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The soccer thread for jerks who have posters of C. Ronaldo with the C.L. cup
Tav
Irish Minister for DefenceRegistered User regular
Irish Minister for DefenceRegistered User regular
I noticed a distinct lack of threads about real football, and thought this place could really use more discussion about the Beautiful Game.
Since I'm Irish, I support both the Irish League and the English league. The main advantage of this being that Irish teams play in the Summer when the weathers nice, instead of from Autumn to Spring like most leagues do(Anyone who's experienced an Irish winter can understand why playing in the Summer is so great). I follow my local team, Bohemians and even though we have fuck all chance of winning the league, its still great fun to go down and act like a lunatic amongst the other supporters.
Even though most leagues don't play during the Summer theres still a lot to discuss. I'm especially interested by Liverpool getting a new stadium, but keeping the Kop. I think its great that they recognize the historical value of the stand, and its importance to football as a whole. Fair dues to them for keeping it, unlike Arsenal and Man. City who got out of their old grounds as quickly as they could.
So, IIT: discuss any aspect of the beautiful game and remember, it's not a matter of life and death. Its much more important than that.
P.S. David Beckhams a twat. Don't mention him.
Since I'm Irish, I support both the Irish League and the English league. The main advantage of this being that Irish teams play in the Summer when the weathers nice, instead of from Autumn to Spring like most leagues do(Anyone who's experienced an Irish winter can understand why playing in the Summer is so great). I follow my local team, Bohemians and even though we have fuck all chance of winning the league, its still great fun to go down and act like a lunatic amongst the other supporters.
Even though most leagues don't play during the Summer theres still a lot to discuss. I'm especially interested by Liverpool getting a new stadium, but keeping the Kop. I think its great that they recognize the historical value of the stand, and its importance to football as a whole. Fair dues to them for keeping it, unlike Arsenal and Man. City who got out of their old grounds as quickly as they could.
So, IIT: discuss any aspect of the beautiful game and remember, it's not a matter of life and death. Its much more important than that.
P.S. David Beckhams a twat. Don't mention him.
Tav on
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The MLS is getting better, but unless we become the minor league for South America or something we'll never get it. The problem in the United States is that there are too many sports too ingrained into our psyches.
I always have a soft spot for Blackburn from when I was a kid.
Crap... I knew that I made a mistake. I meant to emphasize that it was ...uh... "Soccer" and not American football.
Hopefully a mod will change it to something which will let people know that it is before entering the thread.
There's a HUGE potential for it to really boom, though.
Define problem, because I'm really inclined to disagree. Football is arguably more tradition oriented than any other sport in the world. There are a LOT of countries with small population that have absolutely great teams and that is unlikely to change. I wouldn't expect a european country to have a competitive Baseball team simply because they will it so, no matter how much money they throw in it, and same goes for the USA and football. The problem is most certainly not in the pro sports, athleticism is good, but there is no reason to believe that if the best athletes in the country concentrate in football they'd have the necessary skill. To put it in other words, the States have a very respectable team for the small time they've being trying to develop the sport, and it will probably get better with time, but the so called pro-leagues are not why the USA will never win a World Cup.
You can edit the titles of your own threads.
Thanks, didn't notice. >.<
I agree that our World Cup team could be great, but how many of those players played in the MLS? To see great football on a regular basis you need to either buy a package fom your TV provider or leave the country. There are definitely some great college and HS teams, but people here will probably never have the same interest for that level as we do for American football, basketball, baseball even hockey. There's a system in place for those sports to bring the best to the American public's attention to idolize and emulate. I've never seen a kid wearing a Preki or Maradona jersey, but I see people wearing old school baseball jersey's all the time. It's only one component, but it does effect the prospects for players in this country.
*Inaugural group announced. I go yaaaaay. But what team to pick? There's no team close to me; the closest is the Columbus Crew, which doesn't work.
*I end up deciding to back whatever team wins the inaugural game. This turns out to be contested between teams on the coasts- DC United and the San Jose Clash.
*Wait, why is the clock counting down? That shouldn't be happening.
*San Jose wins 1-0 off a goal from Eric Wynalda. Okay, so the Clash is my team.
*DC United wins first MLS Cup. San Jose comes in 4th in a 5-team division and gets bounced in the first round of the playoffs. Doh.
*Chicago Fire enters league as expansion team. Yay, something resembling a local team. (Milwaukee would be preferable, but if all I get is Chicago, I'll take it.) Bye, Clash.
*League contracts the two Florida teams. Wait, isn't soccer relatively popular in Florida? How did that happen?
*Over time, I realize that I can't name a single Fire player save the goalie, Zach Thornton.
*Meanwhile, Clash, or Earthquakes, win MLS Cup. STOP TEMPTING ME TO GO BACK!
*Realize the reason I can't name anyone is that every time a player gets well known enough for me to name them, they bolt for Europe.
*Further realize I'm not actually getting to see any games no matter who I'm a fan of. Which makes things a bit difficult. One game a week total? Come on.
*Clash move to Houston, adding a whole new level of confusion to the whole thing.
*World Cup 2006. See level of soccer that puts MLS to shame. Realize half the US squad is in Europe and almost none of the non-Americans are.
*Finally decide that this is stupid and decide if I'm not going to get to see my team on TV, I might as well not see a GOOD team on TV.
*Start putting out applications for any likely-looking foreign squad, end up adopting Aston Villa.
I actually did leave in part because of that. There is no such thing as sports coverage in North America. No tennis(there is a Tennis Channel, and the tennis coverage is still worlds away from Europe.....), volleyball, winter sports. It's pretty sad and it's very hard to explain how magnificient it is to have a channel like Eurosport, even if you don't care about half the sports they show. It's the fact that pretty much anything you can think of gets time on air.
Edit: On the subject of MLS, more and more american players getting their careers going in Europe can only be good for US football in the long run. Still, the number of "foreigners" right now is pretty far from what it should be before we have an impact.
All the Copa games have been on the spanish stations.
Or there's Sky Sports, but you need satellite for that
Finest right foot in the world, that lad used to have.
I agree. The League of Ireland has a few big player go over to England and make it big(Roy Keane, Kevin Doyle and Roy O'Donovan being the biggest) and its been great for the league. I can only assume that the same thing would only yield the same results for the MSL.
He's an annoying, bitchy drama queen who got one lucky goal 11 years ago and has been riding on that since. Mediocre player, terrible captain and I'm glad United got rid of him when teams were stupid enough to actually pay good money for him.
Refs suck.
If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to message me. Yes, that includes you.
Anyhow, go Revs! Totally miss Clint Dempsey. He was so dominant when he wanted to be.
It's a cycle. No one plays because no one gets paid, and no one gets paid because no one plays. But really, all that's needed for MLS to take off are a few key league-wide sponsorships and a proper TV deal like the NFL has. That's what the Beckham deal is looking for. That would then result in an influx of foreign players that would popularize the sport as a professional sport in America, and get youth soccer players more dedicated to the sport.
Also, soccer tends in America more towards upper-class children, who don't really view sports in general as an end in itself, rather simply as something that is an means to an entirely unrelated end (helps for college, staying in shape, just fun to play), whereas in basketball and football the biggest youth players are from poorer areas and view sports as their only way to be a success, so put forth a much more concerted effort to reach the top.
If I'm not mistaken, professional international soccer is played much more by people from bad neighborhoods than your stereotypical soccer player in America.
Oh sweet Jesus Christ we do not talk about that day Bob. WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT THAT DAY.
By the way, I'm trolling because you called soccer "Real Football."
In the Under 20 Cup. >.>
Was that deliberate? Because if that was a deliberate attempt to rub it in, it was a pretty impressive effort and you have some might obscure knowledge about Australian soccer.
You absolute fuck.
Hey, it's still a win?
At work, we watch the soccer games all the time - sure, it's all South American teams mostly, and it's in Spanish, but it's still good fun.
He means 'real' in the sense of original ;chill out. Besides, soccer has been scientifically proven to be the most interesting sport.
I'm curious; what happened?
FC Dallas ft..chokewin on the mls side.
I've been looking forward to this thread being made, yet I have nothing to say.
That aside, I thought the U20 tourney had some great games but some of the most fucked up refs ever.
EDIT: Also, I feel bad for the Canadien team. Home team and all...that and when their 'keeper fucked it up at the end.
I could spend the better part of 24 hours explaining why soccer is a more entertaining and skillful game than anything America has to offer.
So I will just agree, soccer is the Real Football.
that which shall not be mentioned
There's too many people who have stakes in the MLS who want to call the shots. Advertisers, managers, club presidents, commisioners, etc. However, it's at the point where it's starting to become scorched into America's sports list nowadays. I remember reading an article about how the MLS was able to lure people from the NHL during the hiatus and from the NBA for whatever reason. Either way, MLS is getting there slowly. The current tourney called SuperLiga where it's 4 MLS teams versus 4 Mexican clubs should be interesting.
As far as my tastes, I don't particularly have a favorite in England but I follow the Spanish and Italian leagues (Deportivo La Coruña and AC Milan respectively). Being Mexican, I'd consider myself a fan of Guadalajara and that defaults me to being partial for Chivas USA. This pretty much means I'm refreshing news sites for transfer tidbits all summer long. Bleargh...
Maybe if it was just like a thing for one day (like Saturday or something) when all the teams played their week's games, and they were broadcast on all the major networks, I would watch it.
Get FSC. ESPN2 Shows them..randomly. I just get the online thing from mlsnet.com. It's real cheap, like 15$ and you get to watch every game.
I married into a Liverpudlian family some years ago, and have been a fan of the reds ever since. Have to admit, it was pretty emotional to see the plans for the new Kop today. It should be amazing. You can tell that the design is purposely flying in the face of those like Arsenal's new ground. It's very asymmetric and that's a good thing in my mind.
As far as the season goes, I hope we can keep pace with Chelsea and Man U this year. Fernando Torres is an exciting signing, but our best new player so far in preseason has been one we got for free--Voronin.
I'm just getting over the Champions league loss to AC Milan, but this year will hope that we show up better in the league.
YNWA
*Proud member of the Photoshop Heroes*
What bob said. Fucking shambles on an epic scale. 6-0 loss, coach not allowed anywhere near the team because he can't hold his temper, captain of the fucking team sent off in the first half. It was the most humiliatingly piss poor performance I've ever seen.
I give mtvcdm credit for the American Samoan burn because the guy who scored 5 of those 6 goals that beat us also holds the world record for goals scored in an international game; 13 during the thrashing of American Samoa. Archie Thompson is a personal nemesis of my team, that smarm infested scumfuck.
Bless us with more of your American insights on football.
His wife might be annoying but, aside from his 98 red card, I really can't think of much that would make David a "drama queen".
Have you actually seen him play during Uniteds treble run? Have you actually seen how he basically made Real Madrid the champions this year, the second half of the season?
He might not be a legendary player, and yeah, the OMG DAVID BECKHAM LA GALAXY LEGEND shit is overrated, but goddamn, Beckham has earned our respect.
What is funny, is our yank friends here have feeder leagues named A-League and the NSL. How fucking wierd is that?
I caught the pre-season cup match between Adelaide and Melbourne. Good stuff.
I notice no mention has been made of that incident last Saturday. We shall speak of it no more.
Speaking of Archie, the Melbourne strategy seemed to be in the match "long ball it to Archie", alas, Archie was in Thailand getting left on the benches as we got flogged. And their backup striker was pants.
If by randomly you mean every Thursday night, then yes, I guess they show MLS randomly.
I'm enjoying the SuperLiga thus far for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because the Mexican sides have yet to win a match through 4 games.
Hopefully Beckham gets to play against CD Guadeljara this weekend.
I, too, never understood why the drama queen label was pressed onto him. So he married a spice girl. He gets red carded, misses a penalty, cries after a game....this is shit tons of other players do. Eric Wynalda put up more drama than Beckham, hell, he's still all pissy these days even as a commentator.
Cue the American Samoa diss.
Limed for truth. Beckham is not the Soccer Jesus that the American media is making him out to be. He is almost certainly not going to make the MLS meaningful in any way. But, he is still a very quality player that most European teams still would probably want on their teams. He has done alot over his career, so he has earned some respect for it. Also, when you see how he handled the last 6 months, you can tell he is at least a decent, honest and respectable person. Seriously, how many professional superstar athletes would essentially bite their tongue and just go out and practice hard when they were getting shit on that badly?????
Beckham is good. Nothing more, nothing less.
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