The Zidane Incident

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by hooskins

No offense Buster, but you really shouldn't call out the most popular sport in the world like that without actually supporting yourself, and putting forth a decent arguement. It is this ignorance of the game, that also creates a negative image of Americans. As mentioned before 3 goals is a lot in the torney, Klose had 5, henry had 3, etc. Beside the goals, he pretty much controlled midfield, and set up some brillant goals. Another point; the votes for the golden award thingy were counted before the headbutt, therefore the voters did not have that issue in mind when voting.

I understand the frustration us Americans have with the flopping, and hopefully FIFA starts giving more yellows for flops, but what really frustrates me, is how as a nation, we need high scoring action, or we consider it boring. Some of the best games in soccer are 0-0 ties. Yeah its 90 freaking minutes, and no goals, so deal with it. It really shows that some people do not have the patience to admire the finer points of the world's greatest game. Do you know why there are so few goals? It's because scoring a goal in soccer is much harder than to score in a game of football. The whole team has to keep pushing, and flowing at almost a perfect rate, or their has to be a very very rare mistake. If you take that into consideration, you would realize that Zidane's 3 goals is a great stat, and we also know that all stats on paper do not explain what a player has done in a game.

It is people like you that have ruined the game of soccer. FIFA is trying to increase goals, by have lighter balls, that can drop and swing off unexpectidly, making it harder for the goalie to stop. They are also calling more bullshit calls, which increase the set pieces, and penalty kicks, which add to goals, just to please people who do not have the patience or appreciation of the game. Because of people who do not appreciate the finer points of game, the NBA, MLB, and yes even our beloved NFL have changed to rules to please people who can't FCKING sit and try to enjoy the game without bitching. Now pass interference rules are almost ridiculous, which makes even more high scoring games, and almost kills the contact sport aspect, at the CB position. The refs call everything in the NBA even if you rest your arm on a player while play D, like for D. Wade in the finals, and now its considered good D if you hold and opponent to under 100 points. All of this just to please people who want more scores.

I am sick of this shit, people need to start being open and quit bitching. No one is fucking dissing soccer in that nature, without me saying anything.

I personally don't agree with much of anything you said.

Point number 1 you made, that Americans don't appreciate low-scoring games, I kind of half-agree with. Some Americans don't, but then some Americans do. Talk to any baseball purist, and they'll tell you that they'd rather watch Pedro Martinez vs Johan Santana pitch a 1-0 game than see Pujols and Ortiz hit 3 HRs apiece. I personally like nothing better than a defensive slugfest in football.

The low scoring is not why Americans don't like soccer. For some reason, Americans just don't take to sports where the idea is to put a ball or a puck past a goaltender and into a net. Hockey was made to be more high-scoring this year, but it's success as a sport has only improved very marginally. Gotta give the NHL some time, but my assertion is hockey is never going to be as big as the NFL, MLB, or NBA. Americans just like football, baseball, and basketball much better. That's all there really is to it. We have other sports leagues here to attract our attention, that's why nobody cares about soccer. There are other sports we find more fun to both watch and play.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

The low scoring is not why Americans don't like soccer. For some reason, Americans just don't take to sports where the idea is to put a ball or a puck past a goaltender and into a net.

I've never really thought about that, but that's very true. I know I personally get bored of back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until there's FINALLY a shot on goal. I guess subconciously there's something about the symmetry of sports like that I don't like. Baseball, while very slow to me, is at least a fairly dynamic game when it comes to the "area" it's played in.

[ArtMonkDrillz]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

For some reason, Americans just don't take to sports where the idea is to put a ball or a puck past a goaltender and into a net.

Since college I've really started to enjoy lacrosse, although I don't watch it that often b/c its rarely on.
I don't mind goal-oriented sports but they do tend to be rather boring. LAX, to me, is very fast and can be very entertaining.

[724Skinsfan]

It's already been touched on in a couple of posts but interest in a particular sport is relevant to the amount of experience a person has with that sport. I love both high scoring and low scoring baseball games. Football goes the same for me. Another factor to influence a person's interest is the passion an enthusiast has when describing the game. I never had an interest in the Tour de France until some guy (UPS driver) spent about 2 non-stop hours explaining to me what the deal was. I'm in the process of trying to learn to like soccer because the area I live in is trying to develop a solid league for youth.