I hate soccer

[Greggulator]

I have started a blog tracking the corniest people in the world: Diehard American soccer fans.

http://americansocceristheworst.blogspot.com/

[peter falk]

MLS fandom is awful, lower league American soccer fandom is even worse, and the quality of the MLS is still garbage no matter how many 37 year old Europeans play in the league. BUT none of those examples should serve as an indictment of the entire sport.  It's a terrible, unfortunate outlier, but scorning the entire universe of soccer because some schmo named Connor read Among the Thugs and decided to throw a sandwich board around is like saying all music sucks because Mit Hamine exists (existed? is Zach from Richmond still alive?).

[fonpr]

I have started a blog tracking the corniest people in the world.

I understand your brother was on NPR this morning. Do you have any details?

[Greggulator]

MLS fandom is awful, lower league American soccer fandom is even worse, and the quality of the MLS is still garbage no matter how many 37 year old Europeans play in the league. BUT none of those examples should serve as an indictment of the entire sport.  It's a terrible, unfortunate outlier, but scorning the entire universe of soccer because some schmo named Connor read Among the Thugs and decided to throw a sandwich board around is like saying all music sucks because Mit Hamine exists (existed? is Zach from Richmond still alive?).

My title here is tongue-in-cheek. My favorite sports are basketball, baseball and tennis. But after that, I like soccer to the same degree I like hockey and college football. I hate the NFL.

I also am a fan of studying soccer culture abroad. I was actually published in an academic journal in my grad school days for a paper called "How Soccer Explains Post-War Germany." The whole greater picture of soccer is so interesting -- why some clubs exist and are associated with certain political leanings, chants from working class pubs, etc.

But keep that overseas, please. Aping anything remotely like it for a league that's 20 years old and was barely afloat until a few seasons ago is so corny and forced.

Also, I did some recent Mitt Hamine research. Sadly, I think they've gone to the late, great Beat Happening rip-off singles bin in the sky.

[Kurz]

I also am a fan of studying soccer culture abroad. I was actually published in an academic journal in my grad school days for a paper called "How Soccer Explains Post-War Germany." The whole greater picture of soccer is so interesting -- why some clubs exist and are associated with certain political leanings, chants from working class pubs, etc.

As a side note to that: In the Netherlands, during and after the 1974 World Cup in West-Germany and losing to the West-Germans in the finale a nationalism and anti-German sentiments emerged that were either unearthed, simmering leftover feelings from the German occupation or new feelings that used WW II as an excuse. Because apparently in 1954 a lot of Dutch people were happy when West-Germany won. Then in 1988 there was this near-hysteria about defeating West-Germany in the semi-final of Euro 88 (in West-Germany), on the way to winning the only major tournament "we've" ever won. As if some kind of tyranny was finally shaken off. Did you come across any of that in your research?

[gravy boat]

I actually like MLS soccer. I've always liked soccer and feel like it's worse as a US fan to get really wound up in the English Premier League or the Spanish league rather than supporting the domestic league, which gets better from a quality point of view each year.  Also, as a sports fan and dad, it is so much cheaper and fan-friendly to get to Red Bulls stadium (weird looking on the outside but great inside) than MetLife or a MLB game.  I've seen too much blood, racism, and anti-semitism at Yankees stadium to ever go again.  That little skirmish in Newark was nothing in comparison to the hoodlums in the Bronx.

Agree that scarves are dumb and trying to import a European fan-culture is a weak idea.

The title "You'll Always Sit Alone" made me laugh.

That you are an unabashed fan (as a grown-up!) of professional wrestling and yet you are mocking soccer fans made me smile, somewhat ruefully.

[peter falk]

I also am a fan of studying soccer culture abroad. I was actually published in an academic journal in my grad school days for a paper called "How Soccer Explains Post-War Germany." The whole greater picture of soccer is so interesting -- why some clubs exist and are associated with certain political leanings, chants from working class pubs, etc.

As a side note to that: In the Netherlands, during and after the 1974 World Cup in West-Germany and losing to the West-Germans in the finale a nationalism and anti-German sentiments emerged that were either unearthed, simmering leftover feelings from the German occupation or new feelings that used WW II as an excuse. Because apparently in 1954 a lot of Dutch people were happy when West-Germany won. Then in 1988 there was this near-hysteria about defeating West-Germany in the semi-final of Euro 88 (in West-Germany), on the way to winning the only major tournament "we've" ever won. As if some kind of tyranny was finally shaken off. Did you come across any of that in your research?

Isn't the Dutch hatred of Germans (regarding football at least) attributable to the rumor that FIFA fixed the 1974 final (and let Cruyff get battered - even though he did win a penalty) to appease West Germany after they got jobbed in 1966? 

[Kurz]

That's not a rumor that's common in the Netherlands. I've actually hardly heard, and I'm pretty sure it would've been beaten into the ground countless times by press and football people alike if that was the reason for said hatred. The common story here is that "we" lost the game because of "our" arrogance, kicking the ball around after the 1-0 within the first minute (from kick-off to kick-off without a German touching the ball), until the Germans got their wits back and got back into the game.

Now, 1978 on the other hand has plenty of rumors about match fixing, some even proved, but that's another story.

[peter falk]

That's not a rumor that's common in the Netherlands. I've actually hardly heard, and I'm pretty sure it would've been beaten into the ground countless times by press and football people alike if that was the reason for said hatred. The common story here is that "we" lost the game because of "our" arrogance, kicking the ball around after the 1-0 within the first minute (from kick-off to kick-off without a German touching the ball), until the Germans got their wits back and got back into the game.

Now, 1978 on the other hand has plenty of rumors about match fixing, some even proved, but that's another story.

Yeah, to be fair, this story comes from my wife's football mad Bavarian family who waste no opportunity to belittle the Dutch, French or English.

[Greggulator]

I actually like MLS soccer. I've always liked soccer and feel like it's worse as a US fan to get really wound up in the English Premier League or the Spanish league rather than supporting the domestic league, which gets better from a quality point of view each year.  Also, as a sports fan and dad, it is so much cheaper and fan-friendly to get to Red Bulls stadium (weird looking on the outside but great inside) than MetLife or a MLB game.  I've seen too much blood, racism, and anti-semitism at Yankees stadium to ever go again.  That little skirmish in Newark was nothing in comparison to the hoodlums in the Bronx.

Agree that scarves are dumb and trying to import a European fan-culture is a weak idea.

The title "You'll Always Sit Alone" made me laugh.

That you are an unabashed fan (as a grown-up!) of professional wrestling and yet you are mocking soccer fans made me smile, somewhat ruefully.

I am the first to admit that I like truly dumb garbage.

[Greggulator]

There's actually a book out there about Holland's 1970s soccer team being an athletic branch of Dutch art. I didn't read it and am far from an art history buff, so I don't know. But it has something to do with the "Total Soccer" style of chaos on the field Holland was renowned for during the era.

My German paper (I have to try and dig up the online version if it's still around; its been 10 years) revolved around a few things:

1) West Germany's World Cup win in 1954, which came in the midst of the economic miracle and the like, and was the first real example of German pride after WW2.

2) East Germany largely sucking at soccer as a parallel to its crappy Communist economy. And at the time I wrote the paper, Hansa Rostock was relegated, meaning no teams from the East were in the Bundesliga, a sign the cities from out there couldn't compete because of how far behind they were the large cities in the West. I have no idea if this is true anymore.

3) The world's fears about what a newly unified Germany would represent coming off the heels of their 1990 win -- how there was a lot of prognostication about Germany becoming the best soccer team ever and worries about Germany's economy and increasing clout. (There was that whole Simpsons episode around then, too.) Of course, the East really didn't provide much in terms of boosting the team's strength and no Turks/Africans/etc. born in Germany made it to the national team, unlike in France.

I didn't include St. Pauli, but I really wish I did in retrospect.

[erg79]

The book about the Dutch style is Brilliant Orange, by David Winner. It's great.

[Kurz]

I oughtta look that up then.

[erg79]

The same author has a book about English culture/society and their style of play, but I didn't find that one as interesting overall. There are some interesting chapters at the beginning about anxiety around sexuality among young people, and how schoolboys were encouraged to direct that energy toward sport, though.

[not that clay]

I went to a couple of Sounders games when they joined the MLS. Lots of kids who play soccer and their parents. Lots of what appeared to be nerds and grad students getting in on the ground floor of something new (the scarf people). But what really surprised me was that there were a ton of middle-aged to old sports fans, mostly wearing well-worn nylon Mariners and Seahawks jackets.