Frank Deford, USA-Today and others sound off about soccer

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Did anyone else take this as a criticism, by extension, of all offside rules in sports?

You could take this to mean he thinks wide receivers in football should be allowed to line up 20 yards downfield before the ball is snapped.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

But he is THE BIGGEST FUCKING HERO IN THE WORLD!

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Fearing the foreigners with the funny hair-dos and short shorts may or may not have something to do with it, but I'm wasn't going for a political angle. It's more about not wanting to expand one's mind and be willing to objectively consider what the other person/side thinks.

Of course, as a good friend of mine would undoubtedly reply, "Open your mind too much and your brain will fall out."  

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Yes, another excuse to post my favorite dubya picture!

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Looks like this thread has well and truly veered into the bridge abutment that is politics.

I think I'll just go to bed.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

I just wish DeFord had said "men's soccer" instead of just the general ol' soccer.
Because, for the 1000th time, women's soccer in American is huge and successful at home and abroad.
One could make the argument that Mia Hamm is the most well-known women's athlete in America. What sport does she play? Soccer.
DeFord is a well-dressed man, I admire his sartorial style, but I tire of the soccer bashers lumping men's soccer and women's soccer together.
I know it is the men's World Cup, but I just wish someone would point out the difference. Maybe even write a reasoned explanation as to why women's soccer has become so big.

So I may have read this elsewhere, it seems like an original thought, but who knows?
A friend asked me to explain why I like watching the World Cup.
I pointed out that I only like soccer during the World Cup, sort of like how I only watch track and field during the Olympics, but I enjoyed the nationalism, the competition, the high-stakes of it. Players that have give up goals have been known to be shot when they got home.
But he was like soccer is so boring, how can you stand to watch.
I told him that soccer was like baseball, but the kind of baseball when only the way you could score was off a homerun. A player could still get on base, so everyone had to play defense, but the only way a team could score was off a homerun. Or maybe a bases-loaded walk. But I don't want to get into the fine points.
After nine innings, if the game was tied or no score, it was called and everyone went home. But if it was important like a game that could decide things, every team got five chances to hit a homerun and on it would go. Until one team had 1.
Then imagine if the U.S. played baseball in this style and every four years the 50 states got together for a tournament, maybe we invited Puerto Rico and a couple of the other places down there as well, but only 32 made it in, so the competition was fierce and state pride became a huge thing. That's how the World Cup is to the Europeans.
He said that finally made sense to him. He also admitted that watching baseball was boring as hell.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Good night.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

As best I can tell, the one thing that turns a lot of Americans off to soccer is the smugness of some of its fans and the attitude is that there's something wrong with you if you don't appreciate "the beautiful game," like you must be a mouth-breathing moron or something.
Americans don't like to have anything shoved down their throats.
Two years ago when I was covering a high school state tournament soccer game, I was talking to a stringer from another paper. He was a retired high school soccer coach. He said when he covered football games he "had to restrict himself to using one-syllable words when interviewing football coaches because that was all they could understand."
OK, genius, if soccer and soccer people are more advanced than football and football people, tell me, which game evolved from which?

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

That really doesn't matter. Too many people here are only too eager to find a political angle or, if they can't find one, create one. They're lots of fun at parties, I'm guessing. :

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

I'm a lot of fun at parties. Long ago, I learned the golden drinking rule -- never mix alcohol with politics or religion.

And I didn't intend to bring politics into the argument. It was a mistake. But whatever.

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Hey, I'm tons of fun at parties, despite my ability to find a political angle to everything.  : : : :

 

Re: Frank Deford sounds off about soccer

Rugby evolved from soccer and football evolved from rugby, right?