hahahaha why the hell do you people watch soccer

6/21/2006 6:49:58 PM

Uhh... no?

6/21/2006 6:51:42 PM

actually they have none

6/21/2006 6:52:11 PM

you think we actuallly watch for the US team..

haha

6/21/2006 6:52:57 PM

Shooting "on goal" doesn't mean a whole lot. A shot that barely misses iron to the top, the left, or the right can be a better chance than a poke directely to the keeper. Beasley put one in the net that got called back.

6/21/2006 6:54:53 PM

what I meant was soccer is a poorly designed sport, if there is one damn shot on goal a game then all the action is more pointlesss and random

maybe they shouldnt make the field so god damn big

6/21/2006 6:55:22 PM

[no]

6/21/2006 6:57:22 PM

yo beardawg

get on this shit

6/21/2006 7:02:06 PM

Maybe they should only have good teams play crappy teams so that there will be plenty of scoring to entertain dumb people.

6/21/2006 7:08:47 PM

Italy United States
Shots (on Goal) 11(4) 10(3)



United States Czech Republic
Shots (on Goal) 10(3) 10(4)

6/21/2006 7:34:50 PM

soccer should do away with offsides penalties. that way you would see 20 point games and make it fun to watch.

6/21/2006 7:39:48 PM

Quote :

"maybe they shouldnt make the field so damn big "

exactly my sentiments

6/21/2006 7:42:51 PM

making the field smaller with 11 men teams will make it even harder to score.

6/21/2006 7:44:09 PM

oh yeah, and they should reduce the number of players too so that they aren't always getting in each other's way and redirecting the ball

6/21/2006 7:52:32 PM

that would help tremendously. I'd like to see a 6 man team on an arena football league field.

how does indoor soccer work?

6/21/2006 7:53:30 PM

exactly like that

6/21/2006 8:04:22 PM

Quote :

"exactly like that "

6/21/2006 8:15:18 PM

Quote :

"Maybe they should only have good teams play crappy teams so that there will be plenty of scoring to entertain dumb people"

a low scoring game isnt that bad...i mean a 14-14 score in a football game is like a 2-2 soccer game

oh yeah but the football game wouldnt end in a TIE SCORE

watching the 90+ minute USA vs Italy soccer game might not have seemed as disappointing at the end of the game if OF THE TWO TEAMS PLAYING THE COMPETITIVE SPORTS GAME, ONE TEAM HAD WON THE GAME AND ONE TEAM HAD LOST THE GAME

6/21/2006 8:25:20 PM

haha

6/21/2006 8:36:23 PM

^^fuck that, you can't play forever

and don't even mention shootouts

6/21/2006 8:37:44 PM

you cant play forever? fuck that shit man

no sporting events should end in ties

play overtime, have shootouts, do something

in boxing they shouldnt have decisions either, the fight should only end when one boxer gets knocked out or cant continue

how the hell are you gonna convince anybody that a 1-1 final score is good because "you cant play forever"

6/21/2006 8:39:40 PM

who said it was good?

i said you can't play forever

if after 90+ minutes and two overtime periods you can't get a result, then it's a tie. deal with it.

football can end in a tie too

6/21/2006 8:50:56 PM

They only have ties in the group stages, man. Once you get to the single elimination rounds, it's one and done.

I can see why people don't enjoy soccer in the US, and it's not because the teams can tie (most of the time). It's because the US team fucking sucks.

If you weren't raised on soccer, then usually you won't appreciate it.

6/21/2006 8:52:21 PM

^^college football cant end in a tie

and do you know how many NFL games have ended in ties? well i dont but i know its a miniscule percentage because in 15 minutes of playing time, if one team crosses the other teams ~30, they are going to kick a field goal

serious question though, can the world cup final game end in a tie or do they have to have a definite winner?

Quote :

"if after 90+ minutes and two overtime periods you can't get a result, then it's a tie. deal with it."

why didnt the USA and Italy play any overtime periods?

^one of the main reasons people arent as big on soccer is because there arent any good high level teams in the US for people to follow, unlike MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL

6/21/2006 8:54:37 PM

i was speaking in generalities.

in the group stages of the world cup there is no overtime, just ties and both teams get 1 point.

6/21/2006 8:58:49 PM

so if in the world cup finals, a game is tied after 2 overtimes, do they play sudden death? or do they use some kind of points system to determine the winner of the cup?

6/21/2006 9:00:06 PM

shootout

6/21/2006 9:00:33 PM

didnt they do away with ties in the nfl completely?

but anyway, a soccer team cant punk out and kick a field goal

if you had to score td to win, then nfl would prob have alot more ties and college ot games would last much longer

football in fact proves that OT is very hard to handle. usually a person hates one overtime method or the other, they both do something that changes the game.

extra time w/out sudden death could last forever still

sudden death gives an obvious advantage to the team that gets the ball first

as for the college OT, i mean that isnt pure football, it takes the kicking game out of hte situation

6/21/2006 9:00:46 PM

^^well that works i guess

it just doesnt seem right to me in general when you're watching a competitive sport between two teams or players or opponents, and the game/match ends, and there isnt a winner

^college overtime changed about 5-10 years ago to sudden death

Quote :

"didnt they do away with ties in the nfl completely?"

no but almost...if a regular season game ends in a tie they go to a 15 minute overtime period...if no team scores in that 15 minutes, its a tie, unless its the last week of the season and there are playoff implications

in the playoffs they play until one team wins, a la the Panthers Rams a couple years ago...that was probably the last game to go to a 2nd overtime in 5 years

6/21/2006 9:01:28 PM

the steelers and falcons tied in 2002

6/21/2006 9:04:59 PM

yeah it doesnt happen often

mostly, like rwoody mentioned, because if you can get a little bit into your opponents territory, a field goal will win it

6/21/2006 9:06:29 PM

^^^no college overtime is the alternating possesion start at the 25 deal

6/21/2006 9:07:02 PM

i know but its sudden death in the sense that it cant end in a tie

and starting at the 3rd overtime if you score a td you're forced to go for 2 as another way to speed up ending the game...unless you do 2 qb sneaks then injured TA cant push it in on the fucking buckeyes!

6/21/2006 9:09:33 PM

i dont think anyone would call that a sudden death format

sudden death implies the first team that scores, wins

but we are in agreement on the rules if not the terminology

6/21/2006 9:11:28 PM

yeah i wouldnt really call it sudden death either but i was doing a little research to see when college football switched and they called it sudden death...i guess just because you'd see some old football teams' records from the 40s and they'd be like 4-3-6

i like the aspect of college overtime that allows both teams to get a chance, but i think it takes away from the kick/punt kick return/punt return aspect of special teams which i think is kinda weak

6/21/2006 9:12:58 PM

right, which is my point about overtimes being difficult to manage

6/21/2006 9:15:15 PM

weak is basically determining the winner of the game by a coin flip

6/21/2006 9:15:25 PM

i couldnt agree more with that as well

6/21/2006 9:17:33 PM

Quote :

"one of the main reasons people arent as big on soccer is because there arent any good high level teams in the US for people to follow, unlike MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL"

well yeah, but that's trickle-down effect

The NASL was actually doing way better than the MLS in terms of popularity back in its day, and that's because there was great competition between teams, because of foreign players. The only reason that league folded was because of poor money management by the clubs.

The reason the MLS has little to no draw is because the teams suck (and by extension, the US team sucks). It's all homegrown talent, which is pretty much a restart of 1st gen soccer players. The US's biggest importer of "foreign" talent is Mexico... and if you look at Mexican soccer on the world stage, they're pretty much a joke as well, save for a few players.

One of the major things that prevents the MLS from drawing talent from around the world is the salary cap situation. No one wants to come to America and get paid (in their mind) shit money to totally dominate their competition. That's like going to the playground at an elementary school for a pickup game of basketball.

I think American soccer will be great in about 10-15 years, when the current crop of kids playing it mature and are playing in leagues around the world, but for right now, it sucks.

6/21/2006 9:21:33 PM

no, soccer if fundamentally an inferior sport and will never be good in america. All the real athletes go on to get paid big bucks playing football, basketball, baseball. Soccer gets the scrubs who were too small, slow, or weak for the other sports

[Edited on June 21, 2006 at 9:25 PM. Reason : gdfg]

6/21/2006 9:25:16 PM

^^i think the US national team needs to have more of its players play overseas in competitive leagues instead of them settling for MLS competition to get them some practice...I mean Landon Donovan is alright but these guys would learn so much more if they played overseas...dirk nowitzki and manu ginobli and other nba players wouldnt be as good on their national teams if they didnt play against the worlds best in the nba

also i think we need a bad ass coach on the national team...some english fucker or somebody

6/21/2006 9:28:16 PM

Landon Donovan is just that... alright. But you've seen how he gets hyped up to be the next coming of God.... and doesn't do anything remarkable.


What the National team needs IS a better coach than Arena. Someone a bit more tactically minded, and quite a bit less cocky. Nationality doesn't really matter, but if you want a good coach, you'll find someone who played overseas, someone who has had more than one International appearance, and someone who has coached outside of the United States.

Another big point is that a lot of American players can't hack it overseas. The ones who do are few and far between, and I suspect in some cases they playing where they are not because they're good, or anything like that, but because they're a body to fill a hole. There's a few exceptions, but overseas, Americans have a genuinely hard time even breaking into the first team.

[Edited on June 21, 2006 at 9:38 PM. Reason : .]

6/21/2006 9:34:10 PM

it continues to baffle me that people act this way about soccer and make threads like this

6/21/2006 9:43:40 PM

It doesn't baffle me at all.


When the US starts producing good soccer, then there will be a huge number of people who hop on the bandwagon. (See the Carolina Hurricanes as a reference.)


I'm a soccer fan because I was raised by a brit, and have played my whole life. Most of the fans that you see around here are like that now.

[Edited on June 21, 2006 at 9:46 PM. Reason : .]

6/21/2006 9:45:50 PM

Quote :

"no sporting events should end in ties"

I pretty much agree. Ties are so generally unsatisfying.

6/21/2006 10:16:32 PM

^ Enjoy those seven overtime college football games. If there's ever a case of where there should be ties, it's the overtime system in college football that go past two overtimes.

Ties are accepted in soccer I've noticed because people look at it more in terms of points (3-1-0) than win-loss.

MLS from its inception had no ties (if the game was tied at the end of regulation, it went to a shootout, and the shootout winner got one point as opposed to a regulation winner's three) for awhile, but the fans that came to games lost interest in the shootout and wanted the game to be like what everyone else in the world did.

Quote :

"In an attempt to "Americanize" the sport, MLS experimented with rule changes in its early years. The clock, which counts up in international soccer, would instead count down, and would stop on dead ball situations, at referee's discretion. Once the clock hit 0:00, the game would be over. The other major change was the inception of shootouts to resolve tie games. If the game ended in a draw, a situation similar to a penalty shootout would ensue. A shootout attempt mimicked a penalty shot in ice hockey in that it consisted of a player getting the ball 35 yards from the goal and five seconds to put it past the goalkeeper. Just like with penalties, it was a best-of-five competition, and if the score was still tied, the tiebreaker would head to an extra frame. The winning team would get one point (as opposed to three for the regulation win), the losing team zero. The rule changes, especially the shootout, failed to bring in a wider American audience, and alienated some traditional fans. The tiebreaker was gone after the 1999 season. MLS experimented in settling tie games with golden goal overtime periods from 2000 to 2003 (the tie would stand if no team scored after ten minutes), but in 2004 dropped the extra session, turning to a more traditional model of letting ties stand."

As far as the few shots on goal. Our forwards suck, that's nothing new. Our soccer players are very good at what they are coached on (which makes for good goalkeepers and defenders), but are not creative. And high creativity and low on coaching makes an excellent striker.

[Edited on June 21, 2006 at 10:59 PM. Reason : .]

6/21/2006 10:48:40 PM

Allowing ties in the first round of the World Cup allows the teams to kind of set up a "strategy" as to who they will play in the following rounds. In case you didn't know, after Round 1 there are no more ties. After full time, it goes to golden goal (first team to score wins) then penalty kicks. I can't tell you how edge of your seat it gets when your team is playing on a penalty shootout.

6/21/2006 10:54:04 PM

KISSING YOUR SISTER

6/21/2006 10:55:16 PM

^^ Nah dude, FIFA eliminated Golden Goal this World Cup.


After full time it goes the 2 15 minute halves, and if not settled then, it goes to shootout.

6/21/2006 11:01:27 PM

Soccer is not a game of statistics. No one cares about SOG except Americans who are trying to quantify the match.

6/21/2006 11:03:47 PM