1) Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?

2) Have you had a sperm count conducted in the last 18 months?

3) When will Ellen be co-hosting your wicked gay blog.

That said, that was “parody.” I don’t thnk I could disagree with with Yogi more. The greatest fielding–which is to say, defensive–plays are as great as any hit in baseball. Is a swat less intersting than a 3-poitner or even most dunks in basketball? And a great play is a great play in football, and hockey too for that matter. Personally, I rememebr many great plays that don’t even work right simply because of the athleticism involved. Focusing on goals in soccer, in my own opinion, just means that the viewer doesn’t know how to watch the game–and this isn’t just the case with soccer. I am by no means a soccer snob, nor is soccer my favorite sport, but I simply don’t udnerstand that view-point: hell, people watch NASCAR for chrissakes? (disclosure: I have also watched NASCAR.)

If anyone is looking for another way to access/understand soccer, I recommend punching over to youtube.com and looking for clips of soccer juggling. “soccer” “juggling” “brazil” “ronaldinho” are some useful terms. Also, google has a new front-page “ig” in partnership with Nike with bite-sixed clips to advance one’s understanding of the rgeat moments that make soccer great.

thierry henri has the kind of skill that would make watching soccer worthwhile even without the scoring – but he is one of maybe five players worldwide who possess such skills, and with 11 players on the field (sorry – pitch), he doesn’t get the ball nearly enough.

also, the nba is always tinkering with the game and changing the rules so it would be more entertaing, as does the nfl. but change is almost taboo in soccer, which is why the game is still played in such a ridiculous format.
for instance, would it kill anybody to have limitless substitutions instead of just three all game? how about rules against stopping the game, as in flopping? and rules to speed up the game , like 15 seconds to get across the half line? and how about a few periods of play so that you can change momentum?
what i’m saying is – soccer has potential but it is still way behind hoops.
and it will probably stay that way cause it’s a european game and they are extremely conservative (much more then the worst american red-necks), at least when it come to their cultural traditions.

One other similarity to basketball — the refs suck. How many times a game do you see brutal offsides calls. As far as I can tell the official on the side (remember, I’m a newbie) has just about one job — to make that offside call. And to have a goal taken away b/c of a bad call is 100 times worse than bad calls in the NBA and NFL b/c those goals are so much more scarce. Why arent there 4 or 5 refs? A few guys are supposed to watch all of these insanely fast players zoom up and down the fied? Really? No wonder there is so much diving — b/c the refs suck…

And you don’t see brawls like that with SEC football fans because the cops in Europe aren’t as power-mad and armed to the teeth as cops in America.

Of course, I took a corner kick in the nuts when I was 12, so I may be a little biased when I get off on a “Soccer is EVIL!” rant…

I picked up on soccer before USA94, and I’ve been a big fan ever since. Some criticism is legit, but you have to look at the other side.

RE: Offside – The rule is there so that you don’t have guys standing back by the goal having their teammates punt the ball down to them over and over again. That is worse than the offside being called and slowing down the game. And honestly, they’ve adjusted the rule to the point where if you are not directly involved in the play, you won’t have it called. That way if someone on the opposite end of the field wanders offside and isn’t within 30 yards of the ball and isn’t involved in the play at all won’t get the call.

RE: Penalties – It’s the best solution for the short time frame. You can’t afford to let them play forever because the players will start dropping. Some teams will shut it down and play for penalties, but the vast majority of the time it doesn’t benefit them. It sucks to watch a team play that way, but they end up paying for it anyway. Usually the better team will finally break through (Brazil v USA in 94 and France v Paraguay om 98) or the negative play is punished (most anytime Italy ends up in penalties).

Paddy

Re: the hooliganism- First, I think as soon as universities figure they can make a buck off the Sigma Chi/Kappa Alpha brawl, we’ll see it in prime time on ESPN. Second, does anyone really want to hear West Coast thugs crying annually about how people think they’re softer than the good ol’ boys from the Bible Belt?

I really think they should do something like widen the goals. I’ve seen a lot of games where one team plays very defensively, just hoping to score a lucky goal or force a tie. And it often works, because it is so damn hard to score a goal.

That being said, my incredibly bold prediction is that Brazil will win the World Cup.