Okay folks be honest. How many of you follow soccer or give a rats butt

[volsboy]

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.

[HerbTarlekVol]

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. 

[Tnphil]

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.

[HerbTarlekVol]

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. 

[droner]

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.

[Clockwork Orange]

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.

[VOLMAN]

 

[RIPLEYVOL]

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"!

[RockinGrannyVol]

 

[VinnieVOL]

No interest whatsoever.

[HerbTarlekVol]

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/

[Creek Walker]

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. 

[VinnieVOL]

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/

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.   

[Black Diamond Vol]

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.

[BanditVol]

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/

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

 

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

[BanditVol]

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.   

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.   

[ErnienBernie]

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.

[PirateVOL]

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

[Volznut]

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.

[Volznut]

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.

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....

[HerbTarlekVol]

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

 

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

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.   

[LouisVOL]

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

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

 

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

[Black Diamond Vol]

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.

[PirateVOL]

The sport is growing in popularity in the US.

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.

[Creek Walker]

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.