Middle Aged Male Soccer Syndrome

Discussion in 'USA Men' started by Thomas Flannigan, Aug 24, 2004.

  1. Thomas Flannigan

    Feb 26, 2001
    Chicago
    We have discussed all kinds of topics here, including the phenomenon of older males who hate soccer. There is also a smaller trend, involving older American males who suddenly become huge soccer fans later in life. Some have raised children who played and got the virus that way. Others became disaffected with 3 1/2 baseball games and 4 1/2 hour football games and found a new calling in soccer.
    Do you know any? Can they be cured?
     
  2. Bruce S

    Bruce S Member+

    Sep 10, 1999
    I guess I am. I was a competitive tennis player-played D1 in college.When I quit tennis I totally quit and needed a new sport.My older bro was a good soccer player, captained a college team, so I knew a bit from playing with him-and I have been playing 20 years regularly now! Ironically, my bro quit soccer and took up tennis and still plays tennis!!
     
  3. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Yep, that's me.

    Followed the sport casually (World Cups, watched a couple of my friend's club games) until 1999, when the kid started to play. Watched it semi-seriously through 2001. Have watched seriously since then, and basically don't bother with other sports. I even play a little, too, although very badly.

    Unless I use Tivo and fast forward through the commercials, I now find the standard U.S. sports unwatchable.

    I suppose that I can be cured but right now I enjoy the sickness.
     
  4. FlashMan

    FlashMan Member

    Jan 6, 2000
    'diego
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    We'll call it the MAMSS.

    Uh...we might want to think of changing our name.
     
  5. peledre

    peledre Member

    Mar 25, 2001
    Sioux Falls, SD
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Let's find a way to make the acronym MAAM, then we can call it No Ma'am:

    [​IMG]
     
  6. IASocFan

    IASocFan Moderator
    Staff Member

    Aug 13, 2000
    IOWA
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I suspect that I may suffer from this syndrome, too. That is, if at 60, I can still be considered middle aged. :p I played O40 soccer in the Iowa Games, still ref, and just got drafted to coach my baby's (18 yrs.,6'2", 210 pounds) soccer team. Thanks to the internet, I can for the first time in my life really follow soccer. :)
     
  7. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Joe McGinnis, author of The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (I'm sure I've misspeeled for werds already) fits this bill, judging by the early chapters of that book.
     
  8. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Dang, is there any book that you haven't read? How about Paradise Regained? Maybe you skipped that pleasure.

    The Miracle annoyed me greatly. I wanted to swaddle the meddling, know-it-all author in a few yards of canvas, attach a 50-lb weight, and drop him into a large and deep body of water.

    At the same time, it remains the most memorable soccer book that I have read. Joe tells a damned good story.
     
  9. Brownswan

    Brownswan New Member

    Jun 30, 1999
    Port St. Lucie, FL
    Got the fever in 76 when my son started playing - a minor infection at the time, but by the '82 World Cup I was done for: never a big fan of the US major sports to begin with, they became unwatchable as the desease progressed. I even began to play and took coaching courses.

    I've been happily incurable for 28 years, and I turn 60 in December.
     
  10. Thomas Flannigan

    Feb 26, 2001
    Chicago
    Most men are sports nuts. It is a guy thing. Most American men have grown up with baseball, football and basketball. But we have reached a point with those sports where many are tired of 3 hours of commercials and arrogant millionaries blown up on steroids. They need a calling.
    Soccer in the US is still in a comparative age of innocence. Most players get paid peanuts and our national team gets more abuse than almost any other sports team in the US as it is the whipping boy for our foreign policy and angry immigrant groups who reside in the US.
    I have met many of the middle aged men I am talking about and when they become soccer fans, they go all the way.
    It does not really apply to me. I started following soccer in the late sixties and had my epipany in a Danish youth hostel in 1978, watching the Italy-Holland semi-final game in the World Cup. But I was only 27 then and that is not middle aged. Now I am an old coot and the affliction has gotten worse, but it was not a sudden change.
     
  11. Thomas Flannigan

    Feb 26, 2001
    Chicago
    The Center for Disease Control knows of no cure for MAMSS. Its onset can be slow or fast, depending on the season. Antiobiotics, such as the Super Bowl or the World Series, have no impact.
     
  12. mnthunder

    mnthunder Member

    Jun 6, 2002
    Guatemala
    25 is middle aged in some countries I guess. I started watching soccer during the '98 World Cup and tried to watch it as much as I could after. After
    I got Digital Cable and FSW I could finally watch my fill. Now in Guatemala I watch it way too much.

    I think more and more American males in my age bracket are being turned off by basketball and the NFL as the games take longer every year as the networks squeeze in more commercials. One thing I love about soccer is that I can watch 2 games on a weekend day in under 4 hours, including half-time, and go out and actually play while there's still daylight.

    I don't think that it is wishful thinking as a soccer fan to believe that the major US sports are turning off lots of fans by making the games so long.
     
  13. FlashMan

    FlashMan Member

    Jan 6, 2000
    'diego
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I also have Male Pattern Baldness.

    I hate when I can be labeled.
     
  14. Bajoro

    Bajoro Member+

    Sep 10, 2000
    The Inland Empire
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My cousin in Brooklyn called me last night. We haven't spoken in 3 years. He became aware of soccer when his boy started playing about 8 years ago. The moment I said, "Hey, cous, what's up?" he yakked nonstop about his kid's team's ranking, Inter Milan, Champions League, MetroStars, and on and on and on for about 45 minutes.

    It was 9:45 pm PDT when we hung up... 12:45 am EDT.

    Thomas, if you find the cure, PM me.
     
  15. Thomas Flannigan

    Feb 26, 2001
    Chicago
    There is no cure. If you watch another 5 hour Super Bowl, or 4 hour World Series game, it may even get worse!
     
  16. Jabinho

    Jabinho New Member

    May 29, 2004
    Do you think Dr. Phil can help? :)
     
  17. Karl K

    Karl K Member

    Oct 25, 1999
    Suburban Chicago
    Guilty.

    At the 94 WC, I was hooked.

    The NBA is now distasteful, though I did love it when the Pistons won.

    I still love baseball, I played it at a high level growing up, but I hate watching it on TV. Going live is my preference, and seeing a game at Wrigley or Fenway remains a great specatcle. I hate going to the NFL in person, but watching it on TV can be entertaining. But that's why the good Lord invented highlight shows, since in the end, that's why you watch the NFL anyway, for the leaping catches, and the bone crunching tackles.

    By the way, despite the fact that on-field emergency medical care in the NFL is now top notch, some NFL player some day is going to get their neck broken and die right in front of us on national TV. It's not a matter of if, but when. It will be the highlight to end all highlights, the snuff video sponsored by Coors and the twins.

    You know the sport that is absolutely made for TV? Golf.

    Having been to two national team games and probably around 40 Fire games since the team was formed, I have to say I am becoming less tolerant of soccer games on TV. The English games are broadcast well, but MLS production values are just hideous. I don't even think High Def will save them.

    Oh,and I have also watched around -- oh I dunno -- three to four hundred youth soccer games, indoor and outdoor, over the last 6 years. It is astonishing how bad some of them were, and how memorable others were. It is equally astonishing how, even as my memory fades in other arenas, I remember events in some of those games as clearly as if they happened yesterday.

    But no youth soccer game can top the last one of the '04 Spring season that my son's team played. For those who were there, they had to admit...it may have been one of the greatest youth soccer games of all time.
     
  18. Sanguine

    Sanguine Member

    Jul 4, 2003
    Reston, VA
    Boxing is actually the most TV-friendly sport.

    3 minutes of action.
    One minute of commercials.
    repeat.

    All the action takes place in a very small area, giving optimal camera coverage from a relatively small number of cameras.

    A 12-round fight lasts 47 minutes, giving just enough pre- and post- time to fit nicely into a 1-hour package.

    Sadly, it's the one sport that's been all but completely driven off TV (and onto PPV, which while technically viewed on a television set, isn't really "TV") by the greed of the people running it.
     
  19. sanariot

    sanariot Member

    Nov 19, 2001
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This reminds me of the disclaimer for that new ED drug. "Caution, In the rare (;)) instance a World Series game lasts over four hours, seek immediate medical attention."

    I wonder what the procedure is for the last five minutes of a close basketball game?
     
  20. Blue Eyed Soul

    Blue Eyed Soul New Member

    Jan 22, 2003
    Gilbert, AZ USA
    Yup. My family and friends all think I'm nuts. "Soccer this, Soccer that" they say. But they don't know. What's a poor boy to do? Can't ever get enough soccer, ever. I sit through roughly 12-15 Diamondbacks baseball games a year as my brother-in-law has season tickets. The games are a good social outing (only) for the guys in our family, but I most often catch myself day-dreaming a soccer pitch down there on the field, and thousands of fans singing and chanting for their club. Instead I wake up and people are hauling their asses out of their seats to sing a tired old "Take Me Out to the Blah Blah" or clapping to "(Ascending Organ Riff) Charge!" I just don't get it. Why are season tickets to a baseball team even worth having? Frankly, it's torture, even when your team is winning. You sit for 3.5 hours minimum through anywhere from 15-81 games a year, when if I had that many games to go to, I'd get sick of it. My brother-in-law can't seem to be bothered to even go to most games, and gives tickets his away. I want to go to see a sport I actually am pumped up to see, and really enjoy and look forward to. Don't get me wrong, I am a life-long baseball fan, from 5 years old on up. I still love it deep down. It's just that my tastes have frankly matured over time, and I truly am terminal with this here disease. I need soccer.
     
  21. 352gialloblu

    352gialloblu New Member

    Jun 16, 2003
    England
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Who didn't? :D

    I don't fit the bill, but I think I know somebody who does. Unfortunately, it's my ex-girlfriend's dad. Awesome.

    Do you have to like soccer exclusively to have MAMSS? He watches baseball and football, too, so maybe he doesn't count after all...
     
  22. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Would you settle for perhaps the greatest youth soccer game that I've seen?

    That's not an insignificant compliment, since I've seen several hundred of them.
     
  23. Thomas Flannigan

    Feb 26, 2001
    Chicago
    Men need to belong, to be part of a cause, a group effort. But many have seen their childhood allegiances perverted beyond belief. You have awful owners shaking the taxpayers down, moving teams, tearing down lovely old ballparks and so on. Then you have endless commercials, which make it difficult to watch the games in person too.

    Imagine if you liked Mozart's Jupiter Symphony in 1977, but now every time it is performed it is interrupted 14 times with obnoxious commercials. It used to take 30 minutes and now it takes 55 minutes.

    Some older men get disgusted but they are addicted to sports and need a new calling. Enter soccer.
     
  24. truthandlife

    truthandlife Member

    Jul 28, 2003
    Club:
    Houston Dynamo
    My dad is one of them. He was a college football coach for 18 years and he would not let me play football until the 7th grade because he wanted me to have some decent coaching.

    I stuck with playing soccer, received a college soccer scholarship and 3 of my kids play soccer now. My dad traveled to Chicago to watch WC '94. My dad and I go watch some professional soccer games when we get a chance.
     
  25. monster

    monster Member

    Oct 19, 1999
    Hanover, PA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I had an epiphany in a Danish youth hostel, but my therapist has urged me to move on.
     

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