USA! USA!
To those morons who believe my leftist leanings make me less of an American, let me assure you that when it comes to sports I am as red-blooded as any Budweiser-swilling, NASCAR-watching, red stater out there. I believe that domes, Astro Turf, and the designated hitter are all creations of the devil. The CBS college basketball theme is stuck in my head well into April. And I believe that soccer is the best cure for insomnia there is. Little known fact: If you pay close attention to a soccer game on TV not only can you watch the grass grow but it will be eminently more entertaining as well.
Paradoxically however I love the World Cup, and the qualifiers for it. Which is why tonight I was glued to the USA-Mexico game, and I am proud to say that the Yanks took it 2-0. International sports are some of the few appropriate outlets for nationalism. And soccer, “the world’s game,” was one of the last sports that Americans had not yet conquered. However in the last few years the doormat has gone away and the American national team has, to the shock of the rest of the world, become a power to be reckoned with. To watch the American team mop up in this heated rivalry is a great inspiration for national pride.
Plus it's great to watch the look on the faces of the Mexican players when they realize that they have just had their asses kicked by a bunch of white suburban kids! In the immortal words of the great Nelson Muntz, "Ha! Ha!"
posted by Jim at 10:35 PM
1 Comments:
Chipper,
I don't believe soccer will ever be as big as any of the big three sports in the United States. But I can see a growth in the popularity of soccer in the United States especially since the 1994 World Cup held here and the U.S.'s strong showing in the 2002 World Cup.
Although we may still be decades away from seeing the United States winning a World Cup, this sport has been for a few years one of the most popular sports among kids especially in middle school.
I've always had a perfect explanation for anyone who thinks soccer is boring. One of the most important parts of soccer is the crowd. Unfortunately, the exposure of most Americans to a soccer crowd has been of girls screaming everytime Mia Hamm has the ball. Some of the best sporting events I've ever been in my entire life, have been soccer games in Brazil. The atmosthere is similar to a Duke game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. You can put a chess game in this kind of atmosthere, and it will be very fun to watch. Yet, I still find other forms of soccer like high school or college, MLS and Women's Soccer to be extremely boring mainly due to lack of a crowd presence and because the games are much more slower paced.
A similar situation also happens with Formula One racing. It's normal for them to draw over 500 million TV viewers from all over the world. Still in the U.S. it's not a mainstream sport, mainly due to a lack of an american driver. This is also partly another reason why the Indy 500 has been decreasing so much in popularity until Danica Patrick came along this year.
I know sports like soccer or Formula One will probably never be as popular in the U.S. as they are in other parts of the world. But it's the reasons why people try to knock sports such as soccer, I find are not very accurate.
Keep up the good work...
Bruno
12:13 AM
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