It's basically nine defensive players against one offensive player.

But hockey has an ethos of toughness. If soccer did, it would be a lot more popular.

I enjoy both sports (and obviously one a lot more over the other) but they’re about as similar as underwater basket weaving and competitive baking

than they are to football or baseball. I'd argue basketball, as well, since scoring is at more of a premium in the former two.

Instead of the ridiculous yellow and red cards for fouls. They should have a penalty like in hockey where one team has to lose a player for two minutes thereby giving an advantage to one side. Would definitely liven up the game.

The relative advantage gained from playing 11 v 10 for 2 minutes is minuscule compared to 5 v 4 in hockey.

“Field sports being those that have a goal, a ball, and a goaltender

But hockey isn’t even close to soccer because there’s 20 “field” sports commonly played while hockey doesn’t even have the field or the ball

The pace of soccer more closely resembles the pace of baseball than it does something high octane like hockey or basketball.

Americans can't understand the Tour de France because the race leader lets other riders win 17 out of 20 stages.

Americans can't understand the away goals rule because there is nothing like it in our culture.

Americans can't understand why Trinidad and Tobago would declare a national holiday to watch their team play in the World Cup, lose 2-0 and keep on celebrating.

I think eventually, 45 minutes without commercials will eventually win over the last American hold outs. Eventually, the appeal of a knock-out tournament running simultaneously with the regular season will win over fans of the mid-table teams. Eventually, seeing your favorite player get called up for national team duty in the middle of the season, something unique to soccer, will win people over. And the singing. Even when your team is bad, there can still be singing.

My favorite parts are watching games at 8AM and being able to talk to people about the game no matter what country I find myself in.

These are charms that continue to be unique to soccer for now. I think it would be cool if some of these aspects rubbed off onto football and baseball.

Tom Brady, with the Brady Bunch theme.

We have certainly had some turmoil between the cockeyed original WC bid (FWIW, Qatar was an objective joke & I wanted Australia), MNT coaching situation, WNT pay issues, stay or go for star players in MLS, but salvaging a WC bid would have kept some lipstick on the pig. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory was about as bad as it could get, and literally not having a coach at the moment can't help. I'll defer to those more knowledgeable, but thought something like Juergen as program director and an Xs & Os guy (maybe whoever the poor man's version of Jogi Low is) for the actual coach would have worked well, as the former could set up a good development scheme and the latter would find a way to win. Even friends who hate soccer were pleasantly surprised when I explained that we collectively don't give a darn about the game but still won, and unfortunately that line doesn't work anymore. Between guys like Pulisic and the huge youth batch, I am a little optimistic, but Corderio and his team really have to get things together soon.

If it was all about winning then why do so many hipsters gravitate to Spurs and Arsenal, who never win anything.

The roots of soccer are club based(tribal) so winning trumps everything.

It's perfectly acceptable to scream yourself hoarse for 90 minutes as an outlet to pent up anxiety, as long as at the end of the day your tribe made your town proud and got a result, even if it means defending for 90 minutes, having no shots on target etc. etc. You can hate, in the moment, the 90 minutes you just watched as a spectacle but leave the ground happy.

The spectacle is most important in American sports. The pre-game, the half time entertainment, down in front, food offerings etc. A nice day out with the family. It's more entertainment than anything else.

I think baseball is much more boring than soccer, but I think it is deemed "American" and thus palpable to the average American. I really think much of the disdain of soccer is based in xenophobia. Studies have shown the correlation between political views and sports. The NFL has been more popular with under educated and more conservative Americans (at least until recently) for example. Soccer, not surprise, is more popular with liberals.

Perhaps more importantly, Americans (at least of my generation) grew up with baseball. They did not grow up with soccer. Studies have also shown that soccer is becoming as popular as baseball and will probably surpass it in the next 10-20 years.

But I found the Spurs-Juve match very interesting, so what do I know?

It’s difficult for most to understand and/or appreciate a scoring system that can reward a defense e.g. a draw or a team winning a leg by sitting off the ball.

Brits hate Mou-ball as much as Americans would hate it if they were subjected to it.

That said, I understand why teams want to clench at the back, give up possession and just slog it out for 90 minutes. United isn't going to beat LFC or City by being overly aggressive. But to a casual or non-fan, the deeper chess match isn't obvious. When I'm watching a match like that, my eyes stray away from the ball to look at player movement, positioning, exposed triangles, etc. If I wasn't watching for this, I'd be almost as bored as watching a pitcher spend 20 seconds between pitches with nobody on base.

In domestic soccer leagues, with less than 40 games per season and where the winner of the regular season is considered the champion and where placement in the league determines relegation and Champions League qualification, ties are very consequential. I think part of the reason why the Euoropean domestic soccer league model works for them is that those leagues have no competition from other sports, unlike in the US where for many people basketball and hockey are an after thought until after the Super Bowl, which is fine because the playoffs are what really matter anyway.

In the NBA and NHL, and to a somewhat lesser degree the NFL and MLB, regular seasons mean very little. If your team is good enough to contend for the title, then making the playoffs is never in doubt. If your team is in a dog fight to make the playoffs, then they have virtually no shot of winning a game or series in the playoffs anyway, much less winning the whole thing.

I give zero Fucks about the NHL regular season despite being a gigantic hockey fan

I also follow the champions league closer than the premier league

Americans invented fantasy baseball and then fantasy football to get us through regular seasons

So I’m not sure it’s just “scoring”

I’m also seeing more and more hockey fans appreciate ties over fabricated game situations to break them. There’s more backlash against the college football Ot these days too.

I do think these are contributing factors but hockey doing well (hockey is doing well right? I never know) seems to discount the impact. Then again, hockey is the best sport in the world to watch.

but the directionality of play is the detractor.

It’s hard for them to grasp backwards passing etc. soccer is a live development of intuition, rather than set plays and stoppage.

Hockey has helped, but the size of the playing surface keeps the action going so fast you don’t want to turn away from the game.

I don't think passing it back to the goalie is what's making people not watch soccer. It's more of less the same as a big who kicks it back out to the point guard to reset the play. Yes, the players never kick it out all the way back to the other endline in basketball, but I'm not sure it sooo different from hockey and basketball that the directionality is impossible to grasp.

Of course maybe those same fans (*cough* american football fans *cough*) you speak of are also befuddled by basketball and hockey too, and then yes, they are too obtuse to ever like soccer.
But I would think Offsides, what determines a yellow vs red card, when is a last man tackle a penalty and a red card vs just a foul and replay are tough things to grasp.

it’s the common complaint I hear from Americans I talk to who don’t like soccer.

I can't imagine how the kickout pass in basketball is THAT much different unless they are purposely trying not to understand the game, which is probably true. For F*#$'s sake, you can backward pass in Football all you want, in order to change the field when you want to disrupt the defense for a long run. It's the same for a reversal in order to get some misdirection. I'm afraid you are not speaking to smart people

shut the fuck up.

I agree with all of this and do notice that set plays seem to get a disproportionate amount of attention as well in the USA.

The difference is the story and watching history. People aren't tuning into the action of a 1 hitter.

And neither situation includes a compelling story that keeps people tuned in

Chicks dig the long ball!!!!

Americans need to be told what they are watching...and what they care about. They need the story to watch. Or better yet a reason.

It's why millions of fans suddenly care about football on Super Bowl Sunday.

Or college basketball during March Madness.

Or the NBA Finals.

Millions don't care about those sports during the regular season. All of those sports are equally boring until they are told that it matters. Or there is an emotional attachment.

The problem with soccer for Americans is that unless it's Messi, Ronaldo or maybe Pulisic, they don't know why to watch.

Millions of people were told to watch Beckham and they did.

Americans have been known to fill bars for team USA during the World Cup. They enjoy the angst and anticipation of a 0-0 World Cup quarterfinals match as much as they would embrace other sports if they knew it was important.

manner soccer's popularity abroad reflects culture. It doesn't explain American behavior compared to any other place's.

But soccer is not historically part of US culture. So Americans need to know what to watch in order for them to be interested.

There’s no reason to continue thinking that way. Knowledge of the game, teams, players is more accessible to an american now than it was to an Englishman 50 years ago.

If all we need was to understand the story and the game it would have been successful. There’s nothing about soccer stories that are different from the sports that do succeed.

There is something more fundamental to the consumption of the sport that differs from what we enjoy consuming.

How often are we fed the stories for Super Bowl Sunday, etc. vs any soccer story. There's a difference between being able to find a story versus it being mainstream.

The product is far more inferior watching usa world cup but they do it more than MLS, Pulisic with Dortmund or other actual interesting matches. It's not the product. It's the story that engages them.

Hard fouls, at least one dive, a stomp and an awkward AF goal from Son.