We’ve all read various moronic columnists who hate soccer and write all sorts of drivel about it hoping to reaffirm people’s mistaken belief that soccer isn’t becoming more popular in the U.S., but this column sets a new standard. The headline?
Soccer: the bidet of U.S. sports
You have to be kidding me. It’s like the ignorance trifecta. Let’s belittle soccer by comparing it to a bathroom fixture, a foreign bathroom fixture, and even worse FRENCH. I’m thinking this dweeb didn’t catch the last major contribution to world soccer by a Frenchman. Nothing dainty about that!
Of course all you have to do is read the first few sentences to know this columnist doesn’t believe in reporting, um, facts:
Americans don’t care about soccer. And we never will care. Never ever ever.
The Los Angeles Galaxy, a soccer team — who knew? — is throwing away a quarter of a billion dollars over the next five years, assuming they don’t go bust first, paying the salary of David Beckham, who may be a star in England, and may be married to the former Posh Spice, but is going to be a fortnight flash followed by soccer-induced obscurity here.
Remember Pele?
Emphasis mine. It is absolutely amazing that anytime the media covers a basketball coach’s compensation package, they ALL will make sure you know his base salary is X, but much of the rest is made up by merchandising and endorsements income. But with Beckham, they all swallowed the "OMG they’re paying him $250 million dollars" hook, line, and sinker and ignored that fact that the Galaxy is probably paying him < $10 million in salary per year while the rest is merchandising. A third grader could have looked it up. But then this guy was too busy thumping his chest to bother:
Few fans ever shift their loyalty from one team to another, never mind embrace an entirely new sport, surrendering precious moments that could have been spent glued to NFL football in order to pay attention to a gang of perfumed foreigners kicking a ball pointlessly around an enormous field.
Right. The old worn out soccer players are sissies gambit. When is the last time you saw an NFL player puking on the field because they over exerted themselves, sick or not? I always get a kick out of them grabbing oxygen masks after a long kickoff return or pass reception. If they had to run a full 90 they might collapse. As a side note, I’m not sure this is what Gatorade had in mind with their ‘is it in you?’ campaign 🙂 Talk about your action shot. Anyway, the reason soccer will never be popular in the U.S.? Oh that’s easy…
Why couldn’t soccer take off in the United States? Easy. There’s no room for it. We have too many pro sports as it is.
And too many ignorant columnists, but what do I know – I’m just a blogger. Hat Tip LDSM.
January 15th, 2007 at 7:14 am
My favorite part of this article was actually the second column on the page, where the author defends a chain of pizza restaurants in the southwest for accepting pesos. Basically, his POV is that the demographics of the US are changing and catering to non-traditional American culture is something that we are all going to have to get used to, like it or not, in future generations.
Ironically, the very argument he makes in the pizza article is completely lost on the same author just a few lines above in his soccer bidet article.
January 15th, 2007 at 7:31 am
Jarrett, I noticed the same thing when reading the column. Some people just don’t get it (soccer, that is) and never will…whatta waste of news space for that moron 🙂
January 15th, 2007 at 9:08 am
Jarrett,
Yeah that was ironic. Given his knuckledragging shot at soccer, when I saw the peso section I expected a screed about immigration and how wrong it was to accept peso’s in an American store, etc, etc. I was surprised that he came out in support of it. It definitely made his soccer section seem even more clueless.
January 15th, 2007 at 10:45 am
10 to 1 they show Futbol Mexicano in those pizza shops too…
Good for them if they do! I would get a slice anywhere that is showing soccer on the tube.
January 15th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Same here
January 16th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
hmm, 1 out of 4 americans will be of Latino heritage… I’d say there’s a fair chance that soccer in the US will be successful.