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7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football - Sports - Nairaland

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7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football by mamagee3(f): 11:11pm On Jun 12, 2010
1. No Hands The most popular American sports – basketball, baseball, American football, ice hockey, golf – primarily involve the use of hands / upper body to compete in. In fact, you could argue that feet are only for mobility (only American football allows for kicking, and that too is best done long-range).

Now if you drop a sport like soccer – all feet, some head and no hands – it’s like asking someone to walk on their hands instead of their feet. It’s not easy to switch around to compeletely different way of playing a sport.

This is the primary reason why when you see the MLS, the terms ‘long-ball’ and ‘headless chicken’ come to mind.

2. Ridiculous Name

Soccer? Seriously? The biggest obstacle to soccer’s popularity in the US may well be its name. You can’t have two sports by the same name, unless you want to see Eddie Johnson pick up the ball and then do his customary dash up the pitch and then look around all confused as opposition defenders pile up on him.

Soccer. Sawker. I feel dumber just saying it. It’s called football, and unless the American people learn to call it by it’s real name (come to think of it, Australians have their Austrian Rules footy and they still call the beautiful game football), it’s not going to be successful.

3. No Breaks

Who in the world thought of a 90-minute game that only took one break, and that too after 45 minutes? The American public is used to a quick break every 5 minutes, if not sooner. Basketball has its quarters. Baseball has its regular breaks with batters coming in and going out. American football is a stop-start game. In golf you hit a ball a couple of hundred yards and then you walk towards it (the game is a candidate for the most retarded sport ever award).

On the other hand, soccer has a natural ebb and flow to it that no American sport can match.

Americans have been bred on small, easily digestible segments of everything – sport, news, knowledge, etc. It’s a cultural effort to make low concentration levels a standard across the country. It’s also why the typical American watching soccer feels the inevitable urge to flip to another channel and watch commercials every 5 minutes.

This is why you see US goalkeepers do so well – they thrive in the stop-start nature of a goalie’s involvement in the game.

4. They Hate It

They didn’t create it, and they’re not very good at it. Either one would have been enough to foster some passion for the sport, but since there are so many countries in the world that are better than the US at soccer, the American people have little interest.

And it makes sense too – why follow something in which your side keeps losing? After being subjected to a lifetime of doctored news and world views, this sudden brush with reality is overwhelming for the average American psyche and they do what any American would do when faced with something they don’t know – they turn their back to it.

Ironically this disdain for soccer makes it more difficult for the sport to take off in the country – a vicious cycle.

5. No One Likes The Americans

Usually, when there’s someone in your family who’s not as good at a sport as you are, you tend to try and help them out so that they can get better and (hopefully) provide more of a challenge to you later on.

At least that’s what I’ve seen.

With the US though, the rest of the world isn’t so kind. We’ve made it acceptable to make fun of US soccer instead of going there and investing in the sport in America. We’ve made it acceptable to mock them instead of training them and coaching them.

That’s why when someone like David Beckham – an excellent businessman – goes to the US to invest in soccer, the world laughs at him. Would you laugh at Bill Gates if he invested in a new technology startup? People would scramble to get involved. The world doesn’t take Americans seriously, and soccer is worse off as a result.

6. It’s Illegal To Cheat

Did you know that American sports in general do not follow WADA rules? That the use of performance-enhancing drugs is not strictly regulated in US sports? The World Anti-Doping Agency has strict regulations that almost all sports adhere to, especially soccer with it’s spot drug testing and what not. American sports, on the other hand, play by their own rules, which is a nice way to say that American sports feature more drug abuse than more global sports.

In some cases, having a global authority making sure that you follow certain standards is a good thing.

But hey, what’s the point of playing a sport when you can’t pump yourself with drugs to make you faster / stronger? If you can’t cheat, why play?

7. No Cheerleaders

In all honesty this is where I agree with the Americans. Soccer needs cheerleaders like one need a glass of cold water on a hot day. As we’ve discussed before on Soccerlens, cheerleaders can stop hooliganism, provide suitable pitch-side (or on-TV) distractions when the game itself gets a little tedious and once you give each club their own cheerleading squad, there’s a whole new set of rivalries to play upon for the advertisers.

Plus if there’s no indecency, how can a genuine American sports fan enjoy the game? Without cheerleaders soccer just isn’t manly enough. It’s blasphemous.


Read more: http://soccerlens.com/7-reasons-why-americans-suck-at-soccer/8115/#ixzz0qgBkhv7w
Re: 7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football by semid4lyfe(m): 11:44pm On Jun 12, 2010
Word of advice
Please do not post long threads with your pink colored fonts. They're not pleasant to the eyes and makes reading difficult.
Re: 7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football by mamagee3(f): 11:45pm On Jun 12, 2010
^^But you read most of my posts until now. tongue
Re: 7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football by Osama10(m): 12:20am On Jun 13, 2010
semid4lyfe:

Word of advice
Please do not post long threads with your pink colored fonts. They're not pleasant to the eyes and makes reading difficult.

Nairaland una too much, una nor dey fail to cast person. grin
Re: 7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football by semid4lyfe(m): 12:33am On Jun 13, 2010
mama-gee:

^^But you read most of my posts until now. tongue
Yes, I do cos you always have something interesting to say (not sensible always) . .but most of your posts are brief and not lengthy like this one. Just saying use black fonts for lengthy posts. That's all.!!
Re: 7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football by honeric01(m): 4:07am On Jun 13, 2010
This is sport, so please your color is so gay grin
Re: 7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football by obinna5000(m): 8:54pm On Jun 13, 2010
But the Female USA soccer team are No. 1 in the world. cheesy grin
Re: 7 Reasons Why American Suck At Football by Nignog: 1:55am On Jun 14, 2010
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, Nigeria lost.
USA was a draw.
Ghana, who cares?

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