It's too bad, for I really like the sport; but there's something about it that just isn't appealing to the mass market. It's lacrosse and soccer on ice with an occasional fistfight thrown in, so why can't people love it? It's not as pretentious as lacrosse (and don't give me any trash about lacrosse not being pretentious--it's the sport that separates thugs with money from gentlemen with money--who invariably play polo), nor is it as wussy as soccer (sorry Steve, but I'll go to my grave believing that soccer is either lame, wussy, or lame and wussy), so why the la
ck in appeal?
Now's the time when someone rings in about how soccer is the most popular sport in the world, so I'm some kind of jank for ripping on it. Let me respond first. It's a pre-emptive response, and it's damn near nuclear in its devastation of the opposition.
Soccer is only popular because people in the impoverished damn countries that love it so much can't afford anything else. All you need for soccer is a freaking ball and four posts (two on each side, and they can be natural--e.g. trees--or manufactured--e.g. Pablo's younger brothers Juan, Roberto, Antonio, and Muhammad). If you don't have a ball, then you can just lop off someone's head and stuff it in a sack (if you're playing by Taliban rules, that is). It requires little strategy and is thus easy on the uneducated masses of countries like Angola and Mississippi.
That's why soccer is so popular amongst kids in the U.S. but not adults. While kids are simple-minded little mamma's boys (note that they're all from the middle class), they love soccer. Once their testes start to produce testosterone, they turn to football.
Indeed, football is a man's sport. It's aggressive, involves clearly outlined and executable "battle plans," and it's not something that someone can just pick up. It's like knighthood. You need the armor because it's brutal. In soccer, you might get hurt because you don't wear pads. In football you will get hurt if you don't wear pads, and you still might get hurt even if you do.
I would continue this rant, but Lost's season finale is on in about a minute.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Soccer: (n) Sport for wussies
For as big as hockey is in this town (it is still, I presume, Hockeytown?), it sure is hard to tell now that the beloved Wings are out of the playoffs. Check out the national sports sites. Hockey is a side note, a mere notch above horse racing, and sumo wrestling (but a couple of notches at least above sumo horse wrestling).
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Your intentions seem mixed: explain both the lack of popularity of hockey in the U.S. Market as well as completely, and ignorantly denigrate the sport of soccer by emasculating it with such articulate terms as “wussy” and “lame.” I will attend to your ignorant commentary regarding soccer, the original (and anywhere outside the U.S.) football. In response to your comment that soccer is only beloved by simpletons in impoverished nations, let me respond by listing such nations (at the brink of poverty) where soccer is the most popular sport in the land: England, France, Spain, Germany, Australia, etc. And since when does simplicity in design equate to a poor design; often the most simple designs of games and mechanisms are the best or most interesting (i.e. Chess or the wheel). Attacking a minority terrorist group in a nation whose most popular sport happens to be soccer is also rather rich...I thought you were above ad homonym at a legitimate rhetoric technique.
ReplyDeleteSoccer is not the most popular sport in the world (civilized and developing nations alike) by a small margin. In fact, at the most recent World Cup Soccer event in 2002 approximately 1.1 billion (with a b) viewers tuned in to watch the final match. Compare this figure with the ~130 million who tuned in to this past years Super Bowl – a staggering ~900% smaller viewing audience for the most popular spectator event within the United States.
As far as why the sport is becoming popular among children but hasn't seemed to blossom among adults, I blame two culprits: obesity and time. This country is the fattest in the world...by a long shot, with approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. overweight, 60 million obese, and 9 million severely obese according to the American Obesity Associate. My logic being that children in this country haven't yet had time to succumb to the fat culture in this country and are still healthy enough to enjoy the sport. Because, in fact, one must actually be a athlete to play soccer being that in an average 90 minute game each player will run 2-5 miles. My second point relates the baby boomer/gen x audience that grew up playing football, and now enjoy watching it played on a professional level. Before football became popular with the appearance of #19 Johnny Unitas in the early 70s, baseball was the spectator sport of choice in the country. People enjoy watching the sports they grew up playing because they know the ins-and-outs of their sport, and the soccer playing audience hasn't reached ripeness in this country.
You also insinuated that soccer was a game for simpletons and onviously requires no skill or strategy (since there are just a ball and two goals). This is an obviously display of your ignorance for the game. The game is 90 minutes divided up into two halves of continuous action in which the clock never stops. Players actually keep moving; they don't get a breather every 10 seconds or timeouts or commercial breaks. The resulting teams are made up of actual athletes that in no way resemble your aforementioned sumo wrestlers. This means that games actually require preparation and athletes who actually know what to do rather than taking instructions from the “war room” ever 30 seconds. The game of soccer is like a chess board. With only a few instructions to explain what each piece on the board can do, a player can move the pieces around, but only with skill and experience can a master use the pieces as a cohesive unit to achieve his objective. The same is true with soccer. A bunch of kids can kick the ball around, pretend to play defense, and score goals eventually. But only with a group of players who have skill, experience and health can one achieve an efficient soccer that passes the ball effectively, makes effective offensive runs, traps enemy forwards on defense, etc. The strategies of the game are only gained through experience and too expansive to explain here. Don't think they just show up and play each day.
As an afterthought, football players are forced to wear pads over their entire bodies. Soccer players wear only small shin pads and, while then do not run into each other like testosterone-crazed idiots, they are injured in the contact sport of soccer with much greater frequency than football. And if you can't “just pick up” football, why do all the kids on the block play pick-up games all the time?
You're wasting your time watching Lost? Watch a real show, one with real character development and first-rate actors that weren't pulled from minor parts in the Lord of the Rings. Hint from my experience with Gilligan's Island: When they get off the Island, the show is over.
I don't know if I have covered all of my points, but by now my entry is twice your original. Perhaps I can stop for a breather...like I'm playing American Football.
Drew said,
ReplyDelete"People enjoy watching the sports they grew up playing because they know the ins-and-outs of their sport, and the soccer playing audience hasn't reached ripeness in this country."
My response: who in the heck doesn't know the "ins-and-outs" of soccer? For God's sake, you run a round (a lot--and the brave don't run: cowards do), kick a ball (but don't dare touch it with your hands, and sometimes hit it with your head. If the game is in Britain, you might throw in a fist fight, but this wouldn't involve the players--it involves the spectators. My theory is that they're all tense and want to see some aggression. They're in Britain, they heard about a football game, knew none the better, only to show up and find a friggin' soccer match. I'd start throwing punches too.
Oh Drew, we're going to have fun this summer. I can feel it, what with my sharp posts and your attempted rebukes and my witty rebuttals.
Hey where did you get the picture of me playing soccer?
ReplyDeleteI think you're misusing the word "jank". Check out this site: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Jank
ReplyDelete