Skip Bayless on the Jim Rome Show... and I agree

Main reason why NFL players don't resort to flopping: they know they'll be caught on the instant replay.
Soccer does not allow the use of replays. Therefore, soccer players have no fear of being caught on camera, and so they go for it.

 

In full support of that. With the spee of the sport today, there's no way one referee can see what all 22 players are doing on the field. And the linesmen are so focused on offsides that they don't have time to pay attention to anything else (offside calling, btw, has been much better this year - if you remember in 2002 that was the big hoopla).

Sure, if you put 2 guys that never worked together, that's not going to work out very well. But look at NHL - they tried iit and it's worked great. The refs just need to adjust, and the ultimate result will be positive. NBA also uses 2 main refs now (2 are "linesmen").

It would obviously be more expensive, so probably would only start w/ making it mandatory for World Cup, Euros, qualifying, Champs League, etc, and leaving it optional for domestic leagues.

But I do feel that 2 refs is the way of the future. Simply put, you have one mid-30s guy trying to cover 22 guys in their early-20s. The math is against you.

 

Get as many refs on the field as needed to make sure the games are clean and fair. If that requires an extra ref or two, get them out there and working together...

ultimately i should not notice the ref(s)...and a lot of what i noticed in this world cup, and previous ones is a lot of bad calls. Get as many refs in the game, or the technology in the game as needed to get the calls right.

If you are going to have a ref, make his calls as right as possible...

 

Stupid. who the ******** cares what these prats think. And nobody gives a shit what most american's think. hell we've picked a cucumber for a president twice. Do you actually think it matters when some guy named Skip opens his mouth and proves he's a lame as his name?

 

The Portugese fan was AWESOME.....some of the best comedy I've ever heard.

No he wasn't a Portugese war veteran...he was a US immigrant who served for the US in the Vietnam War.

I didn't think he was senile.....rather just passionate.

"best athletes in the world....the field is so big...and these guys run for sometimes TWO HOURS....best athletes in the world...."....then he starts reciting the portguese national anthem!!!! AWESOME....the guy was a stud

Anyway...he's going off on Bayless in his raspy, old fart...heavy accented voice....GREAT stuff!!!

next...we need Tommy Smith to interview with Jim Rome so that he can call him a bloody wanker!!!

 

I once wathced a Serie A game with my wife's cousins who are typical football/baseball loving Joe-six packs. There were no fake injuries. There were no big dives. There was none of the stuff anti-soccer folks normally point to. The score ended 5-4 and was one of the best games I ever watched. When it was over, these guys looked at me and said "I can't believe you enjoy this boring crap". The moral of the story is that all the changes and all the scoring, etc isn't going to mean a hill of beans to your typical hardcore Amrican sports fan because it's still a funny game with 22 guys kicking a ball around. Not understanding tactics and technical nuances of the game, they simply see a bunch of chickens running around w/o their heads. Add to this the fact that AMericans are conditioned to watch sports with numerous breaks and they have trouble grasping the idea of actually paying attention for 45 minute stretches. Go to a bar where an Amercian sport is being shown. Go to a stadium where American sports are being played. There is very little focus on the game itself. This is not a put down of American fans and sports, it's just a fact of a huge difference between soccer and Amercican sports.

I grew up in an Italian house and as a teenager becamwe a pretty big NFL fan. The arguments my Dad made as to why Amercian football sucks are eerily the same as the arguments idiots like Skip and Jim make against soccer. It's a culture thing and if you don't understand it, you probably won't like it. I tried watching the World Cup of Rugby last time, but just can't understand the nuances of the sport. It would be moronic of me to claim that Rugby is inherently boring! It is true that "I just don't get it"!

 

I used to think Aussie Rules was stupid, until I gave it a chance without my hate goggles on.

I'm a Western Bulldogs fan now. Go figure.

Fact is, if you don't want to like something you never will. It just so happens we live in America where most people are desprate to be "cool" and hating non-American things is "cool" to alot of people.

 

If you can understand american football, rugby is easy to follow.

 

Nothing to add to this thread, since I think discussing anything said by Skip Bayless is like performing a content analysis on my neighbor's dog when he barks at the mailman, but I was wondering if anyone caught the name of the Portuguese American war veteran.

Could it have been bigsoccer poster Frank Cunha, by chance? His posts often exemplified the results of great passion unregulated by grammar and syntax, which sounds like the guy mentioned in the first post.

 

That goes against my twenty years of experience of playing rugby in America. We pretty much quit recruiting American football players (though we wouldn't chase them away if they came out) in favor of wrestlers, basketball players, and oversized soccer players (like I was).

And from a fan's perspective, the absence of the forward pass has been a sticking point for many of the guys I know.

 

Crap! Yet another superathlete lost to a rival sport. No wonder our middies are all 145 pounds.

 

hmmm. I would've said "fat guy," but "superathlete has a nicer ring to it.

 

i care what these idiots say to because the more they speak the more they dumb down average american sports fans they pass their ignorance on to others hwo might embrace the sport

 

"sway the public opinion of the casual sports fan"? Good God, do you think people actually listen to these cretins and make up their minds based on what these people say?

They're not on the air to help people make up their minds. They're on the air to confirm people's already-held ideas. Witness Jim Rome's switch on NASCAR, for instance.

I mean seriously, do you think there are people out there who would say something like, "gee, Skip Bayless made some interesting points about soccer today. I'm going to become a fan!" or "Jim Rome turned me on to soccer!"? Or conversely, that there are people who would say, "well, I had fun watching the Fire the other night in Bridgeview, but then I read Skip Bayless' column and realized he's right. Soccer sucks"?

Well, when you exaggerate things, or only focus on certain aspects of problems like violence around soccer stadia without looking at other factors involved, then it is in fact ignorance on the part of Rome and Skip. If it's "elitism" to call people on their ignorance or their exaggerations, then... well actually it's not. You just have an inadequate understanding of what "elitism" means.

 

It kills me when one freaking continent out of six (not counting Antartica) dont like soccer and bitches and groans about wanting to change the sport. Who cares about America and whether or not they like soccer. FIFA sure ain't asking them, they make enough money as it is.

I mean, 8 of the 12 most populated countries in the world didn't even qualify for the WC, North America basically shuns the WC, yet FIFA and the WC are thriving. who gives a rats ass to what people like Bayless think.

People hate what they dont understand. Or maybe they're on a little ego trip bashing soccer because they arent good at it, same goes for the people thinking NFL/NBA athletes in America would absolutely dominate soccer because of their brute athleticisim. Like they're some kind of lab created uber-athletes that will dominate ANY sport. They dont like it because they dont understand it and arent really good at it while the entire planet completely embraces it.

 

It's okay to not like soccer but of course you will get fuming mad fans when you bash the sport they love on national TV. You will get responses like "he's ignorant, he doesnt know anything, etc" when you trash talk the sport they love.

 

NFL football high scoring ????? Hogwash....

 

You got a point there...FIFA need to embrace replay...But they know when that happen few of the so call world powers will be no more....

 

DITTO

 

I'm sorry. I officially apologize to all cucumbers that I offended.

 

I'm not saying that I want to see the rules of Soccer changed so Americans like it more. But just because someone doesn't like soccer doesn't mean that they can't make constructive critisicms that are correct or helpful. Now, I'm not saying Rome or Bayless have anything good to say either, but there are some issues with soccer.

If alternatives existed, I'm guessing a large portion of soccer fandom would agree that PK's to end a world cup final are beneath the game and vote for something else. Soccer fans and non soccer fans can make suggestions that are good for the sport...

Lets not take Rome and Bayless and use them as the majority sampling when looking for alternatives to making soccer a better sport then it currently is.

 

Great post, but I disagree with this one point. The problem, as I see it, is that players play a very cynical game for four years, then FIFA tries to clean up the sport of soccer in a month's time. The players have already formed their habits based on the pathetic state of officiating in their leagues.

FIFA needs to sit down with the major leagues and say: "We are not backing off. We are going to card the heck out of these thugs and divers. We are going to use TV replays to hand out even more cards after the game is over. If people whine about the number of cards at the next World Cup, tough; we are not going to be intimidated by their whining. If you want the players from your leagues to be ready for the next World Cup, you had better take your officiating cues from us."

The use of TV replays for handing out cards after games would probably be imitated by many leagues, because imitation tends to follow down the ladder from the top.

I disagree that coaches and players will not change. When games ROUTINELY end up 9v8, something will change. If the officials won't budge, the coaches and players will adapt.

I have a theory that there are traditions in different sports that are repugnant to potential fans of those sports, but the insiders don't change those traditions because they don't want to. It is not that they cannot; they choose not to. If baseball wanted to eliminate the spectacle of managers yelling at umpires until they got thrown out of the game (an embarrassing spectacle that is a very poor example for kids), they could eliminate it immediately. Just up the penalty, maybe to a 20-game suspension without pay. They don't want to eliminate it; it is "part of the game" or some such nonsense, so it will remain. Fighting in ice hockey is another example. Having the WILL to eliminate it is the issue. Baseball had no will to eliminate steroid abuse until it became a public embarrassment, then it suddenly found the will.

The question is whether FIFA will someday have the will, the desire, to eliminate diving and bad fouls. There is no question they could reduce them to a near-zero level if they wanted to do so. They don't want to -- yet.

 

That is my attitude, but it is not the attitude of those who cannot quite get into the sport. I am always amazed that diving is at the top of their lists when they discuss soccer. If we want to grow the popularity of the sport, we have to face this fact and not just say that they should not think this way. They DO think this way. Not that it is the only problem. But, it is the biggest problem, and it could be solved in a heartbeat if FIFA wanted to solve it.