To me it means 75% of my daily soccer experience, the other 25% is for my favorite club -- Barcelona.
The USMNT is my single biggest sports rooting interest. The only sports team that can compete with it for my attention occasionally is the team of my childhood (SF Giants). No other soccer team comes close, though I do support the Earthquakes and Arsenal and Dinamo Zagreb and Croatia and which ever side any of our key/promising YAs find themselves at. I guess it's pretty telling where my true country-over-club loyalties lie that I should find myself actually pulling for Spurs right now against my better judgment just because Clint Dempsey and Brad Friedel happen to be there.
1. Czech Republic 2. United States 3. Aston Villa/LA Galaxy It's unfair to number them though. I really am passionate about all 4.
While a soccer team shouldn't mean that much to some one I find myself in the unhealthy attachment range. I don't even have a favorite club (nothing even close to a favorite club) but I'll watch whatever game I have to in order to watch USMNT and USMNT potential players. I've done a bit of traveling to see them play and even just to practice. I have an AO membership and a USSoccer Club membership. Hell, the only reason I have a twitter account is to tell usmnt players congrats, good job, and that I'm proud of their play. My facebook banner thing is the US team Starting XI against Scotland. I bought a lotto ticket for the $550 million+ power ball this last week and all I could think to do with the money was just fly around and watch us players play.
Over the years, they've become my most passionate sporting interest. I grew mainly watching NFL, MLB, and NBA, even though I have always focused on being a soccer player. I was (and remain) a huge fan of all the Cleveland area sports teams (no need to make fun!), but since 2002, and especially 2006, the USMNT has joined and surpassed them in my heart. I now consider soccer my favorite sport to watch, and the US is the only team I can be impassioned about. I love watching club soccer, but I can't find any major cultural/geographical ties that can make me a die-hard...
As I get older, I'm less emotionally invested. I'm still a big fan, watch every match, and get happy/upset over wins and losses. However, I view the game in a better perspective. My emotions are less extreme than they used to be. There's more important things in life than following a soccer team.
Its my home country. of course I watch. how much does it mean? It means going out drinking a beer and enjoying the game!
This sort of. I have lost the 'fanatic' behavior from youth for the Jets, Mets and Rangers. USMNT is about the only team I have a can't miss rooting interest game in/game out. I still care about the other teams (and RBNY) but can easily miss a game without feeling any withdrawal. Not so with US.
Marko's post sums up my views [although swap out the SF Giants for the Packers* of my home town]. My USMNT fandom then informs the clubs I care about [wherever there are yanks] though admittedly in most cases my feelings about such clubs begins and ends with those players. I do have a little affection for Fulham but not that strong. I continue the masochistic, absurd and increasingly Fellini-esque support of the local MLS team. Thereafter, I support the league generally again, inasumuch as doing so relates back the USMNT. *Despite my love of the Packers, my interest in the NFL and football in general diminishes daily as I wrestle with the reality of head injuries and the violence of the game. Anytime I see kids playing tackle football with pads and helmets I cringe and get a little angry and I suspect in a few years I won't even be able to watch the consenting adults of the NFL.
Country over ANY club. Always. I don't have a club. So....USMNT uber alles. I care as much about the USMNT as I did the Indiana Pacers when I was growing up...in Indiana during the Reggie Miller-era.
Definitely my favorite sports team. I'm especially passionate about the world cup and the big tournaments we get too complete in.. even if we lose. My attention drifts from week to week but ast the moment all i can think of is usmnt. The other day for example I spent my time watching some obscure us tournament games. 1 2 loss against Austria from wc1990. 0 1 Romania 94 (first time I ever saw it! The only us wc game I had never seen). 0 1 to Germany in 2002 (a completely different feed than I had ever seen..this was the rarely seen hd broadcast that I didn't even know existed. Again I was very excited) before deciding to watch a famous win vs Spain 09
Don't follow or care about any other team in any sport. Oh I like the SD Flash but they're just the local boys to help the soccer fix.
All the NFL has to do is to adopt larger size, motion-restricting protective gear, if it wants to diminish the severity of the impact/contact injuries.
... or they could just adopt Rugby-style tackling where head hits are not allowed. Rugby players tackle with their heads to the side, instead of ramming the other player with their skulls, avoiding head contact with the other player. These NFL-ers launch themselves headfirst into the other players, and then wonder, "Duh! Why do I have a concussion(s)?" Or if they really wanted to deal with concussions, play with no armor, like Rugby and Aussie Rules already do and have done since their sports were founded. NFL-ers would be much more hesitant to try some of their more dangerous tackling when there is very little protecting them.
Yes, it's a 'spear instead of an air bag' logic that applies to driving safety. One of the problems, however, is that players themselves will frequently play without the available gear - smaller thigh pads for the running back, no shin guards, no elbow pads, no ACL/MCL saving knee braces, no flak jackets for QB's, no whiplash preventive HANS type devices (some say it's not possible in the NFL), etc.
When the Packers won the Super Bowl, I just smiled and let the glory just sink in. If/When the Brewers win the World Series, I'll have tears in my eyes and be celebrating like crazy If/When the USMNT wins the World Cup, I'll have tears in my eyes, be celebrating in the streets, waving the American flag everywhere, etc. If for some lucky reason I'm in the stadium when it happens, I'll have to have someone hold me back from celebrating on the field with the team. It would be like: (All my favorite Wisconsin teams winning the championship + USA Hockey winning Olympic gold + USA for some lucky reason winning the Rugby World Cup), then multiplied times 100. Personally I feel EA should do an ad similar to MLB 12: The Show's Cubs win ad, just to capture the emotion When we win, I'm all smiles, when we lose a friendly, I'm sad and/or somewhat optimistic depending on the result. When we lose a big game or lose to a heavy underdog, I'm silent for the rest of the day
If the USA wins a WC and I'm present...I will go on the field, I don't care if I have to spend the night with BABA at county.
Yeah. I'm one of those many idiots of my generation who traded a soccer ball for a football helmet when I got to high school, even though I actually liked soccer more, because that was the age in which you were supposed to grow up and play "serious sports" (and date cheerleaders). And then in the 90s as a young adult I rediscovered soccer, this time as a fan via the '94 World Cup and Fox Sports World and the English ex-pats in the bar down the street from my art school and all that, and my love for the gridiron padded game and the overtly militaristic violent warrior mentality it espoused and which was coached (and which to be honest I never felt truly comfortable with, even when I was playing it) has just waned and waned since. I still watch a couple of 49ers games a year, and I kinda care, but... not really. My heart's just not in that game anymore, nor the team anymore, really. *Which is not to say that I would only follow a completely non-contact sport or anything. I frankly like the fact that soccer is a man's game of toughness and guts as well as skill and brains and artistry. (And the fact that all that coexists in one game--occasionally in the same player--is part of what makes soccer so consuming in my eyes.) But there's little or no room in soccer for the sort of violent warrior mentality that was taught to me by three different football coaches at two different schools, and squares well with the attitude that everyone I know who ever played that sport was taught. In the words of one of my coaches, a very successful high school coach and well-known as a serious stickler for ethics: "There are many sports that are more fun than football. But football is the greatest game in the world, because it's the only team game where you get to kick the ass of the man in front of you on every play." And in the worlds of another of my high school coaches, "Football is a violent game. It's controlled violence. In order to play it right, you have to be basically violent but controlled and disciplined." Now that I'm an adult, even though I can admire the athleticism and the toughness and mental qualities of those who can play that game at a high level, I really have no love or much enjoyment left for it.