Other Sports
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Re: Other Sports
Penalty kicks. Feh. Yeah, here i go again. But did you see that??? One of the most entertaining games I've ever seen (I don't pretend to have seen as many professional games as the average european teen, but still) and it came down to ... penalty kicks. I don't like it. Never have, never will. France was fantastic in the first half. Neither team played quite that well in the second half, at least not for extended periods, but the play was so equal that it made up for not having quite the exquisite highs of the first half. Extra time was a forced march through scorched earth and I was just hoping that a silly mistake caused by exhaustion didn't determine the outcome, so at least that was avoided. But penalty kicks. Feh.
The best the US has played so far in this tournament could not beat either of France or Germany the way they played today. Time to step it up, team.
The best the US has played so far in this tournament could not beat either of France or Germany the way they played today. Time to step it up, team.
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Re: Other Sports
Phew. That was MUCH better by the American women.
And now we have exactly what I was railing against a page or 2 ago: 2 of the top 3 teams in the world will not be in the final for sure. Plus one of the best games we're likely to see for a long time was buried in the quarter finals and the marquee match-up of the entire tournament will be in a semi final. That's what I'd call horrible seeding and worse theater. Oh yeah, it's FIFA. Never mind.
And now we have exactly what I was railing against a page or 2 ago: 2 of the top 3 teams in the world will not be in the final for sure. Plus one of the best games we're likely to see for a long time was buried in the quarter finals and the marquee match-up of the entire tournament will be in a semi final. That's what I'd call horrible seeding and worse theater. Oh yeah, it's FIFA. Never mind.
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Re: Other Sports
Do futbol fans around the world, especially in traditional soccer hotbeds care about the Women's World Cup? The manager of the English team was quoted to the effect that he'd rather be the villain in a full stadium of 50K fans in Canada than play at home in Birmingham in front of 250 people. Does that about sum it up?
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Re: Other Sports
To be honest although the quality of the football isn't as good I'd much rather watch the England women's team because they at least look like they care and are enjoying themselves - the men on the other hand quite often look like a bunch of overpaid tossers who couldn't care less (which is probably very close to the truth).beantownbubba wrote:Do futbol fans around the world, especially in traditional soccer hotbeds care about the Women's World Cup? The manager of the English team was quoted to the effect that he'd rather be the villain in a full stadium of 50K fans in Canada than play at home in Birmingham in front of 250 people. Does that about sum it up?
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Re: Other Sports
brutal way to lose for the English women's team. Only saw video of the end but sounds like it was well-played up to the end
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Re: Other Sports
Carlos Carrasco of Cleveland went 8 2/3 hitless but then gave up a hit with two strikes. 2nd lost no-hitter with 2 outs in 9th this year
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Re: Other Sports
It was heartbreaking. And unfortunately anti-climactic.whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:brutal way to lose for the English women's team. Only saw video of the end but sounds like it was well-played up to the end
Last edited by beantownbubba on Wed Jul 01, 2015 11:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Other Sports
Are you implying that busted no-hitters are a different sport than baseball?whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:Carlos Carrasco of Cleveland went 8 2/3 hitless but then gave up a hit with two strikes. 2nd lost no-hitter with 2 outs in 9th this year
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Re: Other Sports
I implied nothing, you inferred itbeantownbubba wrote:Are you implying that busted no-hitters are a different sport than baseball?whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:Carlos Carrasco of Cleveland went 8 2/3 hitless but then gave up a hit with two strikes. 2nd lost no-hitter with 2 outs in 9th this year
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Re: Other Sports
And I am equally sure that you are not implying that I tend to overthink things.whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:I implied nothing, you inferred itbeantownbubba wrote:Are you implying that busted no-hitters are a different sport than baseball?whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:Carlos Carrasco of Cleveland went 8 2/3 hitless but then gave up a hit with two strikes. 2nd lost no-hitter with 2 outs in 9th this year
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Re: Other Sports
Actually, I think you are implying that I tend to underthink thingsbeantownbubba wrote:And I am equally sure that you are not implying that I tend to overthink things.
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Re: Other Sports
at 4-0 17 minutes in I feel very good about our chances of winning this World Cup!!!
I predict Hope Solo gets epically hammered during the intermission
I predict Hope Solo gets epically hammered during the intermission
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Re: Other Sports
I think we can safely say that qualified as a good start.whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:at 4-0 17 minutes in I feel very good about our chances of winning this World Cup!!!
I predict Hope Solo gets epically hammered during the intermission
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Re: Other Sports
hope it holds up, have to miss the second half due to FTW PPV from Chicagobeantownbubba wrote:I think we can safely say that qualified as a good start.whatwouldcooleydo? wrote:at 4-0 17 minutes in I feel very good about our chances of winning this World Cup!!!
I predict Hope Solo gets epically hammered during the intermission
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Re: Other Sports
Only just stumbled across this thread today when I was looking to see if there would be any reaction to the USA womens team winning the football World Cup (refuse to call it soccer, like 95% of the rest of the world also refuse to do so ). And of course in the UK football would get a thread to itself, with the majority of "other sports" all getting lumped into one separate thread distinct from football. I guess that's another of those "cultural differencies" that exist between our two wonderful nations
First of all congratulations to the US ladies, even though I didn't watch it because it was on so late over here, but 5-2 sounds pretty convincing against the reigning champions. I really just want to gauge how widely this would be covered in the US, and how important this victory would be seen to be by the majority of US citizens. As a comparison, the England ladies team finished 3rd and in most quarters are being treated like heroes. If they had actually went on and won the tournament itself they would probably have been awarded some kind of title by the Queen, eg whatever is the female equivalent of a Knighthood or an OBE in our laughably outdated and ridiculous "honours" system in the UK.
What recognition can these US ladies expect?
First of all congratulations to the US ladies, even though I didn't watch it because it was on so late over here, but 5-2 sounds pretty convincing against the reigning champions. I really just want to gauge how widely this would be covered in the US, and how important this victory would be seen to be by the majority of US citizens. As a comparison, the England ladies team finished 3rd and in most quarters are being treated like heroes. If they had actually went on and won the tournament itself they would probably have been awarded some kind of title by the Queen, eg whatever is the female equivalent of a Knighthood or an OBE in our laughably outdated and ridiculous "honours" system in the UK.
What recognition can these US ladies expect?
Re: Other Sports
Unfortunately it will probably be opportunities to pose in swimsuitslinkous wrote: What recognition can these US ladies expect?
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Re: Other Sports
How is that unfortunate ?Jonicont wrote:Unfortunately it will probably be opportunities to pose in swimsuitslinkous wrote: What recognition can these US ladies expect?
and that pussy Alec Baldwin blew that girl away, and speaking of pussy Steve got it all!
Re: Other Sports
From my vantage point this was as much collective interest in both soccer and women's sports that I've seen here. I still think soccer will never be "the" sport in this country, unless we see a dramatic cultural shift in this country's values, but it's definitely more visible and holds more casual interest than a mere 10 years ago.linkous wrote:Only just stumbled across this thread today when I was looking to see if there would be any reaction to the USA womens team winning the football World Cup (refuse to call it soccer, like 95% of the rest of the world also refuse to do so ). And of course in the UK football would get a thread to itself, with the majority of "other sports" all getting lumped into one separate thread distinct from football. I guess that's another of those "cultural differencies" that exist between our two wonderful nations
First of all congratulations to the US ladies, even though I didn't watch it because it was on so late over here, but 5-2 sounds pretty convincing against the reigning champions. I really just want to gauge how widely this would be covered in the US, and how important this victory would be seen to be by the majority of US citizens. As a comparison, the England ladies team finished 3rd and in most quarters are being treated like heroes. If they had actually went on and won the tournament itself they would probably have been awarded some kind of title by the Queen, eg whatever is the female equivalent of a Knighthood or an OBE in our laughably outdated and ridiculous "honours" system in the UK.
What recognition can these US ladies expect?
If you're into sports in the US, players like Hope Solo and Abby Wambach are borderline household names now.
Re: Other Sports
"Women's team" is the big deal to most here, I think. Soccer is just a detail.Iowan wrote:From my vantage point this was as much collective interest in both soccer and women's sports that I've seen here. I still think soccer will never be "the" sport in this country, unless we see a dramatic cultural shift in this country's values, but it's definitely more visible and holds more casual interest than a mere 10 years ago.linkous wrote:Only just stumbled across this thread today when I was looking to see if there would be any reaction to the USA womens team winning the football World Cup (refuse to call it soccer, like 95% of the rest of the world also refuse to do so ). And of course in the UK football would get a thread to itself, with the majority of "other sports" all getting lumped into one separate thread distinct from football. I guess that's another of those "cultural differencies" that exist between our two wonderful nations
First of all congratulations to the US ladies, even though I didn't watch it because it was on so late over here, but 5-2 sounds pretty convincing against the reigning champions. I really just want to gauge how widely this would be covered in the US, and how important this victory would be seen to be by the majority of US citizens. As a comparison, the England ladies team finished 3rd and in most quarters are being treated like heroes. If they had actually went on and won the tournament itself they would probably have been awarded some kind of title by the Queen, eg whatever is the female equivalent of a Knighthood or an OBE in our laughably outdated and ridiculous "honours" system in the UK.
What recognition can these US ladies expect?
If you're into sports in the US, players like Hope Solo and Abby Wambach are borderline household names now.
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Re: Other Sports
Just curious, what is "the" sport in the US? I don't watch any of it, but if I was to guess I'd say baseball?Iowan wrote:From my vantage point this was as much collective interest in both soccer and women's sports that I've seen here. I still think soccer will never be "the" sport in this country, unless we see a dramatic cultural shift in this country's values, but it's definitely more visible and holds more casual interest than a mere 10 years ago.linkous wrote:Only just stumbled across this thread today when I was looking to see if there would be any reaction to the USA womens team winning the football World Cup (refuse to call it soccer, like 95% of the rest of the world also refuse to do so ). And of course in the UK football would get a thread to itself, with the majority of "other sports" all getting lumped into one separate thread distinct from football. I guess that's another of those "cultural differencies" that exist between our two wonderful nations
First of all congratulations to the US ladies, even though I didn't watch it because it was on so late over here, but 5-2 sounds pretty convincing against the reigning champions. I really just want to gauge how widely this would be covered in the US, and how important this victory would be seen to be by the majority of US citizens. As a comparison, the England ladies team finished 3rd and in most quarters are being treated like heroes. If they had actually went on and won the tournament itself they would probably have been awarded some kind of title by the Queen, eg whatever is the female equivalent of a Knighthood or an OBE in our laughably outdated and ridiculous "honours" system in the UK.
What recognition can these US ladies expect?
If you're into sports in the US, players like Hope Solo and Abby Wambach are borderline household names now.
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Re: Other Sports
I don't know if the northeast is representative, but the women's national team in general has been a big deal here for a long time and this year's women's world cup was a very big deal. The questions "are you going to watch the game?" and "did you see the game?" were totally understood as referring to the Cup matches, which to me is a huge indicator. Many bars advertised specials and viewing parties for the games and plenty of people had watching parties for the last couple of matches. I watched an early round US game in a sports bar and the screens were pretty much equally split between a Stanley Cup finals round match not involving a local team, a regular season baseball game involving the very popular local team and the WWC game. I think that's pretty impressive.
Soccer is in a very strange position here: It's hugely popular on the youth level yet still has not totally caught on at the higher levels (pro & college). Partly because there's no real tradition of popular women's professional sports, this matters less on the women's side, but is still a big problem for the ultimate success of the game in the US. As I think was discussed in this thread last year re the men's world cup, there's no question that interest and visibility are much higher than they used to be, but the sport still has a way to go.
Nobody's asked me, but I think the biggest problem is that the US pro league, the MLS, still isn't very good by world standards. The best US players don't even play in it. I think it was pretty clear that the general level of play in the women's world cup was higher than the typical MLS game, and that's a real problem for the popularity of the game here. After all, minor league baseball has been around for 100 years and for the most part "nobody" watches Triple A games. It's also true that soccer's endless season and overlapping championship system does not gel well w/ the traditional US sport seasons. I think this will always hold soccer back because it doesn't work even if soccer was equally popular w/ other sports. It can only work if soccer is the unquestioned #1 as it is in the rest of the world and that pretty quickly gets you into an endless loop: It can't be #1 as long as it doesn't fit into the sports fan's internal clock and it can only fit into that internal clock if it's #1.
Soccer is in a very strange position here: It's hugely popular on the youth level yet still has not totally caught on at the higher levels (pro & college). Partly because there's no real tradition of popular women's professional sports, this matters less on the women's side, but is still a big problem for the ultimate success of the game in the US. As I think was discussed in this thread last year re the men's world cup, there's no question that interest and visibility are much higher than they used to be, but the sport still has a way to go.
Nobody's asked me, but I think the biggest problem is that the US pro league, the MLS, still isn't very good by world standards. The best US players don't even play in it. I think it was pretty clear that the general level of play in the women's world cup was higher than the typical MLS game, and that's a real problem for the popularity of the game here. After all, minor league baseball has been around for 100 years and for the most part "nobody" watches Triple A games. It's also true that soccer's endless season and overlapping championship system does not gel well w/ the traditional US sport seasons. I think this will always hold soccer back because it doesn't work even if soccer was equally popular w/ other sports. It can only work if soccer is the unquestioned #1 as it is in the rest of the world and that pretty quickly gets you into an endless loop: It can't be #1 as long as it doesn't fit into the sports fan's internal clock and it can only fit into that internal clock if it's #1.
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Re: Other Sports
Baseball has traditionally been known as "the national pastime" but I don't think anyone would argue anymore that American football is the most popular sport.linkous wrote:
Just curious, what is "the" sport in the US? I don't watch any of it, but if I was to guess I'd say baseball?
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Re: Other Sports
linkous wrote:As bubba said, baseball gets the name "national pastime" but pretty much all data indicates American football is the most popular sport.Iowan wrote:From my vantage point this was as much collective interest in both soccer and women's sports that I've seen here. I still think soccer will never be "the" sport in this country, unless we see a dramatic cultural shift in this country's values, but it's definitely more visible and holds more casual interest than a mere 10 years ago.linkous wrote:Only just stumbled across this thread today when I was looking to see if there would be any reaction to the USA womens team winning the football World Cup (refuse to call it soccer, like 95% of the rest of the world also refuse to do so ). And of course in the UK football would get a thread to itself, with the majority of "other sports" all getting lumped into one separate thread distinct from football. I guess that's another of those "cultural differencies" that exist between our two wonderful nations
First of all congratulations to the US ladies, even though I didn't watch it because it was on so late over here, but 5-2 sounds pretty convincing against the reigning champions. I really just want to gauge how widely this would be covered in the US, and how important this victory would be seen to be by the majority of US citizens. As a comparison, the England ladies team finished 3rd and in most quarters are being treated like heroes. If they had actually went on and won the tournament itself they would probably have been awarded some kind of title by the Queen, eg whatever is the female equivalent of a Knighthood or an OBE in our laughably outdated and ridiculous "honours" system in the UK.
What recognition can these US ladies expect?
If you're into sports in the US, players like Hope Solo and Abby Wambach are borderline household names now.
FWIW, I've always found it would be wildly interesting to watch the rest of the world play American football at the Olympic level. Make it an Olympic sport, but don't allow the US to compete in it. I assume Canada would dominate, so maybe you'd keep them out too for a bit.
Just curious, what is "the" sport in the US? I don't watch any of it, but if I was to guess I'd say baseball?
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Re: Other Sports
It makes sense that the USA is so much better at women's soccer than men's soccer. Male athletes from the USA can try to reach MLB, NFL, NBA, or NHL as well as individual professional sports. Women athletes from the USA don't have nearly as many options so are more likely to focus on soccer as they get older. As beantownbubba pointed out, youth soccer is huge here but that changes (particularly for male athletes) as they move up the ranks.
Congratulations to the USA team on their 3rd Women's World Cup victory. They improved throughout the tournament and played their best matches against Germany and Japan when a high level was needed the most.
Congratulations to the USA team on their 3rd Women's World Cup victory. They improved throughout the tournament and played their best matches against Germany and Japan when a high level was needed the most.
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Re: Other Sports
A lot of people watched the World Cup because the uniforms had USA on the front. They'd be far less interested in a women's league
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Re: Other Sports
That's true. Then again, the same is true about men's soccer. Many people watch the USA men in the World Cup but don't watch MLS very much if at all.Zip City wrote:A lot of people watched the World Cup because the uniforms had USA on the front. They'd be far less interested in a women's league
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Re: Other Sports
Alex Morgan has long been a household name in this householdIowan wrote:If you're into sports in the US, players like Hope Solo and Abby Wambach are borderline household names now.
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Re: Other Sports
I watch/follow EPL religiously and also keep up with Bundesliga and other European domestic leagues as much as I can, but can't be bothered when it comes to MLS.Bill in CT wrote:That's true. Then again, the same is true about men's soccer. Many people watch the USA men in the World Cup but don't watch MLS very much if at all.Zip City wrote:A lot of people watched the World Cup because the uniforms had USA on the front. They'd be far less interested in a women's league
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Re: Other Sports
unfortunately this is truebeantownbubba wrote:Baseball has traditionally been known as "the national pastime" but I don't think anyone would argue anymore that American football is the most popular sport.linkous wrote:
Just curious, what is "the" sport in the US? I don't watch any of it, but if I was to guess I'd say baseball?
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Re: Other Sports
6 Tar Heels on the squad, just sayin'
thank goodness UNC has the women's soccer team, one of the few things left there to not be ashamed of these days
thank goodness UNC has the women's soccer team, one of the few things left there to not be ashamed of these days
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