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http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/6248835.stm
Hmmm. The new invasion of America by the British soccer star Beckham. I'm not bowing out to the use of the f word because that denotes a seperate game.
I'm asking for Brits feelings about it, and how any Americans feel about this attempt to popularize a very boring game.
What you've done there is that you've gone and got your definition all arsey-versey.
The bloom is off the rose with Beckham, right? I thought some of his issues with Real Madrid had more to do with contract duration than actual funds per year. He'll probably gin up ticket sales for a little while, but odds are it'll only be a transient pulse, settling back down to current levels in a year or two's time.
The big reason <insert favorite name for that sport here> hasn't caught on in the US is lack of television support. It won't get much more of that until networks figure out how to air it and still make money without commercials.
Not to mention, Americans like their own brand of football. As long as it's pitched as a one-or-the-other proposition, that sport will lose every time. It needs to find it's own niche. Springtime?
Exactly. Most of the mainstream sports already dominate a certain time of year. Baseball, Basketball and FOOTIE(ball) each occupy about a third of the year. Where would you put it? Isn't three balls enough even if one is oddly shaped?Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Corleone
LA has a Soccer Team? wow. Where have I been?
I thought baseball already was quite popular in the US ? :dunce:Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
I think its good for him, hes still a good player, and i suspect will be the best in any team he plays for in the US, not been doing too well at Real Madrid, + LA team get loads of money from "the beckham brand", everyones happy...
im not sure thatsoccerfootball will ever catch on in america, basically for the reasons don said,
football is in no way boring.Quote:
I'm asking for Brits feelings about it, and how any Americans feel about this attempt to popularize a very boring game.
:2thumbsup:
I was under the impression that they are the same game sent down two different evolutionary paths.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Anyway, I wouldn't say that it's really an attempt to popularise the sport by sending an Essex pretty boy to the US- whatever he says, I'm certain that somewhere along the line someone has been conspiring to get this decade's pin-up of English footballing mediocrity to a place where his "talents" won't offend European passions for the beautiful game any longer.
The lack of tv coverage is really just a symptom. It's a class thing. In the US, soccer is a middle class suburban game. Like field hockey or rounders is here. Sports that become successful in a society are working class sports. Mass sporting events are (generally) watched by beer drinking working men. Those men are watching other working class men who have made it big in their sport. Living in the middle of a big US city an atheltic youth is going to play basketball. In the rural areas it's football or baseball (correct me on the details).Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Corleone
No american kid is ever going to break out of the ghettos or rural dump by playing soccer. They are going to learn to jump/hit a ball/run fast.
In the rest of the world soccer is the working class game. Some of the best players the world has ever known have grown up running barefoot kicking a ball of string (or some such).
Going from Madrid to LA. Well, at least he probably knows Spanish by now. :rolleyes:
$250 million for 5 years is waaaay too much money though, I can't see how the MLS financials can support this. I wonder if Lamar Hunt would have supported this deal.
The evil influences of HollyWood will be his ruin. Probably end up getting busted with Mel Gibson on some drunken roadtrip and blame it on....~;)
As I said in the Frontroom football thread, if I was him I'd have gone on a free transfer to a mid-table prem side, and spent the rest of my career there. I suppose his wife had something to do with him choosing this particular course.
Perhaps the bigger question is, why is Beckham so revered in the US, as opposed to, say, Henry, Eto'o or Kaka?
Gah I'm so happy
Football player i hate most will be behind ocean.
Stupid Americans will be paying that #%R$#&(**#(
Live is OK
And as a bonus Krook , they get his talentless trog of a wife overthere aswell:2thumbsup:Quote:
Gah I'm so happy
Football player i hate most will be behind ocean.
Stupid Americans will be paying that #%R$#&(**#(
Live is OK
Why do Americans consider sports that don't regulary result in fights, spectacular injuries or huge scores as boring?
Probably because most of us don't follow the sport very closely, and figure from all the press he gets, he's got to be good! Some of us know better, though. That's a lot of money for a spot-kick and crossing specialist. Maybe he and Posh want to get into movies soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax
If there's one old player I would have loved to see come to the MLS, it would have to be Bergkamp. He could have offered so much and showed how beautiful the game could be. Shame he doesn't fly...
No fights in football Phil? Football has a large tradition of good brawls, and even a war in South America.
I am sick of Beckham. Yes, he's a good player, but he is so highly overrated and he has not aged well at all in terms of football. Now, Campo would be a good addition to American football. I think that European clubs should use American ones as training grounds for their younger players. It would be like a new youth academy. No more loaning intra-league. Just send your player to America. There, they will have a chance to shine and get experience, all the while converting Americans to football fanaticism.
BKS, good point. I could see Henry going to America in his old age. Americans are very shallow with their celebrities. They could never like a Wayne Rooney, a Damien Duff, a Peter Crouch, Tomas Rosicky, and especially Edgar Manucharyan because they are all, especially Manucharyan, ugly as...sin. They like Beckham because he's "pretty".
They're not brands yet, he is. That's what MLS is buying. Wait 'til they realize he's not the goal-scoring machine they think they've bought.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax
That said, the pedestrian pace of MLS should serve him well.
Why oh why didn't they try for Alan Shearer, Bergkamp, or Zidane? Sure they may be retired, but for $250 mil I bet they could've been coerced.
American football has none of those. Neither does baseball. Idaho has the real answer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Peasant Phill
Oh Football. Right. Beckham is past it, a spent battery.
Since when is Tomáš Rosický ugly?Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishArmenian
Which one? Baseball or BasketballQuote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Also will somebody explain how men wearing tights is exciting.
I'm just asking more along the lines of why is soccer popular and Idaho evidently explained it. People don't play it in America, except for specialized areas.
I just don't understand why people everywhere don't enjoy basketball (its like soccer but with 3 and 2 pointers) or American Football.
Simple reason why people don't like Basketball:
The games involve stupidly high scores (anywhere between 70-120+), so this means when somebody scores it is nothing special. However, in Football goals are few and far between making them special and hard to obtain. So when you score in Football it is an ecstatic feeling because of the effort and skill required to score. However, Basketball just has some 7" tall African Americans running up and down a court putting balls in holes; not really exciting.
To add to this glorious post:Quote:
Originally Posted by Rythmic
Also, American football is not widely popular because the rest of the world happens to find the "pass, run, stop, pass, run, tackle, stop" theory repeating itself over and over again boring. It just doesn't have the same type of finesse, the beauty.
A more astute analysis of the "sport will set you free" mythos I've not seen - sport being one of the 3 ways to escape the grinding poverty of the american ghetto, or farm (entertainment and the military being the other two).Quote:
...Mass sporting events are (generally) watched by beer drinking working men. Those men are watching other working class men who have made it big in their sport. Living in the middle of a big US city an atheltic youth is going to play basketball. In the rural areas it's football or baseball (correct me on the details)...
Basketball = 'small' space required, therefore urban.Quote:
(correct me on the details)
Football (yank) = 'medium' space required. IMO why it transitioned from rural to urban. Also requires a college degree for "pro", so benefited from affirmative action measures, nowadays increasingly nixed by voters.
Baseball = 'large' space required. Fields and such, to accomodate the hits. Recruitment lately has veered from the US to the Caribbean, where a combination of urban and rural youth have learnt the game, and see it as their salvation. US-based baseball heros tarnished by performance-enhancing drugs intake. I predict the Dominian Republic will become the 51st State. (and won't Puerto Rico be pissed?)
Re: Mr & Mrs Beckham: one word - Hollywood.
Not yet, at least. France and Italy have managed to successfully catch on, though. :yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars
Wife says he's ugly. She does however had bad taste, she's somehow attracted to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rythmic
Wife says he's ugly. She does however had bad taste, she's somehow attracted to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rythmic
Best move Real Madrid have done in years....
this guy is totally overrated...he´s about useless for the team 90% of the time....I´ll admit...he scores a great free-kick....but he can´t do practically anything else!!!....how does someone with so limited skills gets the kind of contracts this guy gets I´ll never know :dizzy2:
anyway....now the americans have to put up with him...good....maybe now the tv stations won´t be compelled to show him on tv every time he gets a new aircut :juggle2:
Although that's not as often as Cisse, gets a new hairstyle once a week.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronin
The guy is getting paid huge amounts of money over there not to mention the sponsorship deals. Who wouldn't go? His england career is over (which i don't agree with) and he won't be in the long term plans of Real. So save going to Italy or back to blighty there wasn't much choice
Campo's staying put. :stare:Quote:
IrishArmenian Now, Campo would be a good addition to American football..
Bekham isn't a BAD player by any means, his biggest problem is he isn't consistantly good. On a good day, five years ago, he was unstoppable. On a bad day he was adaquete.
As to why AMERICAN Football hasn't caught on, we have RUGBY Football, so the American game looks like a namby-pamby girl's sport.
Okay, how about Diouf? He costs too much and isn't worth nearly as much as they pay him.Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneApache
With Diouff and Anelka we have two of the better creative frontmen in the EPL.Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishArmenian
Diouffy's staying put and all. As is Anelka, Davies, Speedo, Nolan, Jussy .......
Anymore of this nonsense and BIG Sam will be paying your place a visit.......
Just put the used notes in a plain manila envelope :sweatdrop:
Try and get hold of this video. Tom Finney reckons this was the best any English team had ever played, while Arrigo Saachi thought his Milan side (the one with Gullit, Rijkaard and Van Basten) wouldn't have won so many European trophies if they had to compete against them.Quote:
Originally Posted by drone
Oh, I don't know. North Americans don't seem to mind "boring" at all when it comes to sports.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
*cough, cough* NASCAR *cough, cough*
I think Americans just can't get on with sports where draws are common-witness cricket. It seems to offend them somehow.
Football also doesn't lend itself to advertising breaks.
Yall just dont understand AMerican football. It is the hardest sport bar none.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scurvy
Oh yes it is, it's much more entertaining to watch videos of the hooligans/firms beating each other down:2thumbsup:
edit, like this one http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...oligans+russia
Too bad the Scousers are useless nowadays.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pannonian
:yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
I'd say Rowing is harder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
Ah...Zizou, Zizou...le maître de l'univers, notre Rédempteur et Sauveur, mon Dieu eternel...Quote:
Originally Posted by The Black Ship
http://smileys.sur-la-toile.com/repo...te/pleure2.gif
*weeps bittersweet tears*
Alas, he has now shuffled off this mortal coil, ended the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, for it is nobler in the mind not to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous insult, but to take arms against it, and by opposing, end them.
Zidane has no need for earthly matters anymore. He never was concerned with that. I don't think that even $250 mil could have coerced him into playing in the MLS. Beckham, okay. Not Zidane.
Beckham is football player, a good one, an icon. But Zidane is the best of our time. His purpose is larger. He's a poet, a man with a mission to fulfill, send from the heavens to reconciliate good and evil, to restore balance in the universe.
A kiss to the world, leaving us breathless, speechless, redeemed.
Oh, might as well rub it in...
The greatest Beckham video ever! Brilliant stuff, one that our English patrons in particular will enjoy.
Cheers, Becks! http://smileys.sur-la-toile.com/repo...ntent/0090.gif
Zizou said farewell to the world with a Glasgow Kiss to Materazzi, that certainly left him breathless and speechless. Don't know about redeeemed though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
Uh.
If I was Big Sam (Hey, I'm his size, if not a little bigger) I would've kicked Diouf off the team by now due to conduct reasons.:smash:Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneApache
Now, I said Campo, because, let's face it, he can see the light and he is walking towards it.:skull:
About Diouf moving to America, the Americans love celebrity asses. :furious3:
Now, of course, Big Sam sure isn't travelling to Armenia and if he does, hoping it will be a jolly expedition, he has another thing coming.
Diouf is eating your funds and he has serious problems off the field.
Amazing work rate, one of the best deep crosses which were bloody hard to deal with as a defender, good free kicks. The guy isn't a traditional winger in that he runs, beats defenders and hits the byline to whip it in, to look for a player who does that is to under-sell him. He didn't need to hit the byline, his crosses made up for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronin
I know it's popular to rip him down and that he was somewhat over-rated, but to say he's useless 90% of the time is just to be willfully ignorant. Compare the amount the guy runs to 90% of footballers and he'll beat the 90%. He had a limited game, but he was very good at what he did well and that made up for it by the bucketloads in a team that could take advantage of it.
The Real Madrid move was allways doomed to failure, he started well because he was an honest player, who gave everything in terms of work in the midfield, something Madrid was (and still is to a degree) sorely missing at the time. However it came undone as the deeper flaws in his game were not covered by the rest of the Madrid squad - is it his fault that he was brought into a squad he couldn't work in or the person who wanted him there?
I have to disagree with this. Did you watch him at the world cup?Quote:
Amazing work rate
He was practically invisible except for set pieces.
He should have been dropped for Lennon before the WC. I agree with BKS he was invisible apart from a jammy goal.
He was useless in the WC.
I think it was a famous American football coach (Coach Hayes of Ohio State, perhaps?) who said:Quote:
Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax
Quote:
A tie is like kissing your sister.
One tournament defines a career of 10+ years does it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Big King Sanctaphrax
On that argument maybe you should look at that one game vs Greece, where everybody on the english team was anonymous garbage except him... He covered ~16km in 90 minutes - the guy gave everything nearly without exception throughout his career - one dip doesn't make the career. On the field coverage he usually averaged 14-15km a game - that's an amazing stat to give you an idea of how much he put in.
He's not my favourite player, but I find the hate and derision given to him because he's been clever with his marketing pretty pathetic and juvenile. If you were given the same options you'd take them everytime.
I didn't say that. I should probably have made it clear that I was talking about how he is now. Back with Manchester United, he was a cracking player, there's no denying that-SAF wouldn't have given him a place in the starting line-up for so long otherwise, he's not a stupid man. He delivered the goods internationally back then as well.Quote:
One tournament defines a career of 10+ years does it?
However, I would say that he seems to have lost much of that now-with the world cup showing how far he's fallen. All the same, I think he'd still get into most non big four Prem midfields, and, as I said earlier in the thread, I would have liked him to take this route rather than going to the US. I can understand going for the money, though.
I've never said I hated him, I'm not sure where you got that from.
EDIT:Risqué joke follows:Quote:
Originally Posted by Productivity
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Nobody hates him. It's just that he's such an easy target to ridicule. What with his football skills being as limited in scope as his vocabulary, him hoofing penalties 40 feet over the crossbar to no end and 200 million Chinese girls thinking he's the greatest thing since Hello Kitty. But hey, once you get paid a million dollar a week for showing off eccentric haircuts on acatwalkfootball field you're fair game as far as I'm concerned. He in turn gets to laugh all the way to the bank.
Yet, it could very well prove to have been a smart move by LA Galaxy. This deal is all about marketing, and nobody can vend it like Beckham.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
"A tie is like kissing your sister." The earliest known use of the phrase was by Navy football coach Eddie Erdelatz after a scoreless tie against Duke in 1953 (American Dialect Society listserv message, Nov. 26, 2002), but repeated by yank football coaches endlessly since then - the sentiment eventually leading to "sudden death overtime" in the NFL to decide a match winner.
edit to add: 1967, Detroit (my hometown then) we "bought" an entire N.I. soccer team, lock, stock and 22 smoking players to be 'our' team in a start-up league. Didn't last long http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Cougars_(soccer)
one more thing; with Mr. Beckham's net worth, why doesn't he just buy the whole Galaxy team?
NASCAR thankfully appeals to a very limited audience.
However, the whole play-stop-play lends the game to more of tactics based play. You have defined goals, while in Soccer the players just go crazy over the ball, and seem to create a swirling mass. (Dogfight)
I just think that every single European should be afraid of Beckham.
Not due to skills, but if he makes Soccer popular in America, then you'll have every Bob and Betsy going crazy over the game, and parents who only care about their children doing great and willing to fight for their children's chance with the passion of a blonde sixteen year old diva and her dress.
Then America will conquer the game with uber-skilled players in a couple years, and you'll have to find something else to exclude us from.
I hope that you get some competitive players, you have a few, (Friedel and McBride). Keep in mind, we don't "exclude" America because you are America, we "exclude" because you are poor footballers despite your political prescence, financial situation and population. I mean if we were your size, we'd at least be considered a contender.
Armenia--3.500.000 people approximately. Say that for every 3.500.000 people, we crank out 1 Edgar Manucharyan level of skill in a player. With the population of the USA, you are looking at 80-90 players that good. Think about it. Go Manucharyan!
The thing is once America finds soccer enjoyabe (If and once) they will pursue it , and soccer will no longer be as enjoyable because the Americans will dominate it. So you will have to find another game to play, that we won't be dominating at.
Well, the rest of the world does have at least 100 years on you. I doubt the average American is as open minded as you, too.
What, like you dominate at basketball on the international stage? Oh wait...Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
Of course there's always baseball...but didn't you get tonked by Japan, Cuba and a whole bunch of others in that recent World Baseball Classic thing?
We could dominate basketball but the sissies don't want to risk injuries in the big-star players playing outside of the NBA.
Baseball, we could win if we tried, but its like the NBA, they don't want to risk major players on the world stage.
Luckily, soccer isn't important enough that we need to save the players.
Problem: USA seems not to try much at anything.
Hey you know what we did try at? WW2. Ya. You're welcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishArmenian
Yeah and you were rubbish. Lots of well equipped cannon fodder and the worst officers on any side :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by Strike For The South
Yeah, you lot had them right where you wanted them.:laugh4:
Well we weren't losing, were we?
I don't want to get into this, if you think Germany couldn'd have been defeated without you you're wrong, you made the job a lot easier but you weren't essential and the price we paid was far too high.
Wait ... how can a thread about a football/soccer-player's move to the US possibly descend into a discussion about the role of the US in WWII? :inquisitive:
Stay on topic :whip: ... well ... please :bow:
I think the North Vietnamise would have been better allies for Britain in WWII. Those guys really know how to fight...
(Sorry, Ser. I just couldn't resist that one.)
But they are too short, and wouldn't make good targets for Beckham's crosses. They would never be able to beat the defenders to the header.Quote:
Originally Posted by Goofball
Don't kid yourself, Europe has some very talented basketball going on, and an excellent (on the whole) program for training up new players. While the US has the ghetto, Europe has the coaching and the conceptual training it takes to play quality team basketball. If you think the European teams are poor quality and only beat the US because the US didn't try, well, it's wrong. Does the US have good basketball? Yes. Does Europe have good basketball? Yeah, it does. The US just has a headstart.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marshal Murat
The majority of that came from one of the best basketball players that I know personally, who played a couple years in Europe and has also interacted with a number of NBA players etc.
Heh. Thats wrong. Europe has good players yes but if the USA brought there A-game and if we actually cared we would wipe the floor with yall. The "ghetto" is were some of the best basketball is played its where 90% of people in the NBA grew up pllaying its were your Euro coaches were able to see te game. Im not to worried about Europe ethier. Argentina is a bigger worry anyway. To compare Europe to America in basketball is downright luaghable. :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: