Super Bowl Gives Soccer Fans Opportunity To Rise Up
by Dave Clark on Feb 5, 2012 2:00 PM PST
in Life in the Sound
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PrintOn Super Bowl Sunday Fox did soccer fans the generous courtesy of airing the Chelsea v Manchester United game live on broadcast television. The game certainly had highlights worthy of a general sports fan's attention and it was shown in basically twice as many nations as the Super Bowl will be this afternoon.
Unfortunately many die-hard soccer fans chose today as a time to show petty small-man feelings and litter social networks with how their sport is better, more exciting, etc. The bold statements about popularity in regards to soccer usually tend to ignore that the NFL is not just an Amero-centric sport, but league that is fiscally sound and makes billions in profits every single year. It grows in popularity outside of the USA every year, and there is an increasing likelihood that there will be a team in London within your lifetime.
Instead the reflexive reaction of soccer fans (in general) was to look down on other sports, to assault the non-soccer as if it is a zero sum game. It is not. This is a weakness in a psyche of the American soccer fan that needs to end. To quote Adrian Hanauer at Date with Sounder at Heart;
In fairness to us the game has been swept under the carpet for so many years, it's a niche sport and we've come out of the basement and I understand it, but that's sort of the next step - where we're not defensive anymore about the game.
Today's Super Bowl is a celebration of the most popular sport in America. Taking the piss out of it does not help soccer grow. It continues that locked in the basement attitude. Get beyond that.
Hanauer mentioned at that same event a type of behavior he hopes to see grow. It is something that we here call soccer evangelism.
I think that because soccer has made it in this city (again I don't want to come off the wrong way) we in the soccer world have the ability to be a little exclusionary and self-righteousness and preachy, to say "if you don't like it you're stupid."
We aren't better. We have different interests and we need to find ways to share those interests in order to increase interest in the sport and league we love. If MLS Cup had even 5% of the interest of the Super Bowl that would be good for the sport. Telling the hundred million plus of your neighbors how stupid their interests are isn't going to help.
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As a former sports journalist who lists college football and pro soccer as my favorite two sports, in that order, this is the topic I hear most amongst from my anti-soccer friends. Not that the game is boring or only for teenage girls, but that the fans act elite and beyond silly American games. Be proud, explain why it’s an amazing sport and always stay as open minded as we ask others to be about the game we love.
by footychatterbypetitt on Feb 5, 2012 2:23 PM PST reply actions
Hooray for Throwball!
I’ve got Brit friends who are more into the NFL then I am and I grew up playing football. Sport vs Sport is a pointless argument, you like what you like. As far as the NFL, I could do without the timeouts every two minutes and the 27 person panel of experts.
by DaveValleDrinkNight on Feb 5, 2012 2:25 PM PST reply actions
i think it's silly
to limit your fandom to one sport. all sports have things in them that are exciting, all sports have tense, exciting, classic moments, and it’s absurd to say that, if today’s super bowl is less than a spectacular game, that soccer is “better.” Enjoy each sport for what it is, it’s far more entertaining to be able to watch anything that’s on, and perhaps unsurprisingly, what you notice in one sport can help your understanding of others.
I pretty much hate American football
But I think it’s stupid to get into this kind of pissing match. It’s just a game. This game, that game; they are different in style but not in moral superiority. One of the nice things about soccer gaining popularity in America is that it has led people to see that “football” means many things, not just American-style or Association-style; truth be told I think Aussie Rules is probably the most exciting of all. So are both kinds of rugby. It’s all good.
American football has some problems that need to be addressed, such as the complete and utter corruption of the college game, and the burgeoning Traumatic Brain Encephalopathy issue, but that’s about it.
One point in American football’s favor, on display today during the United-Chelsea match: they don’t have Piers Morgan in the booth. What a disgraceful human being he is. He should be in a jail cell, not talking about soccer (or anything else) on national TV. It’s quite incredible what an English accent can get you in this country.
Moral Superiority
I don’t think there’s any way to solve American Football’s brain injury problem without fundamentally changing the game. Seems that this does point to Association football being at least a little bit morally superior.
Soccer is the sport second most likely to wind up in brain injury
that isn’t much superiority is it?
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
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Dunno
I know that soccer has a similar problem with head injuries, and that frequent heading the ball can have an ugly cumulative effect, but I hadn’t heard it was second to American football — my under-educated assumption would be that the various types of rugby and hockey would be worse. But even if soccer is number two, a moral judgment would depend on the magnitude of the difference, not an ordered ranking. I could be sadly wrong, but my gut expectation is that American football is way worse. Anectdotaly, it sure seems you see many more people permanently damaged by the local game.
I think the body sizes make a difference
Soccer players don’t tend to 6’8 325 lbs.
To be honest, I’d like to see soccer look at some sort of helmet to mitigate the damage from headers
That would actually cause more injury
What happens if you hit someone with that helmet? That would require more padding, which would slow down players and make it harder to control the ball in an exact manner. Cech, the keeper for Chelsea has a sort of helmet, however, he is not expected to ever have to head the ball or control it with his head.
It's a rugby scrum cap
He’s worn one for years, due to a skull fracture suffered during a match in 2006. He initially wore a cap made by Canterbury of New Zealand, but now wears a scrum cap made by adidas. Basically, he wears a scrum cap for the same reason John Olerud always wore a batting helmet in the field – to protect a skull weakened by injury.
by BroadwayJoeFYVM on Feb 6, 2012 3:28 AM PST up reply actions
I do not think there is a lot of impact from headers.
Your prepare your body and head to hit the ball, and many times, you just redirecting the ball. It is much worse when someone hits you with the ball straight in your face. You almost never see a player going down after headers, but you see them going down almost every time when someone volleys the ball in their face. It feels like Mike Tyson punched you in the face.
Yeah
You just squeeze those muscles around the brain to keep it from being deformed by the blow….
lol
How do head injuries typically occur in soccer?
1. Elbow to head and head-to-head contact when two or more players are contesting for ball in the air. MOST COMMON
2. Goalkeepers getting kicked or getting a knee to the head or hitting head on goalpost.
3. Body-to-body contact without direct contact to the head in which the head accelerates or decelerates violently.
4. Getting hit in head unexpectedly with the ball and hitting head on ground after a fall.
5. Deliberately heading the ball LEAST COMMON
In addition, FIFA’s Medical and Research Center concluded that "forces generally associated with heading the ball are not sufficient to cause concussions."
If heading is done properly, the ball impact is not hard enough to cause problems.
Concussions are not the only problem
Much of the attention in the football world, in the past few years, has been on concussions—on diagnosing, managing, and preventing them—and on figuring out how many concussions a player can have before he should call it quits. But a football player’s real issue isn’t simply with repetitive concussive trauma. It is, as the concussion specialist Robert Cantu argues, with repetitive subconcussive trauma. It’s not just the handful of big hits that matter. It’s lots of little hits, too.
That’s why, Cantu says, so many of the ex-players who have been given a diagnosis of C.T.E. were linemen: line play lends itself to lots of little hits. The HITS data suggest that, in an average football season, a lineman could get struck in the head a thousand times, which means that a ten-year N.F.L. veteran, when you bring in his college and high-school playing days, could well have been hit in the head eighteen thousand times: that’s thousands of jarring blows that shake the brain from front to back and side to side, stretching and weakening and tearing the connections among nerve cells, and making the brain increasingly vulnerable to long-term damage.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell#ixzz1lZmcLFsp
I think it’s an open question how much head trauma one can accumulate through years and years of heading a soccer ball. Which is not to say that everyone should stop playing soccer or that the game should definitely be changed, but that it is an open question and a question which deserves further study.
Concussions and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)
The book you reference was published in 2002. With how fast and far medical science has advanced in the last 10 years I suspect that the medical community would consider much of the information contained within it to be out of date and not reflective of the current best practices and knowledge.
- Are soccer players likely to get a concussion from heading the ball? No.
- Are soccer players susceptible to concussions? Yes.
All we have to do is look at how Jeff Parke and Terry Boss of the Sounders were impacted by concussions they suffered during the 2011 season. Both missed games and Terry Boss eventually was forced to retire.
In a broader sense, I think that we are missing the larger issue here when we focus only on concussions and if soccer players get them as frequently as football players. Concussions are just one measurement of head trauma. The bigger questions revolve around the continuous long term head impacts and the measurable brain trauma it causes that are sustained while playing soccer and other sports where impacts and collisions to the head and body occur. It is these long term impacts that lead to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). The medical term Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is going to become the new buzzword for team sports head injuries. As CTE deals with the long term effects of consistent minor and major head trauma over extended periods of time. What the medical community is researching now is trying to determine if there is a threshold between short term injury to the brain and permanent injury with long term health consequences and if so when that threshold is crossed.
Let’s not kid ourselves here. Soccer, as well as many other sports, will be impacted as the medical community becomes more knowledgeable on this topic. What is considered to be safe and acceptable now may not be considered to be safe and acceptable in the future.
Medical researchers have already started the process of questioning current conventional wisdom. This link refers to a study that was released last fall where it presents evidence of bad things happening in the brain once players hit the level of 1,000 to 1,500 headers a year. Something only competitive soccer players would likely approach.
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/story/2011-11-29/Heading-a-football-could-lead-to-brain-damage/51463474/1
http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/29/soccer-heading-may-cause-brain-damage/
Two other places with good general information are
Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy
http://www.bu.edu/cste/
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – Traumatic Brain Injury
http://www.cdc.gov/TraumaticBrainInjury/
Here is a really good video where CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta describes concussions.
Explain it to Me: Concussions
http://cnn.com/video/?/video/health/2012/01/24/eitm-concussions.cnn
by Kiliman2004 on Feb 6, 2012 12:17 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
The thing about long term injuries is that they don't knock you out right away
We are talking about players taking impacts to their heads several times a game and in practice. Each impact causes the brain to be a little bit squashed. The injuries aren’t the kind that just manifest after one application… but they are still a long term problem for the player.
Concussion damage adds up over the years.
Quite so
But the extent of the damage in American football is just beginning to come out. Players typically have damaging sub-concussions fifty or sixty times a day, including practice, which is probably worse than the actual concussions that are somewhat rare®.
I think the news is going to get a lot worse, myself.
But this is not a MORAL superiority. It’s just a less-damaging situation.
Every header is a "sub-concussion"
every single one
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
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I'll admit it was Roger Goodell
On Costas Tonight
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Boxing (any martial art, really), Downhill skiing/snowboarding, rugby
all seem like they would have more common and serious head injuries than soccer…
La Vecchia Signora Forever!
The studies probably reference team sports
rugby is surprisingly less violent than Americans assume
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I think the 2nd place stat is based on sheer volume
Due to the number of soccer players playing here in the states and worldwide they are going to be pretty high in number of concussions for the sport, compared to boxing or even skiing/snowboarding. Also a lot of concussions occur when the player is hit in the head as opposed to attempting a header, only recently have Neurologists and Sports Medicine researchers looked at long term effect of soccer players with a history of head trauma.
If you play the "morally right" card, you can't use head injuries
If you have to play that card, you should use something along the point that soccer is a simple game. And that makes it equal. You don’t have to be a huge man to play soccer. Nor a tall one, as in basketball. Being big can help. Being tall can help. However, the best player in the world is 5’4" puny Argentinian. Women can play the game. And they can play it well. Just about as well as a man (not to say that all women can play as well as a guy can).
I don’t undertand football. I don’t much like it. However, I see why other people do. I see the things that are valued and for what reason. I don’t really much care if someone else likes football over soccer. What I don’t understand are some of the complaints that are only now starting to slowly disappear. “Why are there draws?” “Why don’t they take breaks?” “Why isn’t it higher scoring?”“When is the game supposed to end?”.
What else bothers me is how the actual point of the Super Bowl has been stretched thin. Now, it’s all about glitz and glamour and commercials. Because of that, I won’t be watching. Why should I? I don’t like the sport, and it’s mostly devoted to commercials. But that doesn’t give me any reason to look down on my friends who care much more for this game.
Just like any other sport
I hope one day being a soccer fan is just as normal as being an nfl fan. We don’t need to prove that we belong and don’t need to dump on other sports to earn respect. People follow nfl and MLB and nba. Why can’t MLS be just another sport in that crowd?
by blakec on Feb 5, 2012 3:32 PM PST reply actions 2 recs
Watched chronicle last night
And there was a sounders billboard but no football billboards. We win
by hindsight on Feb 5, 2012 6:29 PM PST via iPhone app reply actions
My girlfriend and I saw it yesterday
Deep down I was thinking “Yeah this movie is based in Seattle, but there isn’t that much to make me feel like it is based there besides some flannel and trees” Then when we saw the billboard get obliterated, and my girlfriend and I both looked at each other with stupid grins on our faces. It was a good movie in my mind at that point.
The Seattle Sounders are just reDQulous
Insecure
Great post. The insecurities of the American soccer fan need to be a thing of the past. Landon is one of the best players in two leagues now. The are quite a few others that are desired. For the first time in my long life….fhe league is not on the verge of lesving us. Jusr enjoy and if others ARE too stupid to enjoy
by Charles J on Feb 5, 2012 8:05 PM PST via mobile reply actions
Here was a "fun" aspect to today's game
I was watching it with my meathead-steak-eating-football diehard roommate, and he asked why they were booing Rio Ferdinand. I got to explain that it was because he’s the black brother of a black player who claimed he was racially abused by brave brave Three Lions Captain John Terry, and how Chelsea have a bunch of skinhead fans, how there was a very obvious and xenophobic double standard for how John Terry’s case has been handled and how the Luis-Evra debacle was handled, and how basically backwards the entire football culture in England is. He was not impressed. Even my meatheaded roommate could understand how pathetic their attempts to “kick it out” have been, and could not believe that any fans in the world were openly booing in the situation. He was not impressed by the “beautiful game” today. I did hear a “holy crap!” when De Gea saved that freekick from Mata, though. He’s coming around. He was still annoyed that he watched for two ours to see a tie.
The return of THIERRY
Ties are incredibly hard to sell.
People see it as being pointless, while soccer fans I think see the fairness in them. For me personally, the tie is the key to interesting seasons, as having a points based table has significantly more room for possibilities then does a sport in which you only have wins. It absolutely peaks the imagination to see how many different ways a table can look, even after a single day of games in which any of 8-10 games can go 3 different ways, as opposed to two. Points lose here, and points won there are integral parts when discussing standing for a game in which ties are used. It’s another dimension to the game and that’s a good thing.
I think it’s a product of just our culture and maybe even the times we live in, where we live in a ‘get it done yesterday’ kinda world in which only results and outcomes matter. Too concerned with the destination, and not concerned enough with the journey. A tie may not be the most definitive of answers to a game, but a lot of times, it’s certainly one of the most entertaining, and honest.
by Jason Riptide on Feb 6, 2012 2:38 AM PST up reply actions
Completely agree with you
I don’t think there is anything more entertaining than second half goal-peppering by a big four club against relegation fodder than ends in a 0-0.
The return of THIERRY
I've noticed that people who...
Aren’t soccer fan get most impressed by saves made goalies. Even though the Mata goal of Torres’ cross was absolutely beautiful. It most be because of our (American) ingrained notion that sports are played hands (football, basketball, baseball).
Like most of you guys, I too get tired of the whining and holy attitude that some soccer fans have. We all need to get over it.
by cghanson on Feb 6, 2012 9:34 AM PST via mobile up reply actions
I really dislike NFL, but I have nothing against American Football.
I hold season tickets to the Huskies along with my Sounders tickets. I think the NFL in particular takes itself far too seriously and the players are treated as if they are pure magic.
I can’t stand how desperately the NFL is constantly trying to wrap itself in the American flag. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Goodell implement an agreement that gets you on an FBI watchlist if you don’t watch the Super Bowl.
I also hate the absolutely delusional way that the NFL and many (not all) NFL players try to equate themselves to soldiers who are actually at war. I listened to a player on sportsradio yesterday talk about the “special bond” that NFL players have with active military because they “do battle” on the field themselves.
With all that being said. These are all gripes with the league and the reverence that so many people hold for it. I actually enjoy watching the game itself.
Sounders 'til I die
by SounderJunkie on Feb 6, 2012 1:25 AM PST reply actions 2 recs
I find it's hard to not get defensive...
Despite absolutely hating to get defensive about it.
I don’t condone having that ‘soccer elitist’ mentality, because it’s silly to think it’s better than anything else cause I like it more. Duh. But the ‘elitism’ soccer fans get, I think is a natural reaction, considering a lot of the flak and negativity towards the game is so uncreative and just elementary. Someone doesn’t like baseball it’s because they find it too slow and hard to get into. Someone doesn’t like basketball, it’s because of the lack of real contact . Someone doesn’t like hockey, because they cant see the puck on tv (a problem HD is fixing quite nicely.) But when someone doesn’t like soccer, it’s because it’s a little kids and girl’s game or it’s “gay.” I think it’s the idea that soccer = homosexuality that really offends me, and gets me on the defensive about it. And not in the macho “I ain’t gay!” kinda way, but in the “Dude, it’s really not cool to have such a hatred for something because you closely relate it’s negative aspects to being homosexual.”
The hatred for it is so childish and so low, yet hurled and regurgitated with such resentment and misunderstanding, it’s hard to not react by thinking you’re better than those kinds of insults, and sometimes, even if it’s against your sincerest beliefs, better than the people who make them. Like the big 4 are accepted as take them or leave them kinda things, and you won’t find many people who will criticize you for liking Baseball, even if they are not fans, but to be a soccer fan to someone who looks down on the game, is to have inferior tastes to them in their eyes.
I dont have many friends who like soccer; the few I have are not close by any means but are perfect definition of ‘facebook friends’ or ‘friends of friends.’ And most of my close friends that I see often and talk to every day, loathe the game, for whatever pre-concieved notion they have. Any time my soccer fandom comes up it’s often met with insults and slurs about the perceived “homosexuality” of the game. I often deflect the comments about how “gay” (I’m not) I am by just playing into it and saying something even funnier and wittier than they did and it goes away but it’s the attitude that truly leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I understand they are just joking with me and could care less if I like soccer or not, but I know the attitude they present towards it is honest. And these are people who have gay friends and are very liberal about ‘homosexuality’ and tend to not view anything else with such disdain when relating the two…except for soccer. It’s the strangest thing sometimes.
And below that, the diving is the most picked on (which is often related to the sissy, “homosexual” attitude about it.) And that’s frustrating in it’s own right.
by Jason Riptide on Feb 6, 2012 2:24 AM PST reply actions 1 recs
The rise in popularity in the NFL outside the US is overstated.
That there might be only one team of any significance outside the US “in our lifetimes” seems evidence of that, not evidence to the contrary.
I love the NFL. American football is my second favroite sport. But it is very much our Aussie rules or Gaellic football. It does far better internationally than those in terms of merchandising, capitalizing on those who want to wear “American sportswear” and don’t know or care what it is they are wearing beyond that, but in terms of genuine followers of the game, it doesn’t do much better than Aussie rules. Yes, it’s popular in Canada. And yes, it has very small followings in Mexico, the UK, Germany, and Japan. But it is still very much fringe status in all of those countries (with the possible excepton of Mexico – I know less about that).
As for “bashing the sport”. I haven’t seen any of this (I haven’t looked) but yes, of course that’s stupid. Interest in sports is subjective, and bashing any sport is asinine.
by WendellGee on Feb 6, 2012 3:36 AM PST reply actions 1 recs
You'd be surprised
Mexico has its own multi-divisional college-football league like the NCAA – check out www.onefa.org if your Spanish is up to it. They even have a bowl game of their own (the Aztec Bowl), and there have long been cross-border games, with Mexican college and high-school all-star teams playing college and HS teams in the border states.
The NFL has marketed themselves to the Latino community pretty aggresively over the last several years, and exhibition games held in Monterrey have been well-attended, and a regular-season game played in Mexico next season is already in the works. If and when the NFL expands internationally, either Mexico City or Monterrey will be on that short list, along with Toronto, London, and probably one German city, my guess being either Berlin or Dusseldorf.
by BroadwayJoeFYVM on Feb 6, 2012 3:59 AM PST up reply actions
Another soccer site will never refer to it as football or the NFL
but only as pointy-ball, handegg or astronaut football.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart | Follow Dave on Twitter @bedirthan
Not at all
twitter was littered with soccer fans acting like children, which is why I referenced that. Someone asked for another example, so I gave one. I think that mocking the Super Bowl and the NFL will not help soccer gain new fans.
Nor do the insults of other sports.
In any thing you enjoy in life was your first time because someone assaulted your previous sense of taste?
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart | Follow Dave on Twitter @bedirthan
I have to admit that I like all of those names.
However, any website who’s primary audience is American is just acting like a stubborn child if they refuse to call if football. At the very most, it makes sense to always refer to it as “American Football” if you are a soccer site in order to avoid confusion.
Sounders 'til I die
by SounderJunkie on Feb 6, 2012 11:20 AM PST up reply actions
I have to admit
the occasional snark on S@H toward that site is one of the more fun parts about this site. It’s not that they don’t deserve it, especially considering the general disdain that site tends to have toward the Sounders organization.
by Randy Meeker on Feb 6, 2012 10:32 PM PST up reply actions
I do not appreciate it
I like both sites and see the occasional snark in the same light I see the occasional snarks people make against football.
Again, this wasn't about a specific site
This was about hundreds of mentions on twitter I read during the Chelsea v Manchester United match.
When I talk about something in specificity it will be linked, no matter how much I may disagree with the story.
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart | Follow Dave on Twitter @bedirthan
Not to bash football
But it sure seems like there is something wrong with the rules when a player relunctantly scores at the end of the game to take the lead. Sure tactically it would have been better to not score wait out the clock and kick a field goal for the win, I understand that. But it just seems wrong.
What I struggle with is how soccer is better in this regards. I want to say there is not a situation where they would not score if given the oppurtunity but maybe I am wrong.
I like football and basketball but both have rules that I would really like to see change to make the game better. Getting rid of this crazy incentive is one of them.
Similarly there is incentive to use your hands to deny goal
as proven in the world cup
I am not a Supporter | I am not a Fan | I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart | Follow Dave on Twitter @bedirthan
The incentive is only there in soccer
in a do-or-die situation; for most of the game if Suarez were in a similar situation he would’ve conceded the goal, but he knew that it was better at that stage in the game to take the punishment and risk the 77% chance they were going to score anyway for the 23% payoff that they might get lucky. It’s not without reason that he was visibly distraught until the penalty, because even after being sent off there was a goodly chance his actions would be to no avail. I have a better word for that: desperation.
Besides which, it’s apples and oranges, because you’re comparing offensive and defensive motive. If you want to hold Suarez’s actions to the magnifying glass, it should instead be compared to the Patriots’ actions in basically enabling the other team to take the lead – by which logic Suarez, on the goal line in added time, would not only not stop the ball from entering the net by whatever means possible but would step aside and lay down his shirt in the centre of the box to make sure the opposing striker didn’t get his studs dirty while he scored a near-certain winner. And when was the last time you saw a losing soccer team timewasting? Never, that’s when; because unlike football and – possibly even more so – basketball, soccer’s rules are codified to encourage play instead of finaglery.
And send out 12 men at the end of the game for better pass coverage since it wastes time off the clock.
as we saw in the superbowl.
yes that is an example that is bad in soccer
And I would like to see somehow changed.
I also think in soccer, if you roll around on the field and then don't get carted off on a stretcher
the 4th official should be timing you and not allow you to return to the field until your length of “tantrum” is over after the game play has restarted.
by chrisso on Feb 6, 2012 9:01 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
If I was a referee
I would completely ignore the next hard foul on any player that rolls around, feigning injury and wasting time. If you take away the incentive to fake an injury, it should cease to be a problem.
by Randy Meeker on Feb 6, 2012 10:37 PM PST up reply actions
This specific oddity may be unique to football, but every sport has it's quirks.
I find it much more annoying that the end of practically every basketball game is a series of purposefully committed penalties. At least the purposeful avoidance of a touchdown is a rare occurrence.
Sounders 'til I die
by SounderJunkie on Feb 6, 2012 11:26 AM PST up reply actions
That is my biggest gripe
And the one I have put the most thought too. I still do not have a perfect solution but if I were in charge of the NBA I would impose a no timeouts after the 2 minute mark and intentional fouls would be a 1 free throw and possession back to the offensive team.
At this stage in my life, I'm a bigger fan of soccer than football
That said, there’s really no point in comparing them. I get that soccer fans are, rightly, tired of the accusations of how boring our sport is, but if the goal is to convince people of how that’s not true, the way to go about it is not attacking other sports. If your goal is to just argue, obviously, that’s your right, but you should not be under the misperception that you are doing “our” cause any favors when doing so.
Editor/writer at Sounder at Heart, MLS editor SB Nation. Follow me on Twitter. You'll Never Yacht Alone.
by Jeremiah Oshan on Feb 6, 2012 8:51 AM PST reply actions 4 recs
Hating on the NFL would be especially dumb for Sounders fans considering how helpful the Seahawks have been
by lemonverbena on Feb 6, 2012 8:54 AM PST reply actions 10 recs
Good article. Getting into a pissing match about the NFL..
…has never made sense to me. I prefer the positive approach. I quit following the NFL in the mid-90’s after being a fan for many years and a season ticket holder for 13 years. I have my reasons for disliking the NFL but I find nothing productive in arguing about the league or the game with football fans. Last year I was able to take my brother, who has had Seahawks season tickets since 1982, to his first Sounders game. He thoroughly enjoyed himself. The game and the atmosphere at the CLink sold itself without any pontifications from me about the superiority of soccer over American football.
by Rooselk on Feb 6, 2012 8:56 AM PST via mobile reply actions 2 recs
Other sports
I’m really looking forward to a time when September and October is filled with meaningful games by the Sounders, Mariners and Seahawks. Could be a magical time for sports fans who have the time and are open minded about all sports.
by thepull on Feb 6, 2012 9:34 AM PST reply actions 2 recs
I've never understood the constant comparisons to soccer and football
Aside from the fact that soccer is called football in other countries and both are played on a big field, they are completely different games.
I miss *REAL* Four Loko
by B-Lot tailgater on Feb 6, 2012 11:07 AM PST reply actions
They both came from the same game though
Rugby, American Football, Australian Rules Football, and Soccer were all just variations on the same game that was being played in the early to middle 19th century. It would have been common for a “football” team to play another team and decide on which version they were going to play before hand.
This woudl be fun to see now
Imagine a tournement with Arsenal, Seahawks, and some rugby team. Coin flip before each game to deetermine rules. :)
Already happens - kinda
Australian Football and Gaelic Football’s governing bodies (the Australian Football League and the Gaelic Athletic Association) have a hybrid-rules match every couple of years called International Rules Football, featuring all-star teams from both leagues.
by BroadwayJoeFYVM on Feb 6, 2012 9:24 PM PST up reply actions
And you can add hockey to that list
Modern hockey came into existance following a rugby game played at Harvard. The Canadian team who played that day returned home and shortly thereafter a member of that team wrote and then developed the first modern rules of hockey. Oddly enough hockey and American football share a linked origin
by Rooselk on Feb 6, 2012 5:09 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Basketball as well
The sport was actually invented during the winter months when it was too cold to play soccer outside, so a variation was devised.
by Randy Meeker on Feb 6, 2012 10:43 PM PST up reply actions
I understand that
But we are in the early 21st century now.
I miss *REAL* Four Loko
by B-Lot tailgater on Feb 7, 2012 11:14 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
How 'bout Kasey?
Anyone remember his comments on how his American family watches all sports, because gosh-darn-it-that’s-what-Americans-do. And he always seemed to be wearing a Hawks lid during interviews…
I’ve always disliked the “you can’t like both footballs” mentality. Imagine basketball fans having a general dislike for hockey fans… In a way it’s that bizarre.
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