Soccer is un-American and Old World: the case against ESPN showing soccer

rondembo · Mar 11, 2010

Americans have little native skepticism. Our collective naivete takes many forms. One kind is a certain receptivity to foreign ideas, especially when they're presented as pleasure, or play.

I expect to get a lot of flack for posting an Anti-Soccer diatribe, which would be wonderful. We need a national debate about this backward foreign sport, before it overwhelms our home-grown, and much more interesting and enjoyable, sports attractions.

Soccer is the stupidest popular game ever invented. Accounts of its origin go all the way back to the Ninth Century in Asia. It was refined in the British Isles--from where it was exported all around the globe during the latter period of England's centuries of colonial dominance.

n America, we have baseball (invented here in the late 19th Century), American football (a superior hybrid form of European football, adapted and refined in the 19th & 20th Centuries), basketball (invented in the late 19th Century in America), and ice hockey (refined and adapted in North America from earlier versions played on ground surface in Europe). These sports are known as the "big four" in common parlance, and command the lion's share of fan support and interest in America and Canada.

It's unclear why a sport based on the exclusion of the use of the hands and arms (except by goal tenders) would become popular. Human physiology developed from quadrupedal locomotion, and our pre-human ancestors began to walk upright when they "dropped out of the trees" to occupy their place as eventual masters of the earth. Three distinct physiological advantages made this possible: The enlarged brain, the opposable thumb, and the use of our fore-limbs to manipulate objects (rather than just walking on them). In other words, our arms and hands are to a large extent, what makes us human--as opposed to dumb animals. Four-legged animals, and some two-legged animals and birds, are generally faster and more agile ground creatures than man. In sport, the use of the hands to manipulate objects and engage opponents is what makes contention, in effect, "human."

Why would humans invent a form of play which thwarted their primary asset in the physical world? To frustrate themselves? Why not a game in which the only "weapon" was the head, in which players butted each other like mountain goats cracking their horns together? Or one in which stepping on the opponents' feet to control or disable them was the object? Why not wrap the arms about like a constrained mental patient, or tape the mouth shut to prevent speech?

Setting up artificial resistances is part of what we might call game theory. Good team sports involve the coordination of bodies towards a goal. The best aspects of human intelligence, coordination, force, endurance, and manipulation of an object are brought into play, in order to achieve a desired end against a defending opponent. All the major (4) North American sports express these principles. They are all tributes to our ingenuity, physical agility, and strength.

Soccer, on the other hand, is much more fluid. The ball is more or less continuously in play. The primary contenders are not allowed to touch the ball with their hand, but must move it about primarily with their feet. Alignment is in a state of constant flux, with players constantly shifting position in anticipation of a change of possession or the forming and reforming of strategic phalanxes. Very little scoring generally takes place, because the movement of the ball is so difficult. This frustration, this thwarting of the human ability to hold and manipulate, to move the object, creates an overall sense of impatience. Impatience and frustration, in fact, seem the primary emotions one sees in the players during soccer matches. Why? Because they're striving against an artificial limit, one that prevents them from expressing their true human potential. If a man (or a woman) is "athletic" and possesses great gifts of coordination, agility, focus, concentration, etc., preventing them from using their hands and arms, hampers them from expressing their human abilities, forcing them down, to this degree, the evolutionary ladder to a position of an ambulatory bird (like the ostrich), whose wings are merely vestigial appendages.

The movement in America to expand soccer in the schools and professional venues is regressive. Believing, perhaps, that soccer is more fashionable and "universal" than our homegrown sports, middle-class parents and public schools have allowed soccer to shoulder aside traditional sports. Everywhere you look today, you see stripe-shirted youngsters running in circles in the grass. Hardly understanding what's happening, they spin around and dart back and forth, aimlessly, as the parents and "coaches" scream instructions to them.

People will say that children get more exercise playing soccer, but exercise per se has never been the main point of sport in general. And for players in childhood years, soccer participation lacks focus, as the tots wander from place to place on the field, trying to understand how to engage in the action. Because it's a game more about "position" than engagement, anticipation and accident are more important than any kind of physical skill.

Soccer is a ridiculous game, regressive and idiotic. Audiences typically become so frustrated and angry that fights and mob riots frequently occur (abroad). Do we really want to adopt this Old World anomaly as our national pastime? I earnestly hope not. We already have four of the best team sports in the world. We don't need soccer.
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Anyone else mad that ESPN keeps advertising soccer world cup and is putting soccer scores on the bottom ticker during our NBA games? Even worse are the commercials for freaking british soccer, who cares about manchester soccer team? This is America, we have superior and real sports that provide non-stop action and excitement, not irrelevant skinny white guys kicking a ball around for 4 hours.

Keep soccer off my TV and where it belongs (among the 5 year old children who haven't reached coordination or self-consciousness to realize soccer sucks, third world poor and eurogeeks who are too weak to play basketball, baseball or football).

three_bags_full · Mar 11, 2010

Oh, my.

GB-Hack · Mar 11, 2010

Batman · Dec 15, 2014

SportsJournalists.com's soccer fans don't take kindly to people bashing their sport, Rondembo.

And for a serious answer to your question, it's the World Freakin' Cup. It's like the Olympics, in that lots of people will watch because it's a top-level international competition (and one the U.S. might do well in, to boot), not necessarily because they're a fan of the sport.
Showing Premier League and UEFA games is a way to generate interest in said sport, as well as make a little coin for ESPN. It's similar to how some networks will show NFL games in the UK or Germany, or why the NBA plays games in Europe or MLB in Japan and Mexico.

GB-Hack · Mar 11, 2010

In reading that, the least the guy could do is actually understand the origin of 'American football' has far more to do with the sport of rugby than 'european football' ever did.

poindexter · Mar 11, 2010

Was that stolen from Jennalaine.com?

TheSportsPredictor · Mar 11, 2010

Keep rondumbo off my screen and where he belongs (in the playpen with the other children who have yet to develop motor function or coherent thought).

rondembo · Dec 15, 2014

Batman said:

SportsJournalists.com's soccer fans don't take kindly to people bashing their sport, Rondembo.

And for a serious answer to your question, it's the World Freakin' Cup. It's like the Olympics, in that lots of people will watch because it's a top-level international competition (and one the U.S. might do well in, to boot), not necessarily because they're a fan of the sport.
Showing Premier League and UEFA games is a way to generate interest in said sport, as well as make a little coin for ESPN. It's similar to how some networks will show NFL games in the UK or Germany, or why the NBA plays games in Europe or MLB in Japan and Mexico.
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world cup soccer is a "top-level international competition"? Not really, it doesn't feature any famous athletes or anybody that has any importance in mainstream culture, its not even close to the Olympics since Micheal Phelps, Usain Bolt..etc are all household names but nobody I know could name you a single soccer player not named Beckham.

fishhack2009 · Mar 11, 2010

Ugh. This guy again?

Get a freakin' life, dude.

Armchair_QB · Mar 11, 2010

I think people around here know how much I loathe soccer - primarily because of the pompous windbags who look down at anyone who does not absolutely love their sport - but the World Cup is such a huge event that it almost demands that you watch whether you appreciate the sport or not.

That said, the NHL should be on ESPN before a West Ham-Wolverhampton game or, God forbid, the fucking MLS.

ESPN doesn't show minor league baseball, I don't know why they feel the need to show minor league domestic soccer.

Armchair_QB · Dec 15, 2014

rondembo said:

Batman said:

SportsJournalists.com's soccer fans don't take kindly to people bashing their sport, Rondembo.

And for a serious answer to your question, it's the World Freakin' Cup. It's like the Olympics, in that lots of people will watch because it's a top-level international competition (and one the U.S. might do well in, to boot), not necessarily because they're a fan of the sport.
Showing Premier League and UEFA games is a way to generate interest in said sport, as well as make a little coin for ESPN. It's similar to how some networks will show NFL games in the UK or Germany, or why the NBA plays games in Europe or MLB in Japan and Mexico.
Click to expand...

world cup soccer is a "top-level international competition"? Not really, it doesn't feature any famous athletes or anybody that has any importance in mainstream culture, its not even close to the Olympics since Micheal Phelps, Usain Bolt..etc are all household names but nobody I know could name you a single soccer player not named Beckham.
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Dude, that's just fucking ignorant.

TheSportsPredictor · Dec 15, 2014

rondembo said:

Batman said:

SportsJournalists.com's soccer fans don't take kindly to people bashing their sport, Rondembo.

And for a serious answer to your question, it's the World Freakin' Cup. It's like the Olympics, in that lots of people will watch because it's a top-level international competition (and one the U.S. might do well in, to boot), not necessarily because they're a fan of the sport.
Showing Premier League and UEFA games is a way to generate interest in said sport, as well as make a little coin for ESPN. It's similar to how some networks will show NFL games in the UK or Germany, or why the NBA plays games in Europe or MLB in Japan and Mexico.
Click to expand...

world cup soccer is a "top-level international competition"? Not really, it doesn't feature any famous athletes or anybody that has any importance in mainstream culture, its not even close to the Olympics since Micheal Phelps, Usain Bolt..etc are all household names but nobody I know could name you a single soccer player not named Beckham.
Click to expand...

So you hang out with ignorant idiots. And?

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Soccer is un-American and Old World: the case against ESPN showing soccer

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Soccer is un-American and Old World: the case against ESPN showing soccer

rondembo New Member

three_bags_full Well-Known Member

GB-Hack Active Member

Batman Well-Known Member

GB-Hack Active Member

poindexter Well-Known Member

TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

rondembo New Member

fishhack2009 Active Member

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Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

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