Hero:
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Sport Report – Soccer Debate – Marc Fisher & Mark Starr | ||||
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Many of my smart, reasonable friends thoroughly enjoy soccer as I’m certain many of you do, and I’m not looking to start an argument I’ve had about a billion times before. I just don’t care for the sport, for several of the reasons Colbert details in the video above.
Straight up, I find it boring. It doesn’t maintain my interest. And I’ve seen plenty of it at this point, though I was probably biased going in.
The arguments Starr cites are typical of soccer’s defenders. The thing is, I have no doubt that soccer players are world-class athletes and I very much respect the fact that they can run 7 miles per game. Bully for them; I couldn’t do that.
But I couldn’t run a marathon either and that doesn’t mean I’m going to watch one. Plus, the second part of his argument — that soccer players are not “freaks of nature” as I assume he thinks basketball and football players are — not only vaguely contradicts his first (since he expected us to be impressed by the midfielders’ amazing athleticism) but doesn’t make a damn difference to me.
I would actually much prefer to see freaks of nature battling it out in competition. Adds to the spectacle, which is a big part of why I watch. In fact, soccer might be a lot more interesting if both teams had to carry an NFL linebacker on the field somewhere. Oh, and he’s allowed to dispense bonecrushing hits.
On the plus side, I enjoy crazed celebrations and hooliganship in general.
Tedquarters 
I’m with you Ted, I was begining to think I was the only person on earth who just didnt give a sh*t that the World Cup was going on.
Another thing that annoys me about the soccer, or more specifically the world cup is the closet soccer fans. I’m seeing facebook posts from friends about having World Cup parties, and people over to watch games, yet these are people I’ve never heard mention the game of soccer, ever.
On top of that the even more annoying thing is these same friends, born and raised, third and 4th generation amrican born people, suddenly becoming super ethnic, all of a sudden rooting for thier ‘home country’ like they were born and raised there or something. Like all of a sudden these people are super fans of Portugal or Italy. Your f—in american, root for the damn american team.
I used to play soccer. It’s a great game to play.
Not so great to watch.
Soccer sucks. The end.
I think you guys are far from the only ones who aren’t on board with the world cup, I’ve noticed a lot of backlash lately which is understandable beacuse I can’t remember ESPN pimping somthing this hard and that’s saying somthing.
In 2006 I was the poser soccer fan that Chris described, since then I’ve picked up on the EPL and gotten into the game but if its not for you then whatever, you only have to deal with us for a month and then we’ll be quiet again.
I just hope sometime in my lifetime we”ll have a world cup without having to have the “soccer is great / soccer sucks” debate and those who want to watch can watch without telling everyone how awesome they are for watching and those who don’t want to watch can not watch without complaining.
That’s an excellent point, but I think the debate is perpetuated by people on both sides. It always seems like soccer fans are particularly zealous about making everyone else like soccer, whereas baseball fans just know that people who don’t like baseball are probably dumb and don’t appreciate awesome things.
Oh its absolutely propetuated by both sides. Its propetuated by ESPN beating us over the head with it. Every promo is going to elicit a strong reaction from those like me who will be drunk by halftime tomorrow which in turn is going to prompt a negitive response from those who have to deal with people like me for the next month.
I think we’re used to the over the top coverage in the four major sports so we don’t have to debate the merits of the sport but if ESPN ever picks up a MMA contract we’ll be having the same debate.
I agree with all that Pablo, and like I said, the thing I dont like its the poser fans. I by no means meant to suggest that all soccer fans are posers. I have a few friends that really are big soccer fans like yourself, who play in leagues, and follow alot of the MLS and European stuff, and actually know that game.
As for ESPN, they pimp everything sickeningly hard, that is if its something that airs on thier network of course. I dont really ever watch anything on ESPN anyway this time of year, so I couldn’t care less how hard they are pushing it or how much of it they are showing.
I have nothing against the game or those who truly like it, I just personally dont have an intereest. I just get annoyed by the poser fans, same way as I get annoyed at poser Giants fans who only surfaced after the superbowl a few years ago.
What will be fun on Saturday will be how everyone chooses to watch this game. The EPL crew is usually a Guinness/Newcastle/Harp/Bass drinking crew but USA/England will call for burgers, Budwiser and mullets. Please god let there be mullets.
Not sure about Mullets…. Hockey season ended the other day.
If you live in Brooklyn you know that it was decided at some point that all hipsters would become soccer fans and experts during the World Cup. In extreme cases, some have even picked a Premier League team and pretended to follow them.