Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for June 11, 2010

If it’s England, they’ve probably scored a lot … just not on the pitch.

Lol. This is why I don’t watch soccer.

Heck, even the Phillies score more often than that.

Soccer a sport to watch on TV when you need an afternoon nap

Yeah, but it’s fun to watch. Those are some fit guys! And play doesn’t stop much. I miss those evenings in Spain with the flatmates (Spanish, Spanish & French- the boyfriend was English) watching the Eurocopa. Good times.

Sounds like a snooze-fest to me too.

Fútbol is an art, no brute force required. Any one can play.

That is why Soccer will never be big in America. Too low scoring for such a non-violent sport.

Sorry I will not able to watch the soccer game for World Cup on the TV. I have to work in the evening shift. Oh well! Enjoy watching for longest hours. hee hee hee heeeee…. By the way, I wish all the teams good luck plus good sportmanships, too!

Soccer is not a non-violent sport. Oh, wait, its not intentionally violent on the pitch. The violence is in the spectator stands.

No, really, I love soccer. If you know the game, it can be very interesting to watch. My son decided, at age 7, that soccer was his sport. He has broken an arm, a cheekbone and an orbital bone playing soccer but at 24, all his friends who opted for football are overweight. My son hasn’t an ounce of fat on him.

On the other hand, my daughter plays and coaches rugby. Crazy does run in the family.

Personally, my problem with big-time soccer (I’ve attended two games) isn’t so much the lack of scoring (although higher scores would help) as the (my) inability to anticipate a scoring opportunity. All the action might be taking place within 20 feet of the goal, but that’s not necessarily an indication that anybody is even going to take a shot on the goal, let alone a successful one. It seemed to me that everybody was getting all worked up at 10-minute intervals, despite knowing full well that no scoring was likely to occur during any given possession.

In American football, if the offense is advancing the ball well, there’s a good chance that they’ll score, even if it’s only a field goal. In baseball, if you’ve got a man in scoring position with nobody out, the sense of anticipation is meaningful, and it puts a lot of pressure on the defense. In basketball, every time a team has possession more often than not they will score, which means every takeaway becomes meaningful. But in soccer, one team can be controlling the ball well near the opponent’s goal, but it’s still too easy for the defenders to intercept and simply clear the ball to the opposite end of the pitch, rendering the offense’s gains meaningless.

Yeah, there’s a lot of marvelous athletic ability taking place on an individual level, but unless you’ve learned to recognize and appreciate the game on that small scale, it seems like it’s a very long period of not a lot happening.

(The other thing, of course, is that games can end in a tie, and at anything other than the playground level ties are an abomination.)

I think it was actor Jerry Doyle (when he had his radio show) who said watching soccer was like watching goldfish swim back and forth.

Getting rid of goalkeepers and the offsides rule would make scoring too easy. But if you got rid of “offsides” and kept the keeper, you’d allow for something akin to basketball’s Fast Break… A head-to-head contest between an offenseman and a goalie. That would add drama.

(I want to reiterate that this is what makes soccer less-than-enjoyable to me personally. There’s no more reason “football” as it’s enjoyed worldwide should be expected to change to please Americans than “football” as Americans enjoy it should be amended to please international audiences. Largely, what you enjoy is what you grew up with, and neither is better nor worse…)

Yeah, but with the huge empty goal, removing the keeper entirely would change the game too much.

What I didn’t used to like about basketball was that there was too much scoring. I saw it as basically two teams each hurling a bucket of 100 marbles one-by-one towards a storm drain 20 feet away… Sure, the occasional marble would bounce off the gridwork and be lost as a score, but the majority of marbles would fall through the grate, and it’d be pretty much up to chance who won. A lot of people prefer college basketball to the NBA precisely because at that level they still value defense and still play as a team. At the pro level, nobody likes playing tenacious D so nobody bothers (at least not since Rodman retired). (Note: I’m still not a basketball fan, but I have a greater understanding and appreciation for it than I did 20 years ago.)

Offense and defense need to be properly balanced, but each sport has its own rhythm… It seems to me that soccer is too heavily balanced in favor of defense, but a soccer game that ends in a score of 35-20 wouldn’t be soccer at all…

So… no.

Soccer a non-violent sport!?? I could tell some stories…..

Handball ftw! I have watched soccer games I’ve enjoyed but normally I stay away from watching them. Handball on the other hand is fun.

Handball and Paddleball 2 sports basically only played in the NorthEast, but a lot of fun for all ages with plenty of action. I used to play Paddleball every Sunday morning I remember in the early days of ESPN they showed Paddleball championships on TV.