Why America refuses to watch Soccer.
Arena points to baseball and basketball, where U.S. teams have lost in international competitions but Americans continue to claim to be the best.
"We have our nice little, not little, our nice professional leagues where we call whoever turns out the winner the world champion, which is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard, and never win a world championship in any of these sports anymore," Arena said. "This [World Cup] is it. This is the real world champion.
"You don't understand that, because you're so used to Nashville beats Jacksonville, we're going to party in the streets. This is the best teams in the world in the most competitive sport in the world, and if we can build an American team to that stage, that's pretty impressive. We've come a long way in a short period of time."
That strange burning smell is the result of American sports fans taking a nice shot from Bruce Arena this weekend. The Coach makes an excellent point about the nonexistant dominance in sports that we supposedly win world championships in every year. When was the last time a US basketball team played anywhere near their supposed level of talent. And if anything the World Baseball Classic this spring showed just how far the US is from dominating anymore.
I've read alot of articles over the last week with one reason or another as to why US sports fans refuse to give any attention to professional soccer. While reasons like pace of the game and lack of scoring are all true to some degree, I think the truth of the matter is there is a little predjudice in any US sports fan. We want to believe that we are the best at anything. That we have the best athletes, the best fans, and the greatest teams. The truth is we don't even have those things in the sports we supposedly dominate. If you really take a minute to think about it. The reason the average sports fan doesn't like professional soccer is very simply we aren't very good at it. US sports fans don't like soccer, because we aren't the best, heck until the last World Cup we were a joke to the rest of the world. You can say what you want about the pace of the game, and all I'll say is Baseball. Talk to me about scoring and I'll say take a few hours and watch Brazil, Argentina, or one of the other high powered offenses at the world cup. There will be no shortage of scoring or at least offensively minded play. Plus there is always the argument of Baseball and Hockey for other low scoring games. (Say what you want hockey was on the rise, until those bozos killed themselves with a strike.)
In fact there is only one sport that the US can claim real dominance in. That would be American Football. Don't get me wrong I love football as much as anyone. When August comes along I swear off Sunkist and wouldn't be caught dead in anything orange. My heart bleeds red and black and I'll live and die with the fortunes of my team, but lets face the facts. The US "dominates" at football the same way Taco Bell dominates at making fast food mexican food. We are the only ones who play it, so of course we are the best. Plus anyone who trys to sell the greatness of football has to answer for NFL Europe and its low numbers as well as all the other spin off leagues that have had a go of it and failed. Granted it could just be the rest of the world showing the same prejudice for our football as we show for theirs, but its not like we can claim we don't deserve it.
All I'm saying through all this is sit down at some point over the next month. Find a schedule and then look up a good game. The Netherlands vs Argentina game on June 21 would be my must see game for the first round. Or if nothing else tune in to one of the US games. Personally I find nothing as exciting as the underdog Americans taking on the rest of the world at their game and winning, withe the rest of the world cheering against us.
1 Comments:
Actually if you have satelite and you have the Fox Sports Channels there is a channel that has nothing, but soccer. Of course you have to pay extra for those channels, so yeah you are right. If it wasn't for the wonder of Tivo I would get to watch Champions League Games that are on while I'm at work. National team games are usually on ESPN or ABC, but not always, and the MLS has a game of the week, but its hard for me to watch much of MLS. Its just not that good. Epspecially after watching national teams and european teams playing.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home