07-17-2011, 11:59 PM
rjmacs wrote:
Americans crave lead changes and enough transparency in strategy that they can armchair quarterback, as it were. Also, this problem plagues golf.
You're reaching here, and coming up short. This game had plenty of lead changes. What on earth do you mean by "transparency in strategy"? Does that mean that it has to be a simple coach-directed game with lots of standing around like american football, with the strategy gone over in detail by the commentators during the long periods of inaction? Soccer is a player's sport, not a coach's sport (meaning that the coach is a non-factor during most of the game), which is something I think is fairly rare in american sports.
I've always wondered why soccer is not that popular among american adults, seeing as how it is the most popular game in the world across many different cultures. I think part of it is that it is not designed for TV as is football so the networks in the US seldom carry it and it is completely absent from american newspaper sports sections, so it has no visibility except as a kids game.
The other part is that soccer is a fluid and nonstop action game. In comparison, games like american football, baseball and golf are step-by-step games with a lot of waiting around and individual plays that are relatively easy to follow. To follow and understand a fluid and fast game you really need to have played the game yourself, which is true of most of the world EXCEPT the US. I can relate this to basketball, which is the american sport most like soccer (except that the scoring is so high in basketball that it becomes boring at the other extreme). I didn't play basketball as a youth so I really don't understand it very well and it just seems very uninteresting to me. If I had played it as a youth I would probably feel differently. If americans had played soccer as youths they would probably enjoy it.
Of course, another part is that there is a "soccer is boring, low scoring, game" meme that pervades american conversations about the game, mostly among people who have never really watched it. Many of these same people refer to baseball as "exciting"! It is fascinating that the people caught up in this meme feel so strongly about it that they are the most frequent posters on these soccer threads.