Columnist: "What's so great about soccer?"

[officeglenn]

Normally I'm not one to get wound up over things in the newspaper, but a column by Edmonton Sun columnist Kerry Diotte had me up in arms today. Excerpts from the column:

I can't fathom why there's so much excitement over the World Cup of soccer, especially here in Canada, where citizens live and die over the superior sport of hockey.

If you were brought up playing soccer from birth you might have an interest in this tournament of 32 teams. But why would you if you're a born-and-bred Canadian?

...

Most North Americans rightly detest soccer. Unlike hockey and football, it's not violent enough for their liking ? unless you count the antics of the hooligans in the stands.

I wonder just how can anyone riot or beat up the other team's supporters over such a dull sport.

Some would argue that baseball is as boring as it comes in the world of sports. I disagree. In that game, there's strategy, power, agility, speed (at times) and no time clock to worry about.

Soccer takes the cake when it comes to the Snooze-O-Meter. Do you have insomnia? Forget sleeping pills. Catch a World Cup game on TV and you'll be sawing logs, pronto.

...

I know my views wn't go down well with soccer fans. Fair enough. If you're a fan tell me why in 75 words or less why soccer is so great. It's not at all evident to me.

...

Well, soccer fans, let's take him up on his offer! E-mail your reasons why you like soccer in 75 words or less to kdiotte@edmsun.com (also CC mailbag@edmsun.com if you like; better chance of getting it printed).

My response:

"I'm a born-and-bred Canadian who loves to watch and play soccer. Seventy-five words on why? Done.

"Creativity. Speed. Skill. Passion. Pride. Diving saves. Extra time. Tense penalty shootouts. Joyful victory. Agonizing defeat. Sound like another sport we know?

"Just because you don't like the game and have a soapbox to shout it from doesn't give you the right to dump on it for the rest of us. Let us have our fun in peace."

(For the record, 74 words. )

[The_Admiral]

Soccer is hockey without violence, sticks, and pipe organs. What good is that?

[TFoA]

It's funny. I can't watch soccer at a live event, but I can watch it all day on TV. Hockey is the exact opposite. I will fall asleep watching hockey (regular season at least) on TV, but if I go to a game I'd be all into it.

With that being said, soccer is overall better. It stimulates your mind, and it's just the beautiful game.

Joga Bonito, mes amis

[DEAD!]

Soccer is a simple sport that anyone around the world can relate to regardless of age, race, gender, religion and wealth. Do you think that children in Togo can simply grab their skates, sticks and pucks have a pick up game on a pond? I didn't think so.

[paynomind]

Soccer is more beautiful and artistic and creative than any other sport. Maybe it takes playing to understand that truely, but I ose completely and totally respect for anyone who says it is boring or that they hate it. They are just to simple-minded and thug-bash-crush oriented to wrap their tiny little empty minds around it.

The World Cup is the greatest event in sports.

I love it. If you dont, you are missing out. You shoudl really give it a try. Sit with a fan so they can explain to you what is happening and why it is interesting.

The Sweden/T&T game this year ended in a 0-0 draw. The non-soccer fan would tell you that sucks. It was one of th emost intense, passionate, inspired games I've seen in my life. It was terriffic soccer.

If you dont like soccer, it is YOU that has something wrong. Not us 50 billion who love it with passion.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I don't necessarily like soccer, but I certainly don't hate it. It just doesn't do much for me, even though I'd like it to. I enjoy the history, the language and the passion that a lot of fans bring to the game. What actually goes on on the field, or the pitch, kind of bores me.

However, I hate, hate, hate loudmouth columnists of any stripe that become so bereft of ideas that all they have left to do is incite anger in their readership. Making fun of soccer fans, country music fans, liberals, conservatives, Christians, athiests, video game fans, or whatever just for the sake of doing so is the sign on a bad writer and a sloppy columnist. They do that kind of crap to get a reaction and play coy when they finally get one. It's a very tired racket.

[The_Admiral]

I guess I'm just a Big Dumb American Pig, but I find soccer to be less compelling than our Big Four. To me, baseball has all the great qualities that you guys love about soccer--strategy, speed, strength, intense rivalry, nailbiting close games, etc--but since that's what I've grown up with, I embrace baseball and not soccer. Soccer is Their game, baseball is Ours.

International soccer does nothing for me, at least with respect to how the USA's team fares, because we have no real rivals or anything. I might so far as to say that Americans have been losing interest in international sports as a whole since the Cold War ended. I mean, when the USA would play the USSR, everyone knew these guys weren't just playing to win, this was for the biggest bragging rights possible. There's none of that now. All we have now is "God, I hope those European :censored:s aren't TOO insufferable when we lose to them."

I don't blame people for not getting into soccer in Canada and the USA. Just because it's more conducive to being played around the world does not mean it is an inherently superior sport. A lot of people find the sport painfully boring. If you don't know the game well, it's basically just a bunch of guys putzing around on a field with a ball for 90 minutes. A baseball game is nothing more than a series of events, the outcomes of which can be meticulously documented, statistically analyzed, and so on. I can tell you exactly what happened, pitch by pitch, in a game. Compared to that, a soccer match is like a big rolling dust cloud from a cartoon. Thus, you can point to a 0-0 tie in baseball as the presence of dominant pitching, whereas a soccer 0-0 tie is seen as the absence of activity.

And then there's the flopping. I don't know if Europeans are big pro wrestling fans, or wusses, or what, but you lightly brush up against one and they pretend to hyperextend a wrist. This takes whatever enjoyment is left out of soccer for me, and it wouldn't bother me THAT much if the Flopping Ethic wasn't creeping into hockey and basketball by way of players from primarily soccer countries.

I'm sure soccer is a wonderful and charming game, but English-speaking North America doesn't give a damn. We're only in this because we have to be.

[spyboy1]

This is what just amazes me about newspaper sportswriters & sports columnists. They almost all seem to be sworn members of the "Old Tyme, Cigar-Chomping Stick and Ball Society".

Football. Baseball. Basketball. Golf. And on occastion Boxing & Horse racing.

Don't know about anything else. Don't care about anything else. Ridicule everything else.

SERIOUSLY, you would think that to be a sportswriter, a prerequsite for the job would be to LIKE sports. ALL sports.

Stick a number on it, and I'll watch damn near anything, and I can certainly find time in my oh-so-busy life to follow some soccer for one month every four years.

You have to be an idiot to not at least be able to see the stories that develop as small teams rise to unexpected heights, countires with rivalries that go back into history meet in competition, individual characters personalities shine through, dramatic finishes and the passion of the supporters. But what do the Stickandball Society write about? No scoring. Hooligans. Yawn. Guys, it's not 1985 anymore. The terraces are gone and the Heysel Disaster isn't going to repeat itself this month.

Auto racing fans are not just interested in crashes, hockey is not just about fighting and, one every four years, curling can be a kick to watch.

It's so frustrating living in Minnesota for cripes sake and have sooooooooo much football and basketball coverage and so little hockey knowlege in the papers.

And don't even get me started about sports RADIO. Ugh. I just knew that the other day, with the Stanley Cup Finals, the NBA Finals, the World Cup, the Red Sox in town against the Twins that when I turned on the radio in the moring, the ex-Vikings long snapper on the radio was going to do FOUR HOURS on Ben Roethlisberger.

JeffB

[DuckTape4]

Soccer is a simple sport that anyone around the world can relate to regardless of age, race, gender, religion and wealth. Do you think that children in Togo can simply grab their skates, sticks and pucks have a pick up game on a pond? I didn't think so.

I agree. At my school, during recess we would go to the blacktop and have a pickup game every day. You can't do that with hockey. Soccer is a sport that needs passion to play. Every year I look forward to soccer season. Maybe it's because I'm a true soccer player, but Soccer is not just a sport for hooligans to go to and party their brains out. So I say Joga Bonito, Play Beautiful.

--DuckTape

[The_Admiral]

Soccer is a sport that needs passion to play.

As opposed to every other sport in the world where everyone's doggin' it, of course

[The_Admiral]

This is what just amazes me about newspaper sportswriters & sports columnists. They almost all seem to be sworn members of the "Old Tyme, Cigar-Chomping Stick and Ball Society".

Football. Baseball. Basketball. Golf. And on occastion Boxing & Horse racing.

Don't know about anything else. Don't care about anything else. Ridicule everything else.

SERIOUSLY, you would think that to be a sportswriter, a prerequsite for the job would be to LIKE sports. ALL sports.

I don't think there's a requirement for sportswriters to love each and every sport. Some don't like basketball because the NBA game has declined and the players are thugs, in their opinion. Some don't like baseball because it's not reaching out to urban blacks enough for their liking. Some don't like hockey because they're employed by ESPN. It goes on like this. Why you're demanding objectivity from an opinion piece is beyond me.

And the truth is, soccer gets way more positive publicity than negative. You can't escape the "hey guys, look! soccer! it's really neat! check it out! PASSION! CREATIVITY! INTENSITY! IT'S THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GAME IN THE WORLD! We need to catch up with the world community! We'll make soccer fans of you, just watch!"

It goes on like this until one guy reacts to the circle-jerk and goes "um, I don't really like soccer, on account of I'm a North American who grew up with other sports where you can actually make physical contact" and then all the fanboys start freaking out about how writers need to be more "progressive and accepting" and all that jazz. See what you're doing with this cigar-chomping analogy? What kind of Thomas Nast crap is that? Do these old-timer cigar-chompers also work for big-business fat cats (literally cats) who rest their feet on the American laborer? Give me a break. There's no mandate for sportswriters to be "progressive." If they don't like soccer, they don't like soccer. Most people here never will for perfectly understandable reasons, so move on.

[DGivens87]

As a soccer newbie, I used to have the same views on soccer - that it was boring, just a bunch of guys kicking a ball. Boy was I wrong.

The best advice I can offer is to attend a game in person. I became interested after attending a career fair at Gillette Stadium, the organizers included free tickets to the Revs-Fire game after the fair. Sunday afternoon, what else have I got going on? I gave it a try. I watched. I started to like it. So I bought tickets to the following game. I loved it. Yeah, alot of games end 1-0, 0-0, or 2-1, by no means high-scoring affairs. But it's the strategy, the near-misses, the individual play of a defender who breaks up a certain shot on goal, etc. I can't explain it. Plus, with the World Cup, I became more interested in rooting for our country to do well overseas.

I dunno, some people you'll never convince to try anything new. If it's not baseball, football, basketball or hockey, forget it. NASCAR? It's for rednecks. Soccer? It's for immigrants. Some people will never try anything new, and will just continue to hate on anything that they refuse to give a shot.

[CS85]

Soccer/football's a great worldwide sport, but I personally think it's boring as hell.

Most of the guys who played soccer in my highschool were jerks, so that didn't help.

I myself think that the greatest game on earth is American football.

[The_Admiral]

But it's the strategy, the near-misses, the individual play of a defender who breaks up a certain shot on goal, etc.

I find baseball's elements of strategy to be much more compelling, as I mentioned before. Even football's elements of strategy are incredibly detailed and intricate, which I respect. And I don't even like football.

Personally, I feel that baseball is the greatest sport.

[TFoA]

The Sweden/T&T game this year ended in a 0-0 draw. The non-soccer fan would tell you that sucks. It was one of th emost intense, passionate, inspired games I've seen in my life. It was terriffic soccer.

Agreed. You were just on the edge of your seat just wondering "Is T&T gonna fold? Or will they find a way to keep it 0-0? Or will they do the unthinkable and win?!" Besides the awesome game that's going on right now (current NED 2 - 1 IVC), that was the best game of the World Cup, and a prime example of the passion and the fact that a simple game brings together people from a tiny country that is smaller than the biggest cities in Sweden, and puts them on even ground.

[Discrim]

a couple weeks ago in SI, Steve Rushin's column was talkin about soccer. except for his last remark, it was well written, but his "if you don't like soccer, you don't like sports" line didn't need to be there.

soccer's okay in my book. (see "soccer" thread in Polls Only) no, I don't completely understand it. couldn't tell ya if it'd be a better idea to go into a 3-4-3 or a 5-4-1 or whatnot. but keeping some semblance of control over a ball with your feet takes skill, just like a gravity-defying mark or great blocking. That skill, I can appreciate.

as to why it's the world's most popular game...as Lil' Jon could tell ya, hype sells, and the World Cup is the most hyped-up event in all of sports.

[The Nation]

And then there's the flopping. I don't know if Europeans are big pro wrestling fans, or wusses, or what, but you lightly brush up against one and they pretend to hyperextend a wrist. This takes whatever enjoyment is left out of soccer for me, and it wouldn't bother me THAT much if the Flopping Ethic wasn't creeping into hockey and basketball by way of players from primarily soccer countries.

Wow TCR, i mean, have you ever played competitive soccer in your life, if you have then you know how it feels to be running at high speed, and then getting the slightest of touches on your ankle, it kills, it hurts, your burning in rage at the opposing player. These guys wear two dinky shin pads, they wear boots that weigh 6 ounces. I agree, there are some guys that simulate like theres no tomorrow, like Cristiano Ronaldo when he first came with MAN U, but that ended soon. Its funny, because i'm pretty sure that if you put basketball players in the world cup, they wouldn't last five minutes, with the likes of Vince Carter, who looks like he's been shot each time he goes down.

Many North Americans think that most of these fouls are pain-free, but most of these North Americans have never played a contact sport without padding!...and yes soccer is a contact sport.

[DrBear]

Then either make it truly non-contact or wear the damn padding. Either way, quit acting like a bunch of g----m babies. Suck it up.

The other thing I hate about soccer is that one mistake can be way too costly - not the "own goal" in the England-Paraguay match. One small mistake, and not only has his team lost, but his team has dropped any chance of reaching the next round, in all probability. With the lack of scoring in soccer, the mistake is magnified. That is unfair.

[DEAD!]

I say it's to each his or her own. If someone doesn't find soccer appealing, fine. If the majority Americans don't find soccer exciting? Fine with me as well. Americans don't need to like things the rest of the world like or accepts (have they ever?) and likewise, the rest of the world doesn't have to like American football or baseball.

This kind of discussion goes beyond soccer. Americans probably don't understand how passionate Indian and Pakistanians are about cricket or Japanese are towards sumo wrestling.

Likewise, do you think the rest of the world understands the passion the Americans have for American football? No. Nor should they be obliged to.

I happen to like to soccer and a few other sports that others find "strange" or "boring", but you know what? I couldn't give a damn what they think. It's about personal taste.

[Fred T. Jane]

I find baseball's elements of strategy to be much more compelling, as I mentioned before. Even football's elements of strategy are incredibly detailed and intricate, which I respect. And I don't even like football.

Personally, I feel that baseball is the greatest sport.

Try cricket. All of the strategy, obsessive statistics, and care-free nature of baseball...but games last 5 times as long!