<p>hokegoalie is right. You’d be kidding yourself if you think the US is one of the better soccer nations in the world.</p>
<p>I agree that one of the reasons it’s unpopular here is that the US is not good at the game. American players, on average, are not as good at the game because Americans, on average, do not feel a passion for it. If they had a renowned team, Americans would take pride in it. Pride instills passion.</p>
<p>Another question might be… why are other countries with poor teams so passionate about soccer? In many cases, it’s simply tradition.<br>
In others, it might be that the majority is poor or not affluent. Soccer is a simple sport, and all you need for it is a ball. A simple round ball. You don’t even need many people for it. You can start a game with 2 people, or you can practice well even by yourself. It doesn’t require the equipment or special balls needed for other sports, and so, anybody can play it. As a result, they grow up with a passion for it.</p>
<p>The U.S. just barely made it to the 2nd round in 2002, having to pin their hopes on an unexpected Korean upset of Portugal.</p>
<p>Having been summoned to the Group of Death, the Americans’ failure was not unexpected.</p>
<p>Americans do not like being athletically bested by peoples like the British and Dutch. Americans will start watching when America starts winning, but America won’t win unless people watch, so…</p>
<p>The US would get interested in soccer if the US team did well in the World Cup, but the interest would be shallow and would fade as soon as the tournanment was over. After that it would go back to being a minor sport - kind of like track and field; Americans get interested in track every four years when the US rakes in a bunch of Olympic gold medals, and then the sport quickly fades back into being a niche sport followed only by a few dedicated fans. Same with soccer.</p>
<p>I don’t think soccer will ever be very popular with Americans so long as the rules conspire to hamstring the offense. The main offender is the offsides rule. Imagine if they had such a rule in the NBA - no quick outlet passes, no fast breaks ending in slam dunks, and no fun. </p>
<p>Just look at the World Cup games that ended in a 0-0 tie and were then decided by a shootout. Imagine if an NBA game ended in scoreless tie and was then decided by a free throw shooting contest. An outcome like that would be regarded as an absurd joke, but it happens all the time in pro soccer.</p>
<p>The offside rule opens up the game, allowing the defense to move up and get involved, rather than sit back in fear of strikers behind them.</p>
<p>If there was no offsides, then the strikers and defenders would neutralize each other, leaving it up to the midfield to decide the game. BORING.</p>
<p>I saw an article in the news the other day. Football is actually the most played team sport by youths in America. And it’s not the lack of a fan base. (Definetly not) You can blame managment of MLS soccer blah blah blah. I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore. I need to study.</p>
<p>the reason for the damned offside rule is to prevent nigs like sheva and such from cherry picking. one on one with the goalie…the striker almost always wins…dont try to compare the beautiful game to basketball, i love them both, but please dont compare them. New Fifa rankings come out at the end of July…incorporating the new computer ranking system…hopefully a little more accurate than these BS rankings.</p>
<p>In other countries…football is all they have. It involves the least amount of money spent…usually for the ball. In most countries it is the underprivileged and poor who play…some of these countries those people make up the majority. Here…its all about soccer moms cheering on the sidelines for their kids. There…its a way out.</p>
<p>why is it important to FIFA or the WC that Americans even watch? This is one situation that we really don’t matter to the mix. The rest of the world more than makes up for our market. You see 3rd world countries on TV where monthly income is a few dollars, and there’s a guy with a Beckham Jersey? </p>
<p>Soccer doesn’t do well in America because it is not TV friendly. TV friendly means commericals. Our most popular sports have been altered to accommodate commericals with scheduled TV time outs. Soccer has yet to adapt that model as the rest of the world runs the games with minimal commerical interuptions. Only in America does TV dictate the terms of the game, rather than allow us to just observe the match.</p>
<p>i hated soccer growing up. The attitude towards soccer here is exactly if not a little worse than it is in the US. I believe this is because I never gave it a chance and never played. when I entered high school it changed because I went to the international school here where the attitude is very different and everyone there loves and plays soccer and its the best soccer schol in the country. It was then I gave it a chance because alot of my friends liked it and then I became hooked. Since the cable company decided to give ESPNI instead of regular ESPN so I get to watch Serie A and Spanish football. If you watch those games you would see why its so popular. The games are for the most part exciting mainly because they usually show squads like Barcelona and Real Madrid or Juventus and AC Milan. THey also show just about every EUFA match. When people get to watch these games they would see why football is a great game</p>
<p>You lucky ■■■■■■■…we have to buy extra channels to see series A and la liga play. Sometimes they show month old premiership games on tv. I used to watch mls and thought soccer was aight…not until you see european football do you really fall in love</p>
<p>is too bad that they rarely show the premiership games. Only once in a while they do. Most of the times that I watched english teams play is usually in EUFA</p>
<p>If you call preventing most of the scoring opportunities from ever happening in the first place “opening up the game,” then I guess it opens up the game. Personally, I’d prefer a “closed” soccer game with lots of fast breaks and a final score of 10 to 8 rather than these awful 0-0 scoreless ties.</p>
<p>Watching soccer in its current form is a sure cure for insomnia. Doctors should prescribe soccer instead of sleeping pills.</p>
<p>Stop being stupid. If there was no offside, then defenses would be absolutely paranoid about Thierry Henry or Samuel Eto’o streaking well behind their lines to get easy goals. Therefore, any attacking player will be sandwiched by at least two players: one in front, and one in back. They’ll sacrifice attacking midfielders if they have to. In the end, what you’ll have are teams scared stiff about being scored on, and defenders and defensive midfielders will rarely venture beyond 25 yards of the goal. Since the strikers will be stymied, the offense will be left to the few midfielders available to “sacrifice” to the offense. </p>
<p>What you don’t realize is that without the offsides rule, the so-called “scoring opportunities” will never have been called offside in the first place since the defense would just be sitting in the box.</p>
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<p>They don’t need commercials breaks because an entire match is one long commercial. I thought I was watching Manchester United, not Team Vodafone; I thought I was watching Real Madrid, not Team Siemens. Disgusting.</p>
<p>Say what you will about American sports, but you’ll never ever see the NY Yankees wear a big Wal-Mart logo on their chest.</p>
<p>And at least in Canada, soccer does have tons of commercials. In this World Cup, I’ve seen at least 1000 Budweiser and Toshiba ads.</p>
<p>World Cup soccer is far from boring. The only boring soccer games are ones in which the players have no idea what they’re doing. And all sports games are boring if that’s the case. You only think it’s boring because you don’t understand the beauty of it.</p>