Soccer (in the form of U.S. Major League Soccer) has caught up to Major League Baseball among young sports aficionados—both sports have captured 18 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds as fans—according to the 2014 ESPN Sports Poll, which tracks interest in major league sports. The rise of soccer coincides with a surprising fall in the popularity of baseball, which had a 25 percent avid interest rate among that same audience just two years ago. (Football and basketball come in higher at 39 and 30 percent respectively, and hockey is the worst bet at just eight percent and falling.)Yawn. Every four fucking years. I stand by my previous thesis on the sport:
a. When I was in high school, soccer was played by the impish, white skate-rats who wore Vans and listened to Agent Orange and NOT by the real athletes of the school. If you were a real athlete, you played football. If my football Coach was walking by and happened to notice a real athlete playing soccer, he’d simply yell at him to get his ass over to the football field and “quit being a faggot.” So it’s not like any real athletes were being groomed to dominate the game and then go on to college and play before joining the Olympic team.NOTE: that whole edition of "Things are Good" was pretty amazing, do yourself a favor and check it out. You're welcome.
b. Also, these kids were always the rich/borderline rich kids. It’s tough to become a powerhouse when your base of athletes are rich, kinda spoiled kids. That’s the same reason lacrosse will never get huge; nobody’s interested in rooting for a bunch of future doctors and lawyers running around in their $190 shorts flinging a ball around. We wanna see some poor, tough farmboy who’s hanging onto the team by a thread (thanks to taking shop 3 periods a day) out there cracking skulls in a blind fury. Like, ironically enough, Liza Minelli. Go figure.
c. Which is, ta-da, apparently the total opposite of every other country in the world. In other countries they have kids living in dirt and filth and crafting a ball out of kurds and whey and spittle busting their asses; in America we have the “Soccer Mom.” The Soccer Mom is the housewife who carts her kid back and forth to practice in their 4-miles-to-the-gallon SUV while he and his buddies scream at her to stop at TCBY. You don’t hear about a lot of Soccer Moms in Africa. I’d wager there are more soccer moms chained to my radiator at home right now than there are in all of Kenya. Just a hunch.
d. Hey, I’m only saying, this is why we’ll always suck at soccer: our players are soft. If you spend hours in the weight room or doing plyometrics, you’re gonna play football, basketball or baseball. If you like the way your hair flops up and down while running up and down a field, soccer’s your game. Some of my best friends in high school played soccer. Not once do I recall “oh shit, here comes our star midfielder… please don’t stuff me in a locker please don’t stuff me in a locker please don’t stuff me in a locker please don’t stuff me in a locker please don’t stuff me in a locker…”
e. Of course the real problem is that throughout the 90 minutes of a “match” NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS. Once every 15 minutes someone will break out of the pack with the ball and you do get a little excited “oh shit, he’s gonna score…” there’s nothing between him and the goal for 35 yards, he’s running and…whoops. Dribbled the ball off his leg. Wheeeeeeeeee, great. Hell, in basketball a shot HAS to be taken within 24 seconds of every possession and we bitch about that being too slow. And yes Professor, before you write in with your comments, I know that if I dedicate the next 20 years of my life to studying the game and its many machinations I would have a new respect for what’s going on on the field, but right now all I see is “dude’s at midfield standing there with the ball while the other guys get tanner.” Hey, I’m sure I could spend 20 years studying the intricacies and beauty of sucking a dick, but guess what, it ain’t happening.
f. Finally, what really drives me bananas is that there’s no scoreboard with the time, only the ref knows how much time is left in the game. What the fuck is this? Hey soccer, lemme tell you, having some dude in tight white shorts running around a field of dudes cooing “ooooooooh, I’ve got a secret!” is not helping out your “straight” case, if you know what I mean. Christ.
Oh look, my riposte on the whole David Beckham "is gonna change sports in America!" nonsense HERE.
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