Americans only understand winning

Americans only understand winning
by plaid_pants (2018-03-08 19:18:19)

In reply to: 95% of soccer is uneventful and boring posted by DakotaDomer

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.

Just think of the songs we could come up with about

Tom Brady, with the Brady Bunch theme.

I am genuinely concerned about missing this WC

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.

Americans want to be entertained and reject tribalism

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.

Well Said! *