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tigermn
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 2:21 pm 
Just a preface, I am not a soccer hater at all. I had a season ticket to the old Sounders back in the late 70's/early 80's as a college student. I also played some soccer in college albeit primarily as a goalie. I enjoy watching the current Sounders on TV and will DVR and watch most if not all of the games. Unlike the NFL I will not go so far as to watch just any soccer game. I have to have a team I'm rooting for. With the NFL if there is a game on I'm probably watching. I am not the typical American sports fan though. Both my wife and daughter who are very avid football fans and to a lesser degree Mariner fans have almost no interest in watching Soccer (see below). Yea it's the World Cup and all, yea the Sounders draw a lot of fans, but the rest of MLS doesn't. Lots of kids play soccer but it just isn't a major sport in this country. The World Cup at least makes people take some notice but not most of the people I know really care other than they hope our country wins. They aren't making a point to watch the games. Many of these people are big Football, Baseball, Hockey, Basketball fans etc. Purists fire away, but the purists aren't the masses in the U.S. 1) Get rid of offsides. 2) Get rid of ties/quit deciding important matches with penalty kicks. 3) A lesser point but without breaks (45 minute running clock per half), there are no opportunities to even get up and go to the bathroom (well you can DVR it at home, but not in person), much less grab food and drink without missing something. 4) OK this isn't really a fault of the game, but the typical American doesn't really understand the game, nor do they have a great desire (based on what they do see on the surface (0-0 ties, booting the ball up and down the field with long kicks from one end to the other for basically a jump ball posession)) to try and understand the game. I remember the old NASL at least moved the offsides line to the 35 yard line. Maybe if you have to keep it move it to the 18 yard box so no one camps out around the goalie. Still I hate the corner kicks that hit off somebody then the defense line pulls up and somebody is offsides on what otherwise would have been a great play. If you are on defense, don't let people get behind you. Could you imagine if the NFL had an offsides rule? No more deep balls... #2 is the bugaboo. We hate ties, and we hate breaking ties just about as much with a stupid penalty kick contest. Interestingly enough only the most important games have to be decided at all and they do it with a penalty kick contest... Seriously? I mean would you like to see an NFL game that is tied have the tie broken with a field goal kicking contest? A way to get rid of ties would be to instead of giving both teams 1 point for a tie, subtract 3 points from each time for a tie. Even better if the score is "nil-nil" subtract 4 points from each team. Watch the action pick up at in the second half and especially towards the end of a game instead of all the tie settlement stalling/wasting time tactics or the "we're on the road, a draw is acceptable" mantra.

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Foist
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 3:02 pm 
Your solutions might help at the margins, but don't address the fundamental reasons why international soccer is mind-numbingly boring and why no one ever scores: the field is way way too big with way way too many players on it, which just forces them to pass laterally back and forth pointlessly for hours. Seattle needs an NHL team, pronto. That will help them wake up from their snooze and forget the Sounders.

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touron
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 6:44 pm 
What happened to the NASL? It seems like soccer was pretty popular at the time.

Touron is a nougat of Arabic origin made with almonds and honey or sugar, without which it would just not be Christmas in Spain.
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Backpacker Joe
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 6:47 pm 
Install a SHOT CLOCK like in basketball! Soccer is to BORING! Americans want to see scoring!

"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide." — Abraham Lincoln
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Ranger Smith
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 7:18 pm 
Oh please don't. We have enough instant idiots, just add sports here in the U.S.

I'm a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess.
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rocknclimb
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 7:47 pm 
Backpacker Joe wrote:
Americans want to see scoring!
Not true. Good defense ( nil - nil ), and a good offense are both appreciated by American sport fans. Just look at the Seahawks. The team prides themselves on the legion of boom, and having the ability to stifle an offense.

When asked "Why do you climb"? Simply respond "Why don't you"?
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sten
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 8:00 pm 
Oh I'm so sorry that you actually should pay attention for more than 37.541 seconds to watch the entire play. The time it takes is what makes the scores so exciting. I mean really, France playing with only ten players scoring in the last minute or so of a World Cup final to win? How is that not exciting? Or , I don't know, the US scoring in the first minute against Ghana? Oh wait, you're right, they didn't all stop and totally regroup before the play, and let the fans go get another beer, bathroom break, and refill the chip bowl......Boorring!

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touron
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 8:03 pm 
Soccer is like hiking to Blanca Lake: forest....forest....forest....forest...forest....forest....forest...slight view...forest...forest....forest....forest....forest....forest...forest...and at last, the lake! But the lake is worth it, and the forest has its own beauty. Patience my friend--paint the fence, paint the fence, paint the fence

Touron is a nougat of Arabic origin made with almonds and honey or sugar, without which it would just not be Christmas in Spain.
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sten
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 8:10 pm 
I've not been to Blanca Lake, but I think that Touron phrased it much more kindly then I.

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Lono
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 8:36 pm 
Just make Americans better at the game, and our interest will increase. But its not our game, and it will never be as popular as other American sports. If you have any old NASL Sounders vs New York Cosmos on VHS or Beta, play through until approx. 38 minutes, you see a young volunteer ballboy retrieve an out of bound ball and toss it to Pele. I remember he cursed me and said give me the friggin' ball. I was on air. That boy was me, and when I fell in love with the Worlds game. I rotated out at halftime for another ballboy but being that close to Pele was cool at the time, like Ruth or Clemente.

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tom roy
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 8:38 pm 
I don't think changing it would make a difference and why do we need it more popular here? I played soccer over forty years ago as a kid when I lived in Bellevue and enough kids have played since if there were an interest it would have caught on by now. I also raced motocross from the mid seventies to early eighties and that's a lot more entertaining than soccer imo. I don't want to see it changed so its more popular for US television and that's the thing the money is in television. Soccer's fine where its at if other countries love it that's ok if it happens here thats ok to.

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touron
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 8:48 pm 
Actually soccer seems pretty popular in the Puget Sound area. I'm not sure if it enjoys the same level of popularity throughout the rest of the country or not. When I was in gradeschool, I think there were a couple classmates that played for something called Seattle Select. They would go up to Canada and play teams up there too, so I think it is popular enough here but not the same level as say Brazil. hmmm.gif Lono, that is quite the 15 seconds of fame you enjoyed there. I remember the Sounders coming to our grade school and putting on a demo in the cafeteria. A few kids in my class got to play a little scrimmage with them. And they gave us all dittoed pages with their autographs. By dittoed, I mean the old ditto machines that used a purplish ink. At the time I was incensed that we got such a cheap representation of their signatures. Now I wish I still had those dittoed autographs. lol.gif I think local star Jimmy McAlister was part of the entourage that day. up.gif up.gif up.gif

Touron is a nougat of Arabic origin made with almonds and honey or sugar, without which it would just not be Christmas in Spain.
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nuclear_eggset
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PostMon Jun 16, 2014 9:13 pm 
I strongly suspect a deeper cultural reflection. Americans want more stuff/bling, on their own time schedule, and without having to work at it too hard. That's not soccer. It's hard to get people to relate to something that is so foreign in so many ways (requiring patience, requiring stamina, requiring finesse). (Caveat here - I'm FAR more familiar with English Premier League than any other country's soccer. I know that the Latin Americas play a somewhat different style (more aggressive, iiuc), and I'm sure there are yet more regional variances. So, this does some from a biased perspective.)

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Boywonder
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PostTue Jun 17, 2014 7:42 am 
Soccer is a kids game used to teach teamwork and competition. A bunch of grown men running around kicking a ball back and forth for hours - no thanks.

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Lono
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PostTue Jun 17, 2014 8:21 am 
Baseball is totally a boy's game played by men...

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