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about the World Cup, with the exception to root for the USA. How many of you could name one soccer player before the World Cup and what is the name of the regular team he plays for? I saw one of the games ended up tied at 0-0 on Sunday. What kinda of sport does that. I know soccer is big with the younger generations, but it is impossible to get an old dog like me interested. Right now I have a little interest just because I want the USA to win and do well. If the USA wasn't playing my interest would be zero like when there is no world cup.

For the folks who like soccer, have at it.  Each to his own.  Zero interest from me as I am not a soccer fan.  Never played it, kids didn't play it, never watched it, and it just isn't something I feel like I should be interested in solely because there is a national team playing it. 

That said, I do have a huge issue with those who somehow try to belittle others (and it has happened with me when I told some folks that I wasn't watching the world cup when asked) because they have no interest in soccer.  I've been called anti-American and told that it was my "duty" to watch, which I find pretty arrogant and self serving. 

Simple to me - if you like soccer, watch it.  If you don't, don't watch it. 

I can't name one player on any team including the USA team.... I watched about 5 minutes of the USA game which was 4 minutes and 55 seconds more than I've watched since the last World Cup.

To each his own.....but I've determined in order to watch soccer being a non soccer fan one needs to be stoned.....stone drunk...or in most cases both.

The only think I know about soccer I learned from the movie "Victory" with Pele, Michael Caine, and Sly Stalone back in the early 80s, and once can surmise that any soccer movie starring Sly Stalone probably isn't much about soccer, which it wasn't. 

Great movie, however. 

I don't care for it. It's too slow and frustrating for me. I'd rather watch a baseball game with 40 strikeouts than soccer. I did watch the last 20 minutes of yesterday's US match, but it's because I had just come home from work and was in front of the TV. I won't make an effort to watch a match, even one the US is in. And I don't know a single player on any team.

However, I'm not a hater. If you like it, I have no problem with that. To each his own. I'm not going to demean someone because they like a sport (or most anything else) that I don't.

I watch soccer during the World Cup every 4 years and never in between. I'm a fan of the major spectacle that the World Cup is, and I'd like for the USA to do well . . . but soccer as a sport just doesn't do it for me.

I watched about half of yesterday's match-- enough to catch all three goals and miss all of the boring nothingness in between. It was kind of perfect.

 :patriot: :patriot:

I watched 99% of USA's game yesterday.  That summed up 99% of my total soccer viewing in my 47 years here on planet earth!  I had a 13 hour day at work and figured I couldn't get much more bored!  I was happy for OUR TEAM!!
but as just about everyone else has said...."to each his own"!

 :thumbdown: :thumbdown: :thumbdown: :thumbdown:

No interest whatsoever.

And apparently you aren't alone in the Knoxville TV market:

http://www.wbir.com/story/news/local/2014/06/18/knoxville-had-worst-ratings-for-usa-ghana-game/10729319/

I have never watched two minutes of soccer on TV and never intend to. Similar to hockey, it is a sport that bores me to tears. I do cover high school matches...but I don't enjoy it very much.  :biggrin:

It's just awful.  The times I've tried to force myself to watch, it just seems like there's very close to no hope of anyone scoring.  Guys just flailing away at the ball with their legs, then someone falls down, then everyone stops and the refs stand their with a card.  Then a guy steps outside of the line and tosses it in and we repeat the previous sequence.  I've never, ever witnessed a soccer goal scored while watching live.   :dunno:

But guys, soccer is the future.  It's the world's game.  Before too long, it will be bigger in this country than football, baseball, and basketball combined.*


*Said my first grade teacher in 1979.

Yeah.  EXACTLY.  Says a lot more about Knoxville than it does soccer. 

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I mean, SERIOUSLY.  The world is bigger than East Tennessee.  Reminds me of a Faulkner novel I just read.  Ha ha!  Perfect.

Soccer is amazingly boring to watch.  I don't watch it much myself, but I DO play it and even run a soccer league on the local military base.  It's a great way to stay in shape and really fun to play, I say.

As for watching it...even with the fact that I play it, I only watch it during USA national games, with rare exceptions.  LOL!  That speaks volumes.

But in the meantime, I had a great time at the local "Straight to Ale" brewery owned partially by a good buddy of mine, drinking some fine brews and cheering on the USA with about 500 other people, and I would not trade that experience for anything.   :patriot:

As for the rest, of course American football and basketball are much more exciting to watch.  But I would put soccer ahead of baseball any day.  At least there is action and not a bunch of standing around!  Soccer is about even with hockey, and IMO since many more people play soccer it will or probably already has surpassed hockey for "no 4" (behind the "big three" of football, basketball, and baseball, and that's about all it can aspire to in this country, IMO, though it may eventually challenge baseball (by FAR the most boring game!) for number 3.

Having said that, I completely understand people not giving a shizzle about it, because it is rather boring to watch, though it helps if you understand the game, and how the flow actually resembles football drives, and that the scoring is like football in the 30s.  But ... yeah, it's pretty hard to watch most of the time!

In the meantime, Go USA!  I think we advance.   :patriot:

I love the game. There was certainly no opportunity to play the sport in rural middle TN in the 60s and 70s when I was a kid. My kids however had ample opportunity to play soccer and they did. I admit it was a learning experience for me but I'll be darned if I'm not going to learn what my kids are doing. If you have half a clue what's going on, it isn't "slow" at all. Soccer is by far, without any competition, the largest sport in the world, both with actual participation as well as number of fans. Folks, it didn't get there from being boring. Yes, we, especially in these here southern states stereotype the sport and make a mockery of it but we are only fooling ourselves. My children's generation, who grew up playing soccer will take the sport to a much higher level in the USA than you'd have thought a few years ago.

and yet once they graduate HS the interest dies.
I spent a lot of time in the Tampa-by-the-Bay region which is a hot bed of soccer.  There are multiple (good) traveling team organizations within the bay area, several of the local HS are always represented deep into the state playoffs (a few years ago Gaither and Bloomingdale were in the final 4 every year for several years).  Yet, except for a few adult teams, after HS there is no soccer.  Pro soccer failed miserably there as well.

As Bandit noted, it may be fun to play but is is boring as hell to watch and that is the death nell to the sport in this country

I love it. Played the game as a kid, and even now some as an adult.

Don't really care who in Knoxville or the US watches it. The world cup is a world spectacle, and the game is truly a world sport like no other. That being said the TV ratings in the US are very high, and the US, behind Brazilians, have bought the most tickets in the WC. The sport is growing in popularity in the US.

Like any sport, it is boring if you can't appreciate it, and usually people who don't grow up exposed to it don't appreciate it. Ask a German how exciting baseball is. Ask most people outside N America what they think of American football. Perspective....

Yeah, we East Tennesseans are all just a bunch of toothless barefoot redneck hillbillies who barely know how to turn a TV on.  We can't think for ourselves, make up our minds on what we do or don't like,  nor are we allowed to have our own interests and opinions.  We should just be robots and follow things just because the rest of the world does. 

How stupid of us.   :rolleyes:

Note that Faulkner wrote no books about soccer.  He started a couple, but fell asleep after the first couple of pages.

Didn't we fight two wars with England so we wouldn't have to live their way of life, do the things they do, and like the things they like?  Seems to me, it's our patriotic duty to tune out. :patriot:

I have heard that and heard that and heard that and STILL will keep hearing that and it will NEVER be true.

All the experts "knew" that after the World Cup '94 that soccer would "take off" in the US.  Yet here we are 20 years later waiting for the engines to ignite.

Until it is a comercial success in the US it will continue to die once people reach 18-22.

How about if you like soccer, watch it. If you don't, don't. If you don't like MLB, don't watch that either. And if you don't like the NBA, don't watch that. But if you do, do. I know the internet was invented specifically for arguing, and I do my fair share of it (and enjoy it), but when the sun sets it isn't gonna matter if East Tennessee doesn't like soccer.

P.S. My daughter plays soccer. I still hate it. So there.  :toothless:

The ratings for this world cup are ridiculously higher than the '94 cup. Look it up. That's what I am talking about, and that's why ESPN/ABC are showing every match. I don't know if the sport will ever rival football, basketball, or even baseball in popularity in the US, but my statement that it is growing and continues to grow in popularity isn't false. Never is a really long time.  I suspect as the population demographics change in this country over the next 20-30 years, so will the popularity of the game.

that's why we don't play cricket. Soccer isn't their game. It has really ancient origins that can be tied back to Egypt.

and yet soccer STILL will NOT become popular.  You are correct, the demographics cange will. in fact, doom soccer yet again.

Well, from what I have seen, it's followed heavily by younger adults in their 20s and into their early 30s even.  The brewery I went to last night was simply packed and the great majority were under 35.  So I would disagree that they stop watching or following after HS.  Probably many do, but at least a substantial minority do not IMO.  Colin Cowherd made an interesting point on my morning drive, which is that since many soccer fans watch on other media such as tablets or smart phones and/or gather in groups at bars, the true ratings often are not reflected since ratings only monitor watching at home on traditional TV.

As for development, it is above the HS level that is really penalizing US soccer to this day.  There simply is no club level equivalent of minor league baseball in this country.  College soccer is not enough...the US needs more of a local club system to serve as a developmental league to MLS and overseas.   There has been an attempt to do this.  Huntsville has a minor league team (Rocket City United) that is reasonably well attended but it's still not enough.  Not sure what the solution is, but it may come in time.

Good one.  But you are correct, soccer was not his subject, it was rural culture as exemplified in "As I Lay Dying".  Which, if anyone has read that, they know what I mean.   :naughty:

But can any civilized culture really claim to have "invented" soccer?  It's a pretty simple game.  It can probably be traced back to when Urgh the Caveman passed the time by trying to kick rocks between his wooly mammoth's legs.  :dunno:

disagree, the hispanic population alone will drive the popularity, and make no mistake, by 2030, this country will be about 18-20% hispanic. It's already about 12-13%

Which is another problem to deal with.  It would be cheaper to give Mexico money to build their economy than to have them come and destroy ours. What is the answer to limit immigration?

Who knew that mentioning the word "hispanic" would send a soccer thread to the Politivol forum?  :laugh:

Didn't mean it that way. Just seems hordes of people aren't crossing the borders to get TO Mexico. And yes, events like the World Cup are nothing but political. I for one do not want the USA to become North Mexico. Probably happening anyway. If it happens, we will get to see what it's like to live in a country with Mexico's economy. Does this sound racist? I think not. Just a concerned American.

I don't disagree with you, I just don't think this is a subject that can survive in an open forum setting.  :biggrin:

Sure it can.  I don't know of anybody here who doesn't like Mexican food.   :naughty:

Looking forward to some next week, by the way, when we go down to visit my son, daughter in law, and grandson at Fort Hood.  They actually bought a house in Jarrell, which is halfway between Killeen and Austin.  Going to see the Home of the Longwhorens for the first time in about 35 years. 

Austin is a nice town, in spite of the Longhorns.

In spite of soccer's popularity, Lebron's news of opting out of his contract was number one news story of US Soccer team members. They were all over it on twitter.

Enough about LeBron.  Could give a rat's ass.

As for Mexico, if US employers were not addicted to cheap labor it wouldn't happen, and different ethnic groups throughout history have had economic success, so, "no", we won't be "north Mexico".

But yeah, I like Mexican food also.   :naughty:

And if our President and corrupt AG wouldn't announce that they are ignoring immigration laws that they are constitutionally sworn to enforce it would help. 

Really! What other administration in the last 20-30 years was tough on immigration. Answer...none. BTW I read somewhere that in about 30 years us white folks will be a minority in the US. Just don't quite know how to wrap my head around that. Us white folks made the US the utopian haven it is for immigrants. Go figure. Kinda like we are administering our own demise.

You've got to be kidding me, VB.  There are ZERO immigration restrictions at this point, and especially coming through the Texas/New Mexico/Arizona borders.  This administration refuses to follow the laws that they are sworn to uphold. 

So you are telling me that the border patrols are catching no one at the border and sending them back. I want to see proof of that.

The rate of immigration from Mexico is down...a LOT, and has been going down for a couple of years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/us/mexican-immigration-to-united-states-slows.html?_r=0

However, the ones that are here are going to breed and breed a lot. That's the population I am talking about, and its intended as a soccer comment, not a political one.

Geez Louise, Nut.  What planet do you live on?  There's a difference in immigration and illegal immigration.  If you are telling me that the rate of illegal immigration of central American Hispanics coming from across the Mexican border is down then you have your head in the sand. 

But Herb, you make it sound like the border patrol is not on the job anymore. I'm sure they catch and turn back many everyday. I am sorry this thread was turned political by me. Didn't mean for it to at all. I still don't like soccer. And Immigration needs some attention.

I'm with volsboy on that one...no administration has ever enforced the immigration laws.  Too much money is being made and it would be very costly to do so.  Something does need to happen, hopefully it will.

And now...back to sports.   :angel: