I think its hilarious that she compares soccer at the national level to instructional soccer when kids are 5-6 years old. Sure soccer does not have as large of a following in the United States as around the world but is an interest in a worldwide sport such a bad thing? First of all, it brings people from around the world together, many of whom may not even speak the same language. These people come together in an effort to see their team win over the other team (sounds like just about any other sport to me). She brings up figures about viewership for only the US. If you look at worldwide viewership for a World Cup game, UEFA championships, or even international friendly matches, I guarantee youll find that it is one of the worlds most watched events. The Super Bowl does in fact get over 100 million viewers annually but how many of those people only watch the game for the commercials? The game can be nearly as boring in comparison especially when theres a blowout like the previous Super Bowl. When a goal is scored in soccer, its meant to get the crowd pumped up since the matches are not very high scoring. The whole metric argument is just dumb. As an engineering student, I use the metric system more times than I can count and quite frankly I wish the United States would move towards the metric system universally. Its seriously only powers of ten, sounds a lot easier if you ask me. It should not come as a surprise that viewership for this World Cup is up amongst Americans namely due to the fact that the US is in the World Cup. American pride goes a long way. These games for the US are crucial especially with the group that we were placed into (known as the group of death). People around the world didnt think we would stand a chance against teams such as Germany, Ghana, and Portugal. We previously had never beaten Ghana so this was a huge first for how many times they have knocked the US out. Germany has arguably the best team in the world right now being in the number 2 spot and with Spains humiliating losses, they arent going to let up in the upcoming games to lose their title. Portugal was deemed initially as the only game we had a chance at winning, only if we could stop Christiano Ronaldo. You know what though, we advanced out of the group stage, we survived the group of death by beating Ghana and tying Portugal. Yes we lost to Germany but that was inevitable. Im sure you didnt watch any of the games. According to what I read though that doesnt sound too interesting to you. A 0:34 second goal in the USs opening game is enough to get some more people interested. US soccer has never been on the same caliber as the sport around the world but I think we are slowly proving to the world that we do have what it takes to compete on the international level. If the media gave as much attention to soccer as it does for football, I would guarantee even more people would start following the sport and that would make you even more upset and wouldnt that be a shame. The sport itself is not a liberal invention so leave petty politics out of your analysis. By all means I would love to see you call me a liberal, lets just say you wouldnt get very far with that accusation. The fact that you said it took you nearly a decade to actually write this article is ridiculous and you only come off as being a bigot. Its always great to see things like this because the author hasnt a clue what they are writing about and Im sure your inbox is going to be full of peoples responses similar to this one. Imagine how much better American news sources would be if the facts were actually there. Just like your reference to David Beckhams initial fame in the US fading, your article will do the same. It will be highly talked about for a day or two then will be nothing more than an archived document. When the day comes that the US wins the World Cup, I hope youre not rallying for the US because then, that would make you a hypocrite.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 17:34:00 +0000
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