YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN

Just what we need. More mindless Nationalism.

omygodnotagain

Q:  What did the soccer player say after crotch to face contact?

A:  OH! My gonad again.

Get it?  I’m making a joke about your name.  Pretty funny, huh?

Anyway, what’s so great about a sport for the people?  What’re you, some kind of prole?  If I wanted to hang out with the average Tom-Dick-and-Cholo soccer fan on a regular basis, I’d get myself thrown into the drunk tank every friday night.  The reason that American football seems elitist is because the typical soccer fan never finished high school much less college.

By omygodnotagain, June 15 at 8:16 pm

” I agree, what most American Football fans will not admit, is that their sport is homoerotic, muscular guys in tight Spandex excentuating their behinds who are playacting rough sex, they have field positions with homosexual overtones like Receiver, Tight End even the team names suggests hardcore homosexual fantasies the Cowboys, the Rams, the Browns, the Steelers, the Giants, the Redskins,the Packers. Doesn’t take much imagination to see what thats all about.So why is gay marriage such a big deal, because its American as Apple Pie and Football ”

For someone accusing others of homoeroticism and play acting rough sex you sure appear to have it down pat. I’d bet that you’ve seen many a happy hour playing “tight end”; which is a receiver position.

You should speak to someone—outside of the showers—about how the game has evolved. “End” was a designation for the two pass receiver positions where the guys were lined up on each extreme—the end—of the offensive line. As the game evolved so did the designators for those positions. In your case though I take it that you began as a tight end and after being rammed by the Rams enough times you just became a loosey-goosey end, right?

I personally do not care for the new rules of pro football because they were changed to favor the offenses and the corporate domination has ruined it by too many time outs. Of course we all know that the time outs are for T.V. commercials (profit) so that the income for the very large salaries for all those prima Dona players can be met.

The key is that corporate ruination of pro-football does not make soccer any less boring. It’s boring, it’s stupid, and it really does suck big time!

Gutless
You know nothing.. American Football like Rugby was started in Ivy League institutions, private schools, Harvard and Rugby, denizens of gay culture where being gay was accepted if not spoken about.
Futbol (soccer) has a lot more in common with Basketball, physical contact is called a foul. American Football is all about contact.
I was expecting given the issues surrounding gay marriages etc a thoughtful reflection on why America’s sport involves muscular guys, wearing tight spandex pants showing their attributes with positions like tight end, naming of teams with a western cowboy theme bucks, broncos, clts, rams, a constant homoerotic fantasy as shown by the first Oscar winning gay movie Breakback Mountain (Reference to Bareback the colloqual expression for gay intercourse), the first mainstream gave movie about cowboy love.. cowboys, broncos, colts.. do those names ring a bell…
Why does America have its muscular men dress up like the Village People then grab each other and call it sport.  The elites have always endorsed homosexuality,making it America’s premier sport was
the first step to widespread acceptance.
Soccer/football like basketball is a peoples sport, it has nothing to do with gay overtones, instead it put a premium on speed, skill and the lack of physical contact.

In response to omygodnotagain, I’d just like to say OH MY GOD, NOT AGAIN with that hackneyed routine about homoeroticism in American football.  Didn’t George Carlin do that bit. . . IN 1970?!!  You may have lived in the US for 30 years, but like most foreigners, you’re 40 years behind the times.  So why don’t you take your 99 luftballons and go back to Karachi you frickin’ Chinaman?!! 

Oh, and just for the record, I think anyone who’s compared football with futbol knows that all the prancing, high-kicking Rockettes who play the latter engage in far more crotch-to-face contact than the men who play the former.  Not to mention the fact that the “men” who play futbol take every opportunity to put themselves in a position where their heads get smacked with balls.  OH SNAP!

I already commented on my happiness at finally getting my once every 4 year soccer [futbol] fix. After reading today’s Progress Report tho, I may have to start watching ESPN 3 on-line to remain true to my ‘Progressive’ Ideals, while getting my fix of, not just soccer, but some of the best looking guys in the world!

http://pr.thinkprogress.org/

Unbeknown to me, the whole World Cup is a Socialist Plot against our Red-Blooded American Ideals. Amazing, all that MSM and Corporate time and money spent to ruin our Capitalistic system. Who would have thunk it?

Beck for one. I’d imagine Sarah sneaks peaks at all those great legs when What’s-His-Face isn’t home, though…

The Brazil-N. Korea game today was great btw. Of course, that’s just a bunch of Commies going up against the ‘Un-People, who also happen to be pretty damn rich themselves. Of course, many of the Koreans actually live and work in Japan, when they aren’t representing their Country on the pitch.

Ethan
I agree, what most American Football fans will not admit, is that their sport is homoerotic, muscular guys in tight Spandex excentuating their behinds who are playacting rough sex, they have field positions with homosexual overtones like Receiver, Tight End even the team names suggests hardcore homosexual fantasies the Cowboys, the Rams, the Browns, the Steelers, the Giants, the Redskins,the Packers. Doesn’t take much imagination to see what thats all about.
So why is gay marriage such a big deal, because its American as Apple Pie and Football

Bwaaaaaaa! Soccer still sux! Tiddlywinks has more action than soccer. If you like watching people run about go to a track meet at least there’s a winner at the end of each event.

The best sports in the world are women’s tennis and beach volley ball!

http://www.deke.com/files/images/07_Volleyball_MG_2615.jpg

http://www.funnycoolstuff.com/images/maria-kirilenko.jpg

I rest my case!

I have lived in the US for 30 years, I am a skier, surfer, I skydived for awhile, I enjoy exciting sports.  No sport in the world is more tedious than American Football and Baseball. I took my son to the Jets games in New Jersey, and all he kept saying was why do they keep stopping, is it over yet. There is so little spontaneity.  One poster described watching soccer was like watching paint dry.
Thats not true of soccer, the game never stops unless there is an injury, unfortunately it is so apt for American Football.  I think of those days in New Jersey in winter, sitting at the Meadowlands, watching guys in helmets and pads, most looking like steroid freaks, wander on and off the field, and kept thinking surely the Americans could have come up with something less dire than this for a sport.
Thank God for Surfing and Skiing.

Either you love soccer or you don’t or (like me) you don’t really care either way.. don’t belittle my stance as a fence-sitter on this subject! Indifference about soccer where I live in Texas is tantamount to being something suspicious.. and likely evil.

Probably, the real reason ‘futbol’ hasn’t gotten big here in the states is there’s no money in it.. in the details of it.. Equipment consists of a ball, some dirt and what else? So where’s the beef, so to speak, for the retailers? Team shirts? Heck, they don’t even wear caps!

Compare that to US football and all the gear! Plus of course the medical expenses.. Now Golf.. there’s the goldmine! A lifetime golfer spends a freaking fortune on funny shoes, goofy hats and everything in between.. That’s the kind of stuff that drives and perpetuates a sport in the US by golly! Who cares if some infinitesimal percentage of citizens actually participate? It takes up half of Sunday broadcast TV! That’s how successful it is.

And here’s more proof; Next time you fly into Houston Hobby look down at all that green-space.. what city planning! But don’t expect to make a picnic out there in those parks.. they’re reserved for people chasing little balls and whacking them with expensive sticks..

BUT.. I want to see more about the writer of this article and Brillo’s charges of plagiarism!

Inquiring minds want to know!

Adios!

RAE, June 11 at 11:14 pm #

+1 Sums it up pretty well.

Soccer—or futbol—sux! Not just sux… it really, really, really, sux. Watching paint dry is much more exciting than soccer.

It sux so much that if gravity failed soccer would replace it.

Watching the ceiling in a blind stupor is much more exciting than soccer.

A room full of corpses has more action going on in it than a game of soccer.

One realizes just how boring soccer is by listening to the sports casters call a game. When an announcer has to shout at the top of his voice: Oh jeebus on my Ritz cracker… Guillermo also made a goal! He only missed it by a kilometer and a half!” or “Damn that was almost a great play!” One realizes that he’d be better entertained watching water evaporate.

I am that oddity. An American Soccer Fan. I coached kid’s teams in the late 1970’s - I especially enjoyed the 12 to 14 year olds. I refereed a bit, but was too opinionated to do it well, and often favored the lame-ducklings. My youngest son played both semi-pro, and a bit of pro ball, just before NASL went belly-up.

I’ve driven a couple of thousand miles to watch the Seattle Sounders lose the Soccer Bowl to the New York Cosmos in San Diego. My family went to the LA Olympics and only went to the ‘Football’ Games but, we saw all of them. France won the Gold that year, btw.

In 2002 my husband was dying of stomach cancer - the World Cup was the last big event we watched together. When he was to sick to get up, I would run back and forth from the TV to his bedside to give him a play by play.

In 2006, I got up at 5:30 a.m, and a couple of times at 4 a.m. just to watch some of the best players in the world play a game. This year is even worse - 2/3s of the group play starts at 1 a.m. and 3:30 a.m. here in Hawaii.

It’s not about ‘Nationalism’ for many fans, but about the sheer audacity of the teams and the players. The 45 minutes of non-stop play each half. the flow of the game from goal to goal. The beauty of a pass that threads its way between 4 or 5 opponents to the foot of a team mate who takes a shot. The surge of adrenaline when you think it’s a goal. the disappointment of the off-side flag calling it back.

I’d suggest those of you who don’t get it go to: http://theleoafricanus.com/

These photos of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Bishop Desmond Tutu dancing in joy when South Africa scored its goal are priceless.

The World Cup [I prefer the Spanish Copa del Mundo’ it’s much more romantic] is not about Nationalism, it is about unity. It’s about equality - the one playing field where David still can beat Goliath. It’s about the kid who can’t afford a ball, or shoes, making a ball out of rags - and growing up to be Pele.

Or the Black and Berber Colonials, who are the majority of the French Team forcing the Right Wing Racists in France to ‘eat it’ when they come home heroes. Even worse was being beat by Senegal in 2002. The French team came home in disgrace after that fiasco.

The US has no Mexican players, they’d rather play for Mexico. FIFA gives them that choice. Perhaps in four years a Latin American player will decide to play for the US just to see the Governor of Arizona suffer.

If you study the make-up of the teams, and see who is playing where, you can learn both History and World Politics. We have a mostly white, middle class team who will be considered extremely successful if they make the quarter finals. Other countries have teams from the barrios and slums who have been playing Pro since they were 15.

The World Cup is a lot about getting even. That’s why it hooks so many people. I certainly am not a sports fan. Hell, I don’t even have Cable TV except for a month or so every four years so I can watch the World Cup.

Speaking of getting even, both North and South Korea are in this years competition. Now, if they wind up playing against each other, THAT will be a game to see!

LOL, the first two games resulted in a tie. How scintillating!

I think American exceptionalism is at the root of many evils, but we sure got it right when it comes to soccer. On the other hand, soccer is so boring that it does manage to make baseball look interesting by comparison.

Soccer, like baseball, is more of a brain disease than actual sport.

Particularly annoying is the fact every square inch of the player’s uniforms are festooned with corporate logos, as are the so-called “football” pitches themselves. So much for the claim that soccer can’t catch on in America because of the lack of commercial breaks - the entire match is a advertisement.

Soccer=boring game for boring people.

The author sums it up:

“...its ability to conjure up excitement…”

“...overly romantic…”

“The Cup is also about pride…”

“...a bread-and-circuses moment…”

I guess I’m the only person on the planet completely unimpressed and totally indifferent to this so-called spectacle. It’s downright scary how vulnerable the masses are to emotional manipulation whether it be in the form of mindless hysteria over a GAME or the silly fraud of a RELIGION.

BREAD and CIRCUSES indeed. I wouldn’t be there if I was being paid $1,000 a day, all expenses paid.

On the one hand millions upon millions of dollars are spent on the spectacle while the poverty of this year’s host country, South Africa, is conveniently swept aside in the face of stadiums and luxury hotel that serve as symbols of “development” and “modernization.” I think, just like you said it. 
Group A Match1:  South Africa 1-1 Maxico