"Soccer"

Read this article yesturday...I didnt write in the mockin brits and such, but i thought Id post it.

JOHANNESBURG – No matter how much the United States continues to emerge as a competitive World Cup nation, there is little doubt that the international perception of American soccer will always be doused with suspicion.

The roots of calling the beautiful game "soccer" started in a surprising place.

Why? Because Americans don’t even call the sport by its proper name, of course. They don’t call it “football.” They call it “soccer.”
In the USA, football is that game that dominates winter Sundays and features Lycra, helmets and men so large they should come with their own zip code.


Elsewhere, football is football. The round-ball sport, the beautiful game, with its biggest prize to be handed out here on July 11.
Soccer? Pah, a silly American term created by a nation that has its own national obsession.

No country has been snootier toward the USA’s use of the term “soccer” than England. Before the Group C opener between the two sides in Rustenburg, the Sun newspaper even ran a spoof front page urging Fabio Capello’s side to win the “soccerball world series.”
But let’s take a halftime break here.

Coupled with their team’s humiliating exit from the World Cup it might be another rude awakening to the Brits that soccer isn’t an American term, it is actually an English one. And it isn’t some modern fad that shows disrespect to the world’s most popular sport, it dates back to the earliest days of the game’s professional history.

Indeed, until the last few decades, even Englishmen would routinely refer to their favorite pastime as soccer, just as often as they would say football.
Clive Toye, an Englishman who moved to the U.S. and became known as the father of modern American soccer, bringing Brazilian legend Pele to play for the New York Cosmos, takes up the story.

“Soccer is a synonym for football,” said Toye, who helped launch the North American Soccer League in the late 1960s.“And it has been used as such for more years than I can count. When I was a kid in England and grabbed a ball to go out and play … I would just as easily have said: ‘Let’s have a game of soccer’ as I would use the word ‘football’ instead. And I didn’t start it.”

To trace the origin of “soccer” we must go all the way back to 1863, and a meeting of gentlemen at a London pub, who congregated with the purpose of standardizing the rules of “football,” which was in its infant years as an organized sport but was growing rapidly in popularity.
Those assembled became the founding members of the Football Association (which still oversees the game in England to this day). And they decided to call their code Association Football, to differentiate it from Rugby Football.
A quirk of British culture is the permanent need to familiarize names by shortening them. “My friend Brian Johnston was Johnners,” said Toye. “They took the third, fourth and fifth letters of Association and called it SOCcer. So there you are.”

So forget that English condescension and carry on calling it soccer, safe in the knowledge that you’re more in tune with the roots of the sport than those mocking Brits.

Even the lads who help invent the sport called it Soccer. I'm glad that's settled. Still doesn't change the fact that it's boring as fuck. Watchin the Arg vs Ger game and it makes me want to eat a bullet.

thuder, read the USA vs. England thread.... i wrote this exact explanation 2 weeks ago LOL
but thanks for the repeat =P

p.s. how long are the same people going to write post after post that they hate soccer, they think futbol is gay, that its boring as poop, etc. i think we've all figured it out by now.... you dont like football

TimeSlinger wrote:

Still doesn't change the fact that it's boring as fuck. Watchin the Arg vs Ger game and it makes me want to eat a bullet.

if you didn't liked it, football is definitely not your sport...

Timeslinger doesn't have the attention span to go 45 minutes without seeing an advertisement...

It has nothing to do with ads matty. I don't have the attention span to watch one play last 45 min and nothing happen. Apparently i'm not the only one, because when Ger. scored their 2nd goal, I saw 3 diff. fans yawning on their way out of their seats to cheer. They didn't know why they were cheering because they were sleeping, but they at least woke up to cheer.

btw, that game was too easy chrisi. the last 10 min even an infant could have scored.

p.s. I like football blu. Soccer on the other hand is ok to play, just can't stand watching it. It's about 3 times worse than watching baseball. soccer's still for pussies.

Soccer doesn't have plays, it's one game, not lots of little games, maybe that's why you don't like it. Who cares anyway.

TimeSlinger wrote:

soccer's still for pussies.

no problem, i'm pretty sure that a rugby player will think the same about american football.

IDK, it's a toss up. I know rugby players are badasses, but there are some football players that are pretty badass as well. Not like those footy players who flop on the ground. That's about the only action worth watching. Who's going to be the next flop? Some of those guys act like their legs need amputated to try and draw a fould, then 5 secs later are sprinting down the field. Rugby & Football> Soccer!!

'Flop'

Another term you've got wrong

Just go watch the home shopping channel, Slinger. Might be more to your taste.

yo chill on slinger, i watched a lot of soccer so far this world cup and have to say it is somewhat diff to understand.....for instance how long is a game? why does the clock never stop? after a goal people were celebrating for what seemed like a long time, it was a very close game towards the end and I would have been pissed or trying to get it going if I were the other team....also why dont team attack more? are the afraid to get a turnover and beat back down the field (or is it pitch?)

anyway its probably a cultural thing....

As for rugby vs football in pros, a linebacker would clean the clock of any rugby player out there, they are crazy but dont get killed or hit at full speed nearly as much as football players

and flop is the amercican term for falling down and writhing like a lil bitch when your not touched

Vish_88 wrote:

Just go watch the home shopping channel, Slinger. Might be more to your taste.

you're right vish. I should, it would be more enertaining and the women on there don't act like little bitches comapred to the girls playing in the WC. How sad is that Home Shopping network > World Cup

Sorry, thud. I said i'd tak it easy on these guys, but I had to get one more it.

So, you are not taking it easy now? This is you going on "hard?"

Lol.

Ratings and opinions tell you that WC > Shopping channel

Infact, international views of sports will tell you

Football > Rubgy => Cricket > Basketball > A. Football > Baseball.

I am just having a bit of friendly banter, nothing serious with you

I'm pretty sure that Time's comparison was a matter of opinion, not entirely fact.

1. noone answered my questions


2. vish Ill have to look up the world wide ratings buddy cause im pretty sure the superbowl is the most watched singular sporting event.

thuder87 wrote:

yo chill on slinger, i watched a lot of soccer so far this world cup and have to say it is somewhat diff to understand.....for instance how long is a game? why does the clock never stop? after a goal people were celebrating for what seemed like a long time, it was a very close game towards the end and I would have been pissed or trying to get it going if I were the other team....also why dont team attack more? are the afraid to get a turnover and beat back down the field (or is it pitch?)

anyway its probably a cultural thing....

As for rugby vs football in pros, a linebacker would clean the clock of any rugby player out there, they are crazy but dont get killed or hit at full speed nearly as much as football players

and flop is the amercican term for falling down and writhing like a lil bitch when your not touched

1 a game is 90 minutes 45mins each way
2 the ref has 2 watches 1 which keeps going for the 45 mins the other he stops each time the ball goes out of play/blows whistle
a when a goal is scored so if teams celebrate for to long time gets added on
b the ball goes out for a throw/corner/goal kick
c a substitution is made
d there is a foul commited etc etc
the time is then added on at the end of each half

also why dont team attack more? are the afraid to get a turnover and beat back down the field (or is it pitch?)

most teams are afraid of getting caught on the "counter attack" thats what we call it and pitch is the english term

you call it flop we call it a dive

rugby/american football not getting into that one i dont like either

hope that helps a bit thuder

yep thx

At least these refs can read a watch! too bad they can't ref!! to many calls F'd up.

thuder87 wrote:

1. noone answered my questions


2. vish Ill have to look up the world wide ratings buddy cause im pretty sure the superbowl is the most watched singular sporting event.

I'd beg to differ on point number 2 although FIFA would have you believe 1 billion people watch the world cup final, but it's common knowledge that they make those figures up just like they make everything else up as they go along, so you may be right bud.

TimeSlinger wrote:

At least these refs can read a watch! too bad they can't ref!! to many calls F'd up.

Refs have a largely thankless job for which they get next to no assistance from the laws of the game. You should blame FIFA and the rule-makers who won't help people do their job better.

how many refs ref the games? When I watch "this sport" I always say they need more. Hell, football games have 7 and they still have to review plays that they miss, just so the proper call is made. Should be about making the right calls!!

mattyla wrote:

thuder87 wrote:

1. noone answered my questions


2. vish Ill have to look up the world wide ratings buddy cause im pretty sure the superbowl is the most watched singular sporting event.

I'd beg to differ on point number 2 although FIFA would have you believe 1 billion people watch the world cup final, but it's common knowledge that they make those figures up just like they make everything else up as they go along, so you may be right bud.

Anything that only happens every 4 yrs should have a big fucking viewing audience. kinda like the olymics.

I think that the Champions League Final has a bigger audience. Maybe.

It's a pretty massive event. Winner of that = Best club in the world.

Referees have a stupidly hard job. It's Sepp Blatter's fault that it's so hard too.

TimeSlinger wrote:

how many refs ref the games? When I watch "this sport" I always say they need more. Hell, football games have 7 and they still have to review plays that they miss, just so the proper call is made. Should be about making the right calls!!

There's 4 now, but then one of the competitions has trialled an extra 2. They call it a success, but it's only a success until they start missing obvious decisions too. I'm sure it never used to be this complicated...

Rugby League is the way forward, their games are cleverly officiated and you'll never hear of anyone moaning about duff calls.