Actually, the Gold Cup is up next week.
USA will make its’ debut on July 4th vs. Grenada, 18:00 PDT @ Qwest Field in Seattle.
The ties make sense in terms of how the leagues are set up and how points are factored to decide the best teams. A quick brief of how most leagues are set up is that every team’s win gets 3 points, a draw is 1, and a loss is 0. You add up the points at the end of the season and you get the league title. So a draw is drastically better than a loss, especially if your team is within touching distance of the title and not getting relegated into the next league below. And in the case of draw for a cup match, those always end in extra time and eventually penalties, so you still manage to get a winner and a loser.
This kinda makes each goal all the more exciting, especially if it’s a crazy nice goal.
I enjoy the length in that it’s generally non-stop action. Ya, sometimes there can be boring matches when one team doesn’t do anything with the ball and just holds it in midfield, but when you watch the good teams ala Arsenal, Barca, I’ll even mention United in here, they pass the ball constantly and look for openings.
The one thing that kills me during Super Bowl and NBA finals are the sheer number of timeouts and then commercials. You’re getting into the final minutes and bam, time out or foul. Two free throws. 3 minutes of game time in an NBA game can potentially be another 20 minutes of watching. Soccer is generally free flowing and constant, the buildup of a goal can be quite a thing of beauty. Just needs a killer pass or a moment of brilliance. Individual talents like Ronaldo, Kaka, Fabregas, they just make these moments happen more frequently.
Speaking of “ties” in the 4 major sport
Hockey has ties! Just not in playoffs!
Baseball also had a tie before. It was an All-Star game though.
Football has also have a few ties throughout the years. Once again ties are not possible in playoffs just like hockey.
Basketball is the only sport that I don’t think ever had a tie on the professional level.
NHL doesn’t have ties in the regular season anymore.
Also people always forget that NCAA Football had ties until about 5-10 years ago.
I totally agree with you L4undry on all accounts.
I can appreciate “The beautiful game”.
The problem is getting a typical American to try and understand the sport. Americans are not use to watching a game, where there might not be a score the entire game. And then instead of having some “Final decisive moment” like penalty kicks to decide the game, it just ends and nobody wins.
The typical American would be pissed for having to sit through a 2 hour game, and nobody wins.
It’s those type of attitudes that you have to change, before you can get Soccer to be popularized in the United States. But with the 4 major sports having a foothold in our culture what are the odds of that happening?
We’d have to start winning on the Global stage for Soccer to get recognition here, but all the other countries are basically so stacked with their respective countries greatest Athletic talent, that it’d take damn near a miracle for us to pull off something that large, when we are already being short changed due to the fact that we aren’t sending our absolute greatest athletes. On a global level, we’re basically sending the “Hard working” scrappers with “Intangibles”. I have much respect for everybody that represents the United States, but they flat out aren’t our greatest athletes.
Honestly I don’t feel that the score has anything to do with why we don’t watch soccer, but rather America is STILL YOUNG! Basketball (1891), and American football (1876), are both very YOUNG sports just like America. While Soccer been around since forever (Google is telling me 1,000 B.C). Countries have been playing Soccer for longer than America actually being officially “America.” We have no real connection to Soccer, while everyone else been kicking some sort of ball around.(no pun intended 
) I just think that being behind we are too lazy to catch up, so we stick with the sports that we are superior with. Kind of like how the rest of the world is NOT playing American football. They have no real connection to football, and they feel no need to start playing it and likewise for us with Soccer.
I’m surprised that the US never picked up on it, because at one point we were just a poor developing country as well, just like most of the world.
It’s popular, because all you need is a ball, and then you’re good to go, no matter how poor and developing the country you live in is.
It’s not realistic to expect countries in Africa and Asia to be able to afford equipment and other stuff necessary to play games like Ice Hockey and American Football. We can be afforded that opportunity because we have the highest standard of living.
If you notice Basketball and Baseball are the only other sports that we play, that is majorly played in developing countries. It’s because for baseball all you need is a glove, a ball, and a bat(Hell the glove might even be optional in some countries), and for Basketball all you need is a ball, and a basketball hoop.
American Football you need helmets, Shoulders, knees, jerseys, cleats(optional), all type of shit. Same thing for Ice Hockey. Stick, helmet, jersey, pads, ICE SKATING RINK, Ice skates, gloves.
All of that stuff just isn’t an option for poor countries
Pilgrims probably weren’t too big into Soccer.
(This is my random assumptions don’t take offense)
We also had slavery. My random thought is that the white man probably saw a bunch of black guys playing soccer on the field and didn’t want any part of it b/c they were superior to the Negros.
ALSO remember America is different than the rest of the world with just about everything. The world use the Metric system we don’t. Most of the world have free health care we don’t. Most of the world have gun laws nowhere near ours etc… Let just face it we are just “different.” We don’t play Soccer, but we play American football.
NHL hasn’t had tie games since after the lockout. That’s what they use the shootout for. Winning the shootout counts as a goal and breaks the tie.
The age of this country has nothing to do with it. Professional soccer teams in Europe started forming about the same time as baseball teams in the US (late 1800’s). The problem is that not only has the US team been poor in international competition over the decades, there hasn’t been a major professional league to gain interest. The NASL had a chance in the 70’s to do it, especially when Pel came over, but they botched it badly by (among other things), using the attention to expand by a ridiculous 12 teams in 3 years, killing them financially. MLS, despite being around for just 13 years, is trying to not make that mistake.
Eto’o is being reported to have been offered 250,000 a week AFTER TAX from Manchester City. That’s like, more than $300,000 EVERY 7 DAYS.
That should encourage US kids to get good with dat round ball.
Part of the beauty of this football is that the low scores make each goal and the match more exciting and often unfair. A lucky goal can tide the match and potentially win it alone. It’s not like other sports where the best always wins.
And more importantly, there is a big difference between getting 3 points or only 1. In case of tie near the end of the match, it often pays off to be offensive and risk a point for the reward of two more.
The last olympics, China was the top country with the most points and highest gold medals.
Plus basketball and baseball is not a world sport. Football is the only sport that truly dominates the world (only us and canada has a low fandom but they still play it). Football is played in every street corner in the world (other than us and canada). Basketball is played around a few countries but only in college level and nowhere else. Baseball is virtually unknown in many countries. And american football…let’s just say it is called american for a reason.
Plus I know US has lost Olympics Basketball and World Baseball couple of times. So US doesnt rule those sports as well.
Also it is not abt attracting more players through money or having more clubs that determins the quality of players. Senegal and Nigeria are two African countries that have amazing quality. It’s all abt loving the game for the game itself. US can never come to the top if they believe that money will be the attraction for their youth. the youth have to grow up loving the game. Only then can us come up.
Plus why are americans so arrogant to think that they can be better than the rest of the world just because they won two matches. US is not the only one who has done miracles. Turkey in the last Euro, Australia in the last world cup, South Korea, senegal etc. all these teams were the underdogs but beat many strong teams to reach the top. But they havent continued making the same performance again.
US has long ways to go. But conquering the Football world cup…hah, dream on.
They can grow up loving the game all they want. If it doesn’t pay millions per year, the majority are not going to pursue it as a career.
All that talking shit about how arrogant americans are and soccer/football is all the a lot of the world can look forward to. And you wonder why we don’t give a shit about soccer. If Brazil had to come from behind and then beat us by 1 point there’s something wrong there.
a lot of mexican/el salvadorian/etc. kids in my neighborhood…a lot of them play soccer. i hope they’re our future. i would love for the us to be a real competitor in the world cup in my lifetime.
i love brasil, spain, france, etc. but i want to root for the u.s. in soccer/football for once. this loss was very disappointing to me but its ok. it was unexpected that they’d make it this far…i was hoping the opportunity to win the confederation cup would be seized but oh well. it is what it is.
table tennis/ping pong is actually the world’s most popular sport. Not soccer.
Football isn’t going to be a major force in the US unless kids grow up loving it, I agree. Around the world we enjoy watching football because we have grown up immersed in it and fully understand and relate to the emotions of the players as we know how it feels to play and invest emotionally in a team. That will take a generation at the very least to develop in the US, and a run like this could be a catalyst. I hope USA continue to play well.
Very well played to the US, but they just fell short to the worlds most successfull footballing nation.
To those in the US, how much mainstream media attention did it get? Was it mentioned during the sports section of major news broadcasts?
I’ve retitled the thread to make it more all purpose.
Good shit. BRAZIL!! :woot:
It got on the back page of the New York papers, which is generally reserved for New York sports, and it made the first highlights of Sportscenter, giving the typical amount of attention as other sports usually do. Which is a lot since it usually doesn’t get much outside of the Champions League (ESPN shows those games).