs making us less and less likely to view the sports without a certain agenda in mind.

Good day to you sir.

[wombat]

What no one has ever been able to explain to me is this: how did soccer, a game that people riot and beat each other up about in other countries, become a sport for little children in this country?

Not only does no one explain it, it's like no one else even notices how weird it is. Why do all these little suburban kids play soccer? Is the trick that it's a sport that their educated parents can be sure they won't grow up to play professionally instead of being doctors and lawyers?

[Drygioni]

What no one has ever been able to explain to me is this: how did soccer, a game that people riot and beat each other up about in other countries, become a sport for little children in this country?

Not only does no one explain it, it's like no one else even notices how weird it is. Why do all these little suburban kids play soccer? Is the trick that it's a sport that their educated parents can be sure they won't grow up to play professionally instead of being doctors and lawyers?

Oh come on. Every kid here and pretty much everywhere else in the world plays football from a young age. Why should America be any different? I'm just confused here. Playing football at a young age means you won't grow up playing the sport? 

Certain sections of football fans beat each other up but in most cases it is gang-related. You'll always get spacktards beating each other up, sport is just a convenient excuse. I've been to many many matches at all levels of the footballing strata and never personally experienced any violence.

[CortJstr]

What no one has ever been able to explain to me is this: how did soccer, a game that people riot and beat each other up about in other countries, become a sport for little children in this country?

Not only does no one explain it, it's like no one else even notices how weird it is. Why do all these little suburban kids play soccer? Is the trick that it's a sport that their educated parents can be sure they won't grow up to play professionally instead of being doctors and lawyers?

Apparently DC's goalie from last year only made $46K so while you can play professionally it might not actually be worth doing so.

My theory is that soccer is safe for little kids while still being athletic. They're running constantly thus getting exercise (unlike baseball which seems to be roughly as taxing as shuffleboard) while still having very little physical contact thus little risk of the kids getting hurt (unlike football/lacrosse). Plus the rules are so simple (offsides excepted) that you can send the kids out there at age 4 and they still get it.

Judy, I think part of the problem is that on the surface soccer is set up in a very similar way to hockey. And while hockey is generally very low scoring (by our standards) there are still usually 5 or so goals per game. Plus there are fights. Thus according to a theory I just made up most prospective soccer fans in the US become hockey fans instead because it's like soccer but more exciting.

[wombat]

Oh come on. Every kid here and pretty much everywhere else in the world plays football from a young age. Why should America be any different? I'm just confused here. Playing football at a young age means you won't grow up playing the sport? 

In the US it does - what are the odds a US kid is going to be a professional soccer player? Whereas if you played baseball or something there's the danger you'd have the dumb idea of wanting to do that professionally.

US kids have not always played soccer. No one had heard of it when I was a kid. This is something that happened in my lifetime and there is no good reason for it, since there is no tradition of the sport in this country.

[littlefallsmets]

However, Judy, I might also be mostly a baseball fan and only taking up in the soccer-vs-football debate to gently rib you, but not in the way that jay-elle wants to "gently rib" you. It is important to consider this as a possibility. haha.

ALSO wombles:

Basically, soccer is a sport that requires almost no equipment beyond a ball, a municipal field with two goals on it that would exist anyway and... possibly cleats but even that's really only if you're looking to buy SOMETHING. And while it is POTENTIALLY a really violent sport, there's no inherent violence or even inherent incidental violence like fouling trying to block a shot in basketball or something.

Beyond that, I mean, there's not a lot of obvious strategy to it. You don't set up plays in the manner of a baseball pitcher or a basketball or football playbook. Maybe there... are for all I know... but nothing that's clear to an outside obverser. There's a ball, you try to either kick it into a net or kick it to your friend to kick it in the net or kick it away from the other dude trying to kick it into the net.

So it's easy as hell for some dad off the street to kinda-sorta-competently coach.

You can have an organized excuse to get your kids to run around in circles and be slightly less fat without having to think too much, pay for too much extra or risk your Little Lord Fauntelroys from actually getting hurt by a tackle or a wild pitch or a pick-and-roll or something.

And how American is that, if you think about.

Fast, disorganized, no-contact and inexpensive but everyone gets to pretend they're "really enriching their kids".

Just WRITING the above sentence, three tiny men started singing the Battle Hymn of The Republic behind my head.

[wombat]

When I have asked this question this is the only answer people have ever given - the explanation of why soccer is a good sport for children.

That doesn't really explain what I am asking. Which is where the hell did it come from? How did someone think of it? Who was watching a bunch of drunken Englishmen beat each other up (Sorry Judy but that is my mental image of the sport) and said "That would be great for eight year olds"?  Is there one person who had this idea who we should hold responsible?

[littlefallsmets]

Oh. Gotcha.

A bunch of white suburban liberal progressive parent-types, such as the people profiled in "Stuff White People Like" thought that because soccer was European it was a more classy thing to put their kids to task at and then the thing memetically mutated into the orange-slice everybody-wins clusterfuck that spread across the country. This is the story as I understand it, that classic "it is from Europe so it must be classy" thing, even though Actual Europeans use it as an excuse to chant racist slogans at each others' minority players and so forth.

I do not say this with bitterness, though.

I was actually the best goalie in the entire Little Falls-Dolgeville AYSO when I was a child.

(I took up half the goal, because I was tall and fat, and I could kick the ball a long way, because I was tall and fat.)

[miles]

In the US it does - what are the odds a US kid is going to be a professional soccer player? Whereas if you played baseball or something there's the danger you'd have the dumb idea of wanting to do that professionally.

US kids have not always played soccer. No one had heard of it when I was a kid. This is something that happened in my lifetime and there is no good reason for it, since there is no tradition of the sport in this country.

I played soccer up until 7th grade. (I stopped because I sucked at it, but given the chance I would totally play some pick up games here and there. Don't enjoy playing it as much as basketball but it's a close second.) The reason for that is that I had a good time doing it. I didn't care about tradition and the fact that no one in previous generations played it. And now because so many Americans my age played it growing up it is tradition. I don't know the history. But really every sport that is popular in America wasn't always. Does soccer just interest you because it was popular for so long internationally before it was here?

And regarding the chances of American kids playing soccer professionally--that's not why kids play sports. Sure, some of them get the dumb idea that they will do it professionally, but most don't beyond a very young age, and still play beyond that because they enjoy playing.

[AugustWest]

Soccer is fun as hell to play, but I can't stand watching it.

My knees are fucked up in large part because of playing soccer, but I'd do it again. 

[littlefallsmets]

I mean, though, that COULD be part of it, too.

Since soccer has basically no cultural relevance in America and since it is still a sport where a child will make more money growing up to be a specialist doctor than as a soccer player in America, it DOES kind of have that particular place in our culture for people who aren't trying to delusionally push their children into being the sportstars they wished they had been.

The irrelevance to the adult world, in a perverse manner, is the thing that makes it perfect for the young.

And the Battle Hymn starts playing again...

[pmcd9]

I think it's interesting that Americans established their own distinct sporting culture separate from Europe.  Most of our culture we brought from Europe with us, but we created our own sports.  That is something I find interesting.

[CortJstr]

Soccer is fun as hell to play, but I can't stand watching it.

I used to think this before I went to a game and stood in the supporters' section. That shit is insane. They sing songs, set off smoke bombs, and hold up giant "Evil Empire" banners. Plus go apeshit whenever the home team scores.