Why do Americans hate World Cup soccer and the world is so silly with it?

[TonySandos]

Americans are resistant to getting into soccer as of now because we're not top tier in it from the get go. The American public is possibly resistant to it because they're uncomfortable with the chances that it won't be easy to reach the top.

Look at the most claimed teams in basketball and football in the United States.

Lakers, Patriots, Heat as of now. Look at bandwagon popularity in team sport fandom. You'll always have dedicated fans, but most people that are part time enthusiasts, also a sizable portion of merchandise buyers, back winners. The vast majority won't get behind an underdog. The USA ranked high in the first world cup, but America only likes first place winners over consistent placing. I wouldn't consider that very patriotic

 

[scotian]

In Canada the only boys who play soccer are the ones whose moms won't let them play hockey, pussies.

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[rangman2000]

Soccer is the most mind-numbingly boring sport to watch second only to curling. Why is the world so silly with it?

If the entire rest of the planet is wild about it and we aren't, I think it's safe to say something is wrong with us. And what's funny is that not only do many Americans find no interest in it, they seem to take pride in not finding any interest in it. The attitude is that "we are Americans, we are above soccer, it's a stupid game for kids." It's almost as if soccer is anti-American. It really is political. The more right-wing and Republican a person is, the more they despise soccer. Who do I see going wild in the bars? Usually urban liberals. I really do think that a large part of the American resistance to soccer is a reaction to the fact that the world loves it and we just want to be contrarians and go it alone. And as someone else said in this thread, you just have to develop a taste for it. My dad is a big sports fan(NBA,NFL), he just started watching the WC and he's now hooked. Says soccer is a great game. Never seen him watch a soccer game in my life till now. It took him 64 years but he's finally acquired the taste for it.

I find the World Cup interesting, because like the Olympics it is only once every 4 years and it is country v. country. Unlike the Olympics you just have one team per country in one sport. So it is pretty intense.

I just wish soccer was a little more popular here so we had better athletes to show case some of the athletic freaks we have in this country. But as football dies out in popularity from becoming just too brutal, maybe soccer can pick up some of those athletes.

And you do have a point, a bunch of the old timers in the USA are very anti-soccer to the point it is almost political.

Not hating, but the fact you keep pondering how some of the American "athletic freaks" would perform in "soccer" shows you have a poor understanding of the game.

It has been proven countless times over that athleticism is not a prerequisite for being a good player.

Some quick examples off the top of my head from across the last 30+ years.

- Michel Platini
- Diego Maradona
- Zinedine Zidane
- Andrea Pirlo
- Juan Roman Riquelme
- Johan Cruyff

None of those guys were the fastest runners or the highest jumpers but are some of the greatest players of all time.

 

[TonySandos]

In Canada the only boys who play soccer are the ones whose moms won't let them play hockey, pussies.

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In all realness from the bottom of my heart, hockey and football are the only sports left that can claim true hardness about themselves.

 

[rangman2000]

What a lot of people are overlooking is that in the countries where "soccer" is popular it is more than a game.

You are born into supporting a team. Who that team is depends on your location, your economic situation, your politics, your religion, your language, your ethnicity etc.

It is a tribal identification.

It is not a hobby.


To quote the great Bill Shankly: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

 

[jmourinho]

Lol, this is the only trophy that matters

 

[Wutang]

There's one big thing that's been left out here. About half of all soccer games end in ties.

AMERICANS HATE TIES.

Soccer has made some inroads because they've created a good tie-braking system.

The Japanese will declare a baseball game a tie after 15 innings. Americans never do that.

Same with MMA. Draws are way more common in Japanese organizations while they are rare in US promotions - even less if you don't count the fights that go to a technical draw because of an injury,

 

[TonySandos]

Pride Fighting league was way more entertaining than UFC though.

 

[Mentavious]

Too many sports already to begin with.

If the season was from June-sept then more people would watch (baseball is the only competition) but you can't show it here in the fall/winter where all he 4 major sports are playing.

 

[Wutang]

What a lot of people are overlooking is that in the countries where "soccer" is popular it is more than a game.

You are born into supporting a team. Who that team is depends on your location, your economic situation, your politics, your religion, your language, your ethnicity etc.

It is a tribal identification.

It is not a hobby.


To quote the great Bill Shankly: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

Very very good point.

It's the same for (American) football in the US - both at the college level and the NFL, it's about supporting your school or metro area. People think children are only born into religion/culture but I do think a lot of kids are born into sport teams too. I wasn't born in this county and my parents pretty much never watched any sports when I was growing up and to this day they still they do not follow sports except a bit of basketball when Jeremy Lin fever was at it's height so I've been able to observe this phenemenon as an outsider but still closely since it was all around me.

Think about all those girls you see a sporting events - especially for college sports. Do you think most of them actually have anything but the feintiest idea about what's going on? For them it's not about the tactics or strategy or even about the game itself - it's about the social aspects ie. identifying with other people and feeling a sense of community. Men feel this too though with them the actual game does play a big part.

 

[Wutang]

Pride Fighting league was way more entertaining than UFC though.

Japanese MMA has it's roots in pro-wrestling while the UFC started off as a competition to see how different martial arts styles would perform against each other. In other words, the former was as much of a spectacle as it was a sport while the latter tended to focus more on sport. Also, due to the backlash against the UFC and MMA in the states, saying that it was barbaric and had no place in civilizied society, American promoters have spent a lot more time trying to clean up the image of MMA and to present it as a sport that is just as legit as boxing, football, etc. The Japanese never had to worry about that so that's why they could have fights where there's a 50+ lb weight discrepancy between the combatants or have some clueless actor fight a street thug (Ken Kaneko vs. Charles 'Krazy Horse' Bennett in Pride) which yes, I do find entertaining even as a hardcore MMA fan that's always trying to defend it against people think it's just glorified street fighting.

 

[rudebwoy]

They don't like it because they are no good at it.

Whether you like it or not, it is the number one sport in the world.

 

[WalterBlack]

Think about all those girls you see a sporting events - especially for college sports. Do you think most of them actually have anything but the feintiest idea about what's going on? For them it's not about the tactics or strategy or even about the game itself - it's about the social aspects ie. identifying with other people and feeling a sense of community. Men feel this too though with them the actual game does play a big part.

In UK there’s a lot less women at sporting events – one way to make a British woman lose all interest in you in is to bring up sports - most of them hate it. In the US I’ve been to baseball games where there’s groups of women not even watching the game. They go there just to hang out.

 

[TonySandos]

If USA was top ranked in FIFA we would see more of this :american:

 

[speakeasy]

If USA was top ranked in FIFA we would see more of this :american:

I'm still not sure about that. Americans don't even care about the MLS. I'd wager that half of Americans don't even know who their local MLS team is, or care. If MLS ever became at least as popular as the NHL, we might start seeing a sea-change.

 

[Hotwheels]

Why did the NFL fail in Europe?

 

[teh_skeeze]

I have always enjoyed the game of association football. In fact, I would call it my number 2 sport behind baseball. It all boils down to exposure. I played one season when I was 5 because I wasn't old enough for tee ball yet. I didn't play again until I was in high school because I was only allowed 1 sport a year, and I always chose baseball. There was no such thing as soccer on TV until USA '94. The old NASL was defunct before I had a memory, and MLS didn't come into existence until '96. In a way, it's been the sport of rejects in this country. The only reason I played in High School is because the JV team barely had enough guys to field a starting 11. I learned more about the game from playing Football Manager than I did from actually playing the sport.

This is changing now with more media options and the exposure being brought to the game here in the States. The worm is starting to turn as the Americans have fielded their best team ever for the WC this cycle. Give it another 2 cycles and we will be competing for the trophy. I also think the stock of CONCACAF is rising as well. Who would have thought that Costa Rica was advancing from their group?

 

[WalterBlack]

Why did the NFL fail in Europe?

One reason is that the stop-start nature of the games pisses people off. If you grow on soccer and watch a free flowing game, then a game that stops every 30 seconds is very irritating.

 

[TonySandos]

If USA was top ranked in FIFA we would see more of this :american:

I'm still not sure about that. Americans don't even care about the MLS. I'd wager that half of Americans don't even know who their local MLS team is, or care. If MLS ever became at least as popular as the NHL, we might start seeing a sea-change.

Ehhhhh the NHL always seemed to be living off a ventilator with minor blips here and there since I was a kid. I may be out of touch in the south. Still, if that's the standard then soccer will never really catch wind here.

 

[kosko]

#2) The USA likes to compete and win. And the World Cup is this huge sporting event where we are not the favorites. So it is an odd position that most Americans do not like. Rest assured though, Americans do know if our best athletes played soccer, rather than the big three sports, we would be at the top year in/year out, and we may not really get competition to be honest.

This is incorrect. America would not dominate the competition.

It's a valid point he has made. In strong countries your top athletes are on the pitch. Many countries soccer is the top of the food chain and all the resources are thrown at it.

If Lebron James, Adrian Peterson, and Andrew Luck (who plays soccer) played for Team USA it would be a beast of a team.

In places like England the top kids are groomed young and out into Premiership Academy's, in America the only equivalent us the IMG camps but that's only if the kid is already by choice excelling in soccer. In Europe they would guide (force) him into the game if they saw skill early.