The 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off on Friday, with the United States slated to play England this weekend. For the 10th time since 1950, citizens of the two countries will square off over a game they call by different names. Given that so much of the world favors football, why do Americans call the game soccer?
Soccer is the most popular, most watched and most played sport on the planet
The entire continent of Africa vs Mexico?
Jeebus Crackers good...a place for it all to congregate which I then can ignore.
http://www.slate.com/id/2255959/ (http://www.slate.com/id/2255959/)
How do they decide which team is "home" for matches like these match-ups? Of course I'm assuming that the World Cup even uses the "Visitor at Home" standard for scoring.
11th JuneAre you posting from the future? Did these games happen while us American lumps were sleeping? I think you're pulling a fast one.
TODAY'S MATCHES
South Africa vs. Mexico
Judy's Prediction - 1-1
I know it's going to sound like I'm just firing for effect but...
How can you have an upper hand in a soccer game until you have a goal?
Until someone scores, all that has been concretely accomplished is a bunch of dudes in gym shorts passing a ball around at mid-field. This kills me about hockey too but at least in hockey there's a lot MORE shots on goal and at least a few fights. Without intermediate progressions toward scoring, such as yards or men on-base... it seems silly to say one team has momentum or control.
Is it just whichever team has been passing it amoungst their own guys more? Is it just whichever team has taken more... shots on goal, even if they weren't necessarily good shots?
These don't seem like actual good signifiers of "upper hand". It all seems painfully arbitrary.
LFM, try this as an easy (if somewhat ham-handed) metric. Momentum is with the team that is keeping the ball down by the other team's goal a larger portion of the time.
Well, maybe that's part of why I'm not that into boxing, either?
I'm not saying that you're crazy to enjoy it, I'm just saying that I can't understand how you can enjoy something so narratively unclear. If I'm going to put three hours into watching something, if there's not a relatively clear story told, I'm going to be bored to tears. Without SOME kind of incrimental milestones in the action, to my eyes, it's just a bunch of dicks kicking the ball around except for the minute or two of aggregate action that's actually shots on goal.
I don't know how to enjoy it. I appreciate your attempts to help me, though.
Abloo abloo (...)how you can enjoy something so narratively unclear.
I think we went through this in another thread, and if IIRC it all boiled down to something like: In soccer, it's possible to appreciate isolated moments - leading or not to a score - that are beautiful or ingenious in their own way. Even if you can't unfortunately, tap that resource of pleasure for yourself, you should be able to concede intellectually that an entire sport was built around the excitement, dread and anticipation that ensue from the physical challenge that is controlling a ball with one's foot; the recognition of these attributes of beauty or ingenuity being possible by having dicked around with a ball long enough to develop an appreciation of how fuck*ng difficult it is to have the thing doing what you want it to do.
there's no scoring in soccer.
Judy's Prediction - 2-0
Looking forward to the Krauts vs. the Aussies.
In other news, the Lakers will go up 3-2 tonight on the road.
What's the big deal?
Minor league baseball as I grew up understanding it was essentially an exercise in using noisemakers very similar to that.
Blowing big plastic horns and chasing down foul balls. That was the whole POINT of being a kid at a NY-Penn League game.
It is weird to me that they're treating this like a new thing.
You either love them or you hate them. We in South Africa love them.
Maybe we're too used to corporate American sporting events where all the good seats are taken up by non-fans trying to impress business contacts?
In France, there's big, big noise about it. Viewers are completely mad by it ... it's very difficult to hear this permanent noise.
Thanks for that, miles. It is good to know, here in the purple and gold heart of Laker-Land, that someone else wants them to fail as hard as I do.
Last nights loss tasted like mint.
Here is a pro-vuvuzela article:
http://deadspin.com/5563628/in-defense-of-the-vuvuzela
Yeah, I tend to agree with your earlier post that the continuous nature of the sound just makes it kind of annoying. It would be one thing to blast it when something interesting happens, but from the sound of things, there are people who just blow their horns non-stop throughout the match. How can you actually, you know, watch while you're doing that?
Here is a pro-vuvuzela article:
http://deadspin.com/5563628/in-defense-of-the-vuvuzela
America Watches World Cup (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/4703732566/)
Haha, liked that. Never understood NASCAR, it's like a massive Southern thing though isn't it?
Oh hell yes. If the Lakers lose tomorrow night I'm calling in sick the next day. AND getting into a fight.
Generally, although the fans are everywhere. Plenty of them out of the city in upstate NY, where the ratio of obese people on scooters rises one millionfold.
America Watches World Cup (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/4703732566/)
Far as I can find out, that Rangers game started at 8:10(ET) and you say saturday night. You know the USA-England (2:30et)game had been over for almost 4 hours by the time that baseball game started right? It was night in South Africa, not Texas.
Oh god I am looking forward to Spain
How 'bout now?
FUERZA CHILE.
my grandparents still live there, and I have been there twice, so as far as I'm concerned they're MY TEAM.
YEAHH. I SHOULD HAVE WATCHED THAT GAME. DAMNIT.
Only because the US team is such as a bag of rocks, covered in dried saliva. Give us a team with a chance of being 0.001% relevant in the sport and that might shift.
Remember, we're an immigrant nation. That makes it easy to find ancestors who were poor as owl dung and were probably good at a game as simple as something round and a patch of dirt and feet.
don't get me wrong, I am OK with soccer/football. Once I started viewing it as an unending tapestry of potential athletic artistry mixed with on-the-fly tactics it got cool in my head.
I don't actually really follow sports. If I were home right now, I would be watching the games with my Grandfather probably, and he is Chilean. I guess I don't really get to pick a favorite team since I am not watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSwQYmUva0I
Do many of you US lot support the national team or do you look towards your ancestry? Seems to be a theme with quite a few US soccer fans I know
BWAHAHAHA FUCK OFF FRANCE
Mexico 1 - 0 France, 25 minutes left
Jesus (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/5297052/ce/us/south-african-man-killed-wife-kids-changing-tv-germany-australia-game?cc=5901&ver=us)
Do many of you US lot support the national team or do you look towards your ancestry? Seems to be a theme with quite a few US soccer fans I know
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/18/usa-foul-call-controversi_n_617364.html
Maybe Judy will have better insight, but to me it's bullshit. Can't believe it.
A crazy day in soccer. England draws, Germany loses, and this bullshit.
My favorite moment of this World Cup so far:
http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2010/06/21/obeying-technical-issues/
So what's the story on the non-handshake?
so that lines up US v Ghana and England v Germany?
If history has taught us anything, America and England need to team up for Germany to lose.
The only other thing known to defeat them is a good strong Russian winter.
I mean, the pattern's already set, right? France just sort of gave up early?
Holy SHIT I wish I had been watching that game live today. I don't care if Landon Donovan never scores another goal again--he's pretty well cemented his place as greatest American soccer player ever.
Top top analysis there. Canned
Agreed, double canned.
Yet after the show, I was reminded about why when the United States wins in international tournaments, it can bring a nasty undercurrent in its wake.
a douche (http://www.thenation.com/blog/36567/after-donovans-goal-joy-or-jingoism).
Aggressive patriotism in international sporting events is hardly a singly American phenomenon, is it?
OR NOTHING. QUITE POSSIBLY. ONLY TWO THINGS HAPPENED IN A WHOLE HOUR-AND-A-HALF.
George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, General Custer, Al Capone, Jesse James, Babe Ruth, J Edgar Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Vince Lombardi, OJ Simpson, Homer Simpson, Michael Jackson, Johnny Cash, Mickey penis, John F Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Colonel Sanders, Jack Bauer, Henry Kissenger, Stephen Spielberg, Andy Roddick, Tiger Woods, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr, Paul Revere, Mark Twain, the guy from the Sopranos, Seth McFarlane, Tom Cruise, that guy with magic underwear who created Mormons, Al Pacino, Tim Howard, Landon Donovan, Bob Bradley, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, BILL MURRAY. Your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!
Ahhhh, I dunno.
It just feels like I can breathe again.
Because... you know... now ABC/ESPN won't have blind nationalism to try and shove this down my throat.
You couldn't develop a sport less compelling for the purposes of how American sports broadcasting traditionally works if you tried, though
You may have a point Linear, but it's sport, it's fun as human being to support your country whether they're awesome or terrible simply for the emotions it provides as they succeed/fail.
Hey AugustWest chill out bro I appreciate littlefallsmets comments. Your attitude is kind of stifling. What's wrong with some intelligent sociopolitical analysis in the middle of a thread about soccer. You're really buttressing what littlefallsmets is saying because your intolerance of littlefallsmets' comments combined with your lack of interest in sociopolitical subject matter is the sort of attitude that is the precursor if not the heart of nationalism gone off the deep end. Sure your argument is valid that maybe some of the people in this thread just don't care about anything other than having some fun talking about soccer, but, why the hostility, why the attempt to enforce what you/them like/want in this thread? Isn't it better to have a little diversity of ideas, to have one idea fork off into another idea unexpectedly? You're coming across like me when I'm channeling my inner twit.
You're coming across like me when I'm channeling my inner twit.
i thought that was your default mode.
just because something is fun and provides positive emotions doesn't mean it isn't also destructive and doesn't come with negative consequences. you should try to be aware of the consequences of actions.
Yeah, not to belabour this (even more) but just for consistency's sake, yes absolutely the vast majority of the Olympics do indeed piss me off for the very same reason.
Curling! For fuck's sake.
NBC needs to make their money back so I'm supposed to be interested in curling!
John Cleese (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sD_8prYOxo) on Soccer vs. Football.
And to describe the creativity of soccer he compares it to another great American invention, Jazz!
at least in the NFL, two people kick the ballTechnically, any player in possession of the ball can punt it. American rules state that once a player on the same team as the punter touches the ball, play ends and the ball is dead. Canadian rules allow anyone to advance a punted ball, so desperation plays involving a receiver kicking the ball downfield actually happen with some frequency. In American rules the only rational use of the punt is the 4th down play we've all seen.
only America it seems has the creativity to invent sports of our own.
I wonder why people don't feel compelled to shit on NASCAR the same way they shit on soccer.
I've been watching the games on my computer at work but I just realized that due to the schedule I may have to, for the first time in my life, find out what channel ESPN is and actually turn it on.
Ahem. Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football) and Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_football) would like to disagree with you.
Up yours Uruguay. Handballing cheating nobbers.
Interesting Robo-G, I'm calling a Dutch victory though it'll be close.
Of course it'll be close. The most lopsided victory I've seen so far was 4-0.
Of course it'll be close. The most lopsided victory I've seen so far was 4-0.
maybe they should make every goal worth 2 or 3 points, like basketball. then americans could love soccer.
Of course it'll be close. The most lopsided victory I've seen so far was 4-0.
Whilst I was going to dismiss that by just saying it's all relatively speaking, you do make an interesting point. Football, by nature, is generally a much closer game than most other sports. For example:
In this game (http://www.cafonline.com/competition/african-cup-of-nations-angola_2010/match/773-angola-mali) one team was winning 4-0 with 12 minutes left to play. In football, that is a drubbing. However, the other team managed to score 4 to equalise in those remaining minutes plus extra time. So how 'close' is 4-0 actually then if a team can do that? That's another part of the brilliance though, because the margins are so fine a game is never really over, especially in a cup competition when players are fired up and there's nothing to lose. Winning 2-0 and controlling the game? Well, if the other team score one lucky goal with 5 minutes to go and it's 2-1, you've got a completely different game.
Like the Dutch yesterday; winning comfortably 3-1, Uruguay get a late goal from a free-kick to make it 3-2 and suddenly the Dutch are having to defend goalmouth scrambles.
If it makes you feel better you can think of it as 28-0
The team in possession of the ball has an arsenal of tricks designed to kill the clock.
This has always really bothered me. It's like a glitch in a video game.The younger breed of american football players are more and more implementing tricks that work in Madden. Namely, if they have a break away run to score a touchdown, they'll run along the end zone line to shave a couple seconds off the clock before scoring.
I know that is a bad metaphor, but it bugs me.
At the risk of agitating LFM, anyone following Le Tour?
The Dutch were horrible, horrible bastards and deserved nothing. A disgrace to the likes of Cruyff and Van Basten.
The bicycle thing doesn't piss me off.
I mean, I'm not interested in it but... the television isn't berating me to like it or else I'm some kind of asshole.
So I'm hardly actively offended by it.
The Dutch were horrible, horrible bastards and deserved nothing.
What did the Dutch do?
The Dutch? The cute, tulip-growing, chocolate-eating Dutch with their cute language that sounds like fairy-tale creatures speak it?
Sport is weird.
In Total Football, a player who moves out of position is replaced by another member of the team, thus retaining the team's intended organizational structure. In this fluid system, no player is fixed in a nominal role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder and a defender. The only player fixed in a nominal position is the goalkeeper.
Total Football's tactical success depends largely on the adaptability of each footballer within the team, in particular the ability to quickly switch positions depending on the on-field situation. The theory requires players to be comfortable in multiple positions; hence, it places high technical and physical demands on them.
But, yeah, in my small way, I was trying.
I really want to see LA play DC this Sunday just to see how the crowd reacts to Donovan being on the opposing team.
"grown men pretending to be injured in the most obvious and lame of ways to kill time".
Players do get carded for delaying the game, it's usually given to a goalkeeper for holding the ball too long. But what it comes down to is that the ref can pretty much do whatever he wants, for whatever reason.
Glenn Beck's opinions come from hating everyone who isn't a rich white American male between 28 and 64.Glenn Beck's episode tonight was all about how much he supported that woman who was forced to resign after a video came out of her supposedly making anti-white statements at an NAACP event.
Beck says the only major difference between Perry’s product and his is politics. “[Perry] has the luxury of not doing the political stuff, which is really where I want to be as a company,” he says. “I just happen to believe the Republic is on fire and it wouldn’t be as effective if I had Pluto come out with a cartoon fire hose to put it out.”