So where have |Zach| and all the Soccer fans gone?

[Deberg_1990]

These guys were out in force last year.

I thought Sporting had surpassed the Royals in popularity?


Dissscustt please......

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Pawnmower

because chess is ****ing AWESOME

obviously

LEAVE CHESS ALONE

Thanks for the important input, crazy uncle Bob.

[Ming the Merciless]

[Ming the Merciless]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Thanks for the important input, crazy uncle Bob.

Sorry I couldnt be important like you trying to defend the honor of a pussy sport

[Ming the Merciless]

Maybe if you guys make a few morew whiney butthurt posts you can change people's minds that soccer players arent really a bunch of butthurt whiners.

That will work

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Pawnmower

Sorry I couldnt be important like you trying to defend the honor of a pussy sport

Because? All the thuper tough CHESS bullies? =

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Pawnmower

Maybe if you guys make a few morew whiney butthurt posts you can change people's minds that soccer players arent really a bunch of butthurt whiners.

That will work

Who started a thread out of ****ing nowhere, Casselfan?

Who are the ones IN THE THREAD posting vitriol and hate for something they supposedly don't even think about?

[Ming the Merciless]

[Ming the Merciless]

[Ming the Merciless]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Because? All the thuper tough CHESS bullies? =

yeth

6:00 lol & 7:15

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

I am familiar, and utterly reject the false dichotomy of equality OR competition. The rules of soccer 'enforce equality' by imposing a set of rules that establish that you aren't guaranteed victory solely on the basis of your innate physical attributes. There isn't a player on earth too tall, strong or fast to be stopped. Victory is then decided COMPETITIVELY by game skills and teamwork. You can be a superstar, and your team can be dominant, but it won't as easily be because you were born with physical gifts or you spent your time achieving fitness not relevant to playing soccer with tactic and skill [ie, gym rats].

This is a spur of the moment thought exercise, so don't go out and develop a rebuttal thesis, but imagine for a moment that there was a rule in basketball that no one could handle the basketball directly into a score on offense, unless he took possession outside the 3-point arc. Therefore, from the shortest point guard, to the biggest center, scoring comes from either outside shooting or the dribble drive. No more uni-taskers like Shaq and Ming parking inside, simply existing for the slam, the foul, or the block on D. Everyone has to be a ball handler. Everyone participates in motion offense.

That would be a radically different, more equitable, and still COMPETITIVE sport.

Further, Klosterman thinking that nerds love soccer because they can hide out on the pitch and no one notices demonstrates, with crystal clarity, that INDEED he does not understand the game.

This response indicates that you aren't really familiar with the piece at all, or if you are, you didn't glean his point.

The vast majority of the essay is an intentional troll job wherein he says outlandish things for effect, but there is a kernel of an honest argument therein.

His point wasn't that soccer at its highest levels is any less athletically difficult than comparative American sports, but that soccer at its most basic levels is the sport most likely to be played by people who don't really like sports because it affords them the ability of anonymity that other youth sports don't.

The second half of the essay discusses him managing two Little League baseball teams in North Dakota in 1988. The first team was so young he just made sure that they didn't trip over themselves. The second group of kids was advanced enough that he tried to turn them into his version of Whiteyball, complete with signs, situational drills, and PT.

He noticed that about three or four of the kids loved his psychotic attitude, but that the rest were largely disinterested, despite the team's success. He ran a competitive team, ran up the score, and didn't enforce equal play for all kids at all positions. After a warning for all of this, he was fired.

To him, the point of the game was to win, to dominate. To the point of the mothers of the children, it was to participate. He felt that the parents didn't want sports, but enforced equality in a formerly competitive atmosphere.

If you look at what he would term "youth" soccer in this country, much of it can be played away from the ball. A soccer game between six year olds is really just a gaggle of kids running back and forth. Aside from the goalie and shooter on a PK, whose success or failure is put on the forefront to even the uneducated of the sport the same way that a batter is in tee-ball, a kid shooting free throws, or an undersized defender getting steamrolled in Pop Warner?

Comparatively, look at a coach pitch game between kids of similar ages. Kids go up to bat, can swing and miss twice, then the ball is placed on a tee. If they hit the ball off the tee, they get a chance try and beat the ball out, but if they miss, they're retired.

Every inning, every kid that participates is isolated. If they succeed, everyone sees it. If they fail, everyone sees it. Even if you'd rather sit in left field and pick dandelions, people are still going to watch you hit (or not) every inning.

Basketball and football further accelerate that. If you are the worst person on the field in those sports, even as a kid, the other side is going to go after you. There isn't an outfield to pick dandelions in there--you get steamrolled. That will certainly happen the more you move up the ladder within soccer, but it doesn't happen at its earliest ages as it does with the contemporary "big three" American sports.

You're conflating the level of high school soccer you played and your understanding of the world game with youth soccer when he was never talking about the first two.

[Lonewolf Ed]

Originally Posted by BDj23

I'm a soccer fan. Caught most of the Slovakia/Spain Euro 2016 game. I just don't care to discuss it here with you slap dicks.

20...16? How did you manage that? And am I still posting in 2016? My docs think I could be dead by then, so any info you can share would be most appreciated!

[Direckshun]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

This response indicates that you aren't really familiar with the piece at all, or if you are, you didn't glean his point.

The vast majority of the essay is an intentional troll job wherein he says outlandish things for effect, but there is a kernel of an honest argument therein.

His point wasn't that soccer at its highest levels is any less athletically difficult than comparative American sports, but that soccer at its most basic levels is the sport most likely to be played by people who don't really like sports because it affords them the ability of anonymity that other youth sports don't.

The second half of the essay discusses him managing two Little League baseball teams in North Dakota in 1988. The first team was so young he just made sure that they didn't trip over themselves. The second group of kids was advanced enough that he tried to turn them into his version of Whiteyball, complete with signs, situational drills, and PT.

He noticed that about three or four of the kids loved his psychotic attitude, but that the rest were largely disinterested, despite the team's success. He ran a competitive team, ran up the score, and didn't enforce equal play for all kids at all positions. After a warning for all of this, he was fired.

To him, the point of the game was to win, to dominate. To the point of the mothers of the children, it was to participate. He felt that the parents didn't want sports, but enforced equality in a formerly competitive atmosphere.

If you look at what he would term "youth" soccer in this country, much of it can be played away from the ball. A soccer game between six year olds is really just a gaggle of kids running back and forth. Aside from the goalie and shooter on a PK, whose success or failure is put on the forefront to even the uneducated of the sport the same way that a batter is in tee-ball, a kid shooting free throws, or an undersized defender getting steamrolled in Pop Warner?

Comparatively, look at a coach pitch game between kids of similar ages. Kids go up to bat, can swing and miss twice, then the ball is placed on a tee. If they hit the ball off the tee, they get a chance try and beat the ball out, but if they miss, they're retired.

Every inning, every kid that participates is isolated. If they succeed, everyone sees it. If they fail, everyone sees it. Even if you'd rather sit in left field and pick dandelions, people are still going to watch you hit (or not) every inning.

Basketball and football further accelerate that. If you are the worst person on the field in those sports, even as a kid, the other side is going to go after you. There isn't an outfield to pick dandelions in there--you get steamrolled. That will certainly happen the more you move up the ladder within soccer, but it doesn't happen at its earliest ages as it does with the contemporary "big three" American sports.

You're conflating the level of high school soccer you played and your understanding of the world game with youth soccer when he was never talking about the first two.

It's entirely possible I'm missing a nuanced and well-considered point, but I don't think they "go after you" in youth football or youth basketball, either.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

It's entirely possible I'm missing a nuanced and well-considered point, but I don't think they "go after you" in youth football or youth basketball, either.

If a kid can't play any defense at all in basketball, he is going to be picked on mercilessly. If he can't dribble, they will descend upon him like a swarm of locusts. If a kid can't cover, that's where the ball is going over and over. If he can't tackle or if he isn't big enough to stand up to a blocker, that's the side they're running to, over and again, even at the youngest levels. Same thing obviously happens in soccer, but not at its youngest levels.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

His point wasn't that soccer at its highest levels is any less athletically difficult than comparative American sports, but that soccer at its most basic levels is the sport most likely to be played by people who don't really like sports because it affords them the ability of anonymity that other youth sports don't.

Then he has very limited insight into youth psyches or the level of skill even young kids are capable of.

I played soccer and tee/baseball both from 7-11, and after one summer where an injury sidelined me [dog attack, not a sports injury], I continued on exclusively in soccer.

I, and I sensed a lot of my teammates, were a lot more competitive in soccer. Roving bands of rando kicks and slip and falls were for 5 and 6yos. By age 8 you knew who the effective players were and who you needed to hustle to provide support for because they weren't going to win the ball.

By 10-11, there were kids playing soccer whose only ceiling was body size. I wouldn't be surprised if one were to have you assemble a group of your own cohort adults, Team Udinese under-12 would give you a heck of a match. At the least, their ball skills would almost certainly provide for some memorable moments for embarrassment.

With tee/baseball OTOH, I never felt any shame or discouragement, even though I wasn't the most outstanding player. I wasn't bad, probably among the upper 10% at recess, middle of the road in organized league. Maybe I wasn't invested enough to care, but I certainly never got a sense of being judged or criticized, certainly not STEAMROLLED. We all ran around and tried to hit/field, etc. then we went to the concession stand and gathered out post game sodas.

Klosterman may have fancied himself some youth achievement guru berating a bunch of children and playing favorites with the high performers, but most youth small ball is about developing skills and deciding if you're having fun on the base paths, not arriving at the yard with fully formed wunder-skills to wow some op-ed writer with a God complex. I rather imagine those 'tragic' underperformers shared plenty of chuckles out of his oversight at that strange man so obsessed about a bunch of kids playing a game.

Bottom line, ages 4-7/8 is a period sports wide for kids to learn skills and decide if they're enjoying themselves. 8 on, again sport-wide, is when competitiveness and serious skill honing kicks in. All sports, of all ages, even 40-45-50 yos, whether duffing around a soccer pitch, or playing beer league softball, have 'underachiever' or recreational divisions.

Chuck hasn't unearthed a fundamental dichotomy between a 'Merkin sport and a Communist sport. He just spouted off not knowing enough about the breadth of sports participation on the larger scale.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

If a kid can't play any defense at all in basketball, he is going to be picked on mercilessly. If he can't dribble, they will descend upon him like a swarm of locusts. If a kid can't cover, that's where the ball is going over and over. If he can't tackle or if he isn't big enough to stand up to a blocker, that's the side they're running to, over and again, even at the youngest levels. Same thing obviously happens in soccer, but not at its youngest levels.

Bullshit. Both my sister and I were 3 sport competitors [until I bowed out of small ball]. I was exclusively soccer by JHS/HS. Between music, school plays, and offseason travelling soccer teams I just didn't have time for basketball, though I skipped lunch every day to play pickup. My sister travelled soccer as well, lettered in mens/boys soccer in HS, as well as in basketball, and she switched to track, lettering there as well [certainly much more of an individual scrutiny sport than any of your supposed apexes of sport].

All sports, except track, had teammates cognizant of weaknesses of teammates and adjusted to cover for them, and nobody was scorned or outcast for their lagging development. MoF, I recall a girl on one of my sister's team who sucked on ice, but they put her out there in her regular shifts all season, not because they had to, or because everyone was just a participant, but because she paid to play and worked hard in practice. And one of the loudest cheers all season was when she stole a pass and launched up a 3-pointer toward the end of the season.