Yeah, sure. And other countries can. It`s the same deal for anyone. Get over it. No one gets any handicap for this issue. If your team happens to have the best under 23 players, of the world, very likely that it will have the best performance in the Olympics. The addition of 3 overaged players, during Olympics, helps no doubt about it, but the base for any team comes from the under 23 players, not from those 3 non under 23, players. Besides, no one can use any over 23 players during qualifiers for the Olympics, so if your team gets eliminated, it will not be due to the lack of over 23 players in your team, as your opponents will also be subject to the same restriction your team has. The only issue that maybe you should be aware of, it is that depending of which Conference you belong to, the age restriction issue during qualifiers differs very widely from one Conference in relation to others. For Conmebol for instance, I never understood why the Olympic qualifiers tournament, considers only under 20 players, when most of the times it is held the year before the Olympics, so many players who are under 22 when the qualifier tournament takes place, and candidates to play afterwards at the Olympics (one year later), aren`t allowed to play in the qualifiers, but nevertheless every team isn`t allowed to play their respectful players between 20 and 22 years old, so at the end it is the same for all. In the case of Concacaf the Olympic qualifier tournament is held the same year of the Olympics, and consider under 23 players, so basicly the teams have the same players that are candidates to cap for their teams during the Olympics which later will take place. The only team that maybe has "some" handicap on its favour is who ever hosts the Olympic qualifier tournament for each conference (home advantage), and this later one for Concacaf was held in the USA......, so .....
An article on pyro as a means of display of support at matches. As always, the comments below spill into some bashing, some pros/cons over its use and some other things. http://www.boston.com/sports/blogs/bigshots/2009/05/a_flare_for_soccer_open_flames.html
Everyone of the american continent are americans. Note: This was a stupid ironic commentary. Don't take seriously.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/13/sport/football/wade-nba-basketball-football/index.html?hpt=hp_c3 A whole new ball game: Hoop star Wade's soccer admission Global basketball icon Dwyane Wade is making a concerted effort to get his head around an altogether different ball game which he admits is the "number one sport in the world".
All 200+ teams just get invited unless under some sort of sanction. We are currently going through the qualification phase to the finals stage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_FIFA_World_Cup_qualification_(CONCACAF) http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tou...rocedures_northcentralamericacaribbean_en.pdf
I don't think that's so bad. I didn't discover soccer until the 98 WC and I had no idea how the format and participating teams was determined.
Not Boston area. Springfield, MA. Springfield College. Home of Basketball Hall of Fame.Right across the river from me. Go by it pretty much every day on my way to work.
OK perfect story for this thread. Our company had this large gathering handing out some awards and stuff you know.. The day happened to be a jersey day nearing the NFL kickoff! Lots of NFL jerseys of course, but there was this young black guy(in his 20s) wearing Man City Barlotelli jersey. He happened to be one of the award recipients. So this old big boss was handing out the awards, and finally the guy's turn. Big old boss: "Uh.. what's that jersey about? What? Soccer?(looking again and looking at the back of the jersey, etc)Come on now... soccer?... come on (of course with smile and jokingly)". Little laughter from the audience. So the old big boss did the award thing and at the end (of course jokingly) "get a better jersey" The guy just smiled the entire time probably thinking 'you wouldn't understand'. So while this old timer boss jokingly basing soccer, these younger generation is now getting into soccer and not afraid of being proud and showing off their favorite sport, soccer. What a contrast!!
But in the stands, tifo sometimes gets lost in translation. "We've had people yelling at us," says Brian Spence, a member of the Screaming Eagles club, which cheers the D.C. United team in the nation's capital. When his group tried to perform tifo in the past, he says fans groaned: " 'Put that banner down. I paid good money to see the game, not to see this stupid thing.' "
http://www.landoverbaptist.net/showthread.php?t=44593 This can't be a real site, it has to be an elaborate troll setup. I enjoyed reading through the topic, these guys have trolling down to a science.
I tend to agree with the tifo detractors. I did pay good money for a ticket and I don't want my view obstructed by someone's vanity project. Watching games in places like Seattle and Portland, I kind of get the sense that many of the fans there are really more interested in the spectacle in that stands rather than being interested in actually watching the game. Soccer fans scoff at some of the theatrics that are part of more traditional American sports (cheerleaders, half-time shows etc.), but I don't really see how those things are different from tifo and pyrotechnics. All those things exist just to entertain the fans.
There's a difference. Cheerleaders and half-time shows are put on by the management. Tifo and pyrotechnics are performed spontaneously by the fans themselves. They are part of the game day experience. If you feel it detracts from your soccer watching experience, you should stay at home and watch on the telly. You would give me the same advice if I said that the college band detracts me from following the action on the field and I wished everyone would just shut up and let me concentrate on the game.
The difference is that the band at a college football game doesn't block the view of the field. It's not really comparable to people in the stands putting up banners that block the view of other fans. I think the supporter groups here in DC have done a good job of balancing showing support for the team versus minimizing disrupting the view of the field. There's no real enthusiasm for large-scale tifo here.
Good tifos are the ones you can see through. For example, Boca fans regularly have tifos like these and you can see through them. No one seems to complain because over the decades its become a part of Boca tradition. Fans at La Bombonera would actually be disappointed if there were no tifos or pyrotechnics. Its a matter of what the fans prefer. It seems to me that the Sounders fans have a lot of passion for the sport and tifos are a way to express it. If 95% of the regular fans like it that way, they should just let it be.
One reason for the like / dislike of tifos is that in America, most of the fans in the stands don't know each other. Here, people go to the games in small groups of 2,3,4 people, as a family, or with a bunch of buddies. Back in La Boca, people went to soccer games as a whole neighborhood of 200-300 people and took up a large chunk of the stand. Its easier to have a big tifo if everyone is in it "together", and knows what to expect beforehand.
Don't you have option to choose what section you can seat? When I go to a game with my kids I seat at the quiet side and enjoy the view of supporters action on the opposite side. When I go with adults I sometimes seat near the supporters section and enjoy the atmosphere although I have to be standing up often. My choice. Besides large-scale tifo is usually displayed before the game.
Who ? And these guys were basing soccer ? Damn, basing an entire sport ? That's one hell of a high I'd think.