Do you think that soccer will ever become a major sport in the US? I don’t think it will because I believe most US sports fans feel the same way about soccer that I do- not enough offense to keep it interesting. My curiousity with the World Cup is because it’s truly an international phenomenon and it’s only every four years. I can’t see myself ever getting interested in a professional soccer league where I’d watch it on TV or attend a game between US city or regional teams.

I’ll give it a go….

1) None stop action. The clock never stops, the game never stops, except for injuries and cards. Granted, many World Cup matches have been a bit dull with heavy defense and little attacking. But watch Premiership on FSC sometime. Breakaways can occur out of nowhere. Most runs up the side are tense for fans. Seeing Zidane dance around, I think it was Ronaldinho, was a thing of beauty.

2) A 0-0 match can be very exciting, with shots on goal, incredible saves, beautiful footwork (See France just now – their footwork and ball control was amazing)

3) A Penalty kick shootout is extremely intense and exciting usually – the one between England and Portugal was.

4) Regarding turnovers, when you see a match like Brazil v France, they are less frequent since the players handle the ball very well. And personally, I’d rather watch soccer where a player who loses the ball can generally turn around and get it right back, where in basketball, a turnover is very difficult to do without pulling down a foul.

5) Brazil had an off match – one shot on goal for them is stunning. They had between 6 and 14 shots ON GOAL in their previous matches.

6) The beauty of soccer and it’s lower scores is on any given day any team can beat another team. Upsets are still rare, but do happen.

7) Limited subs – this causes the first half to often differ from the second half as the players get tired and rely less on speed and more on passing.
The fans. All fans cheer loudly for their teams in all sports, but soccer fans are amazing. To hear 40,000 England fans sing in unison during their match was just awesome.

9) Offsides is always maligned, but to me makes soccer what it is. You can’t hang near the goal. It forces the offense to stay near the defense which means they must break at just the right time and will usually always have a defender hot on their heels if they time it right. That’s exciting.

Some sports pack a lot of excitement and action into a small fraction of the overall game (think football) That’s fine. With soccer, you neevr know when all heck will break loose.

Don’t get me wrong – I like watching the NFL and college basketball. NFL is a tough and precise game. Basketball is enjoyable but I admit to hating the strategic fouls that make 30 seconds drag on for 15 minutes. Have never liked baseball – that to me is boring pitch after pitch after pitch.

Now diving is a problem and FIFA is trying to limit it – not sure if they’ll succeed or not. But a match like France v Brazil was great. Some cards, a couple that were questionable, but the players fought hard for every ball and there wasn’t the constant hitting the turf when you got near an opponent.

Sports fans like different sports for different reasons. As a coach myself, I love to watch players at the top level control the ball with such grace and agility. But that’s me.

Any other readers care to take a stab at it?

In American football and basketball turnovers are a vital statistic. They’re relatively infrequent and measure when an offensive drive has been stopped prematurely. They usually contribute to the outcome of the game, with the team with fewer turnovers often winning the game. In soccer turnovers occur so frequently that it makes the sport seem like it’s stuck in neutral to me. Can someone please articulate what it is about the sport that is so appealing? The occassional brilliant one-on-one moves don’t make for a great sport when it’s not combined with some kind of offense and the potential to score, or at least threaten to score.

As for cricket not being popular in England, well, maybe not as popular as soccer, but from what I’ve been told by British friends, it is still very popular.

However, I’d like to change the subject of why I think soccer is fundamentally flawed and yet somehow is the world’s most popular sport. From an American standpoint, the lack of sustained offense dooms it from ever becoming a popular sport in the US. People from other countries keep saying it’s the most popular sport in the world, and therefore the best. I believe that it’s the most popular sport because of a lack of awareness and knowledge of other team sports alternatives. In the US we have American football, basketball, baseball and hockey. Soccer suffers from comparisons to each of these sports in different ways. I’m not sure of what other team sports options are available in Europe, other than England having rugby (a prehistoric, one-dimensional version of American football) and cricket (a distant cousin to baseball that I don’t think is all that popular even in England). I know basketball and hockey are popular in some countries, but what other team sports alternatives are there in Europe? If soccer is the only major sport in a given country and exposure to alternatives is limited, then by default soccer becomes popular, but not based solely on its merits.

Refs will always call things differently and no two games will ever be called the same. But the differences should be subtle. I think most fans agree that in this World Cup the differneces have been HUGE and that is a major problem. The beauty of soccer is its simplicity. But that doesn’t prevent FIFA from issuing guidelines related to what types of fouls should bring out the plastic. And it’s clear that FIFA’s desire to prevent ’simulation’ clearly wasn’t communicated in such a way that most refs felt comfortable calling it.

No matter what FIFA does, we’ll always argue about calls. But we shouldn’t have such a target rich environment. I’ve seen blog posts that went through a single match and brought up a dozen or more calls that they felt were suspect. Any more than a handle is a serious issue. These are supposed to be the best refs in the world and we had one sent packing because he issued 3 yellows. People make mistakes, but why wasn’t the 4th official keeping track as well so he coudl radio the center after the 2nd yellow and say ‘um pull the red’

To be fair, I didn’t review the consistency of calls because 1) Refs are always going to call things the way they see it and past experience has often shown the same behavior will get different calls regardless of how obvious it seems to one person. Additionally, if FIFA can’t get their shit straight regarding what is a foul and how it should be called, then there is no hope whatsoever for anything else proposed. This is the most fundamental level of officiating possible – not getting this right across the board is ludicrous and we may as well give it up if that is going to continue to be the case.

The summary includes the modified point to the thesis statement, which basically falls in line with yours: football as it exists in the rules is not broken. Football as it is enforced and whistled on the field of the play clearly is.

–TK