Dealing with Anti-Soccer Trolls

If you did B I would totally expect them to react. But that's exactly the example of preachy evangelical stuff that annoys people. If it was A, my guess is most would ignore or just laugh and point to Superbowl ratings. Some would take the bait but people like to argue.

I still think that if you were to go on a soccer message board or comments section and say "Soccer Sucks" you would get a much bigger reaction than if you went on a football one (american football) and said "Football Sucks".

 

Don't feed the trolls.

 

He's an idiot. He was a guest on a local show here in LA and tried to make the argument that soccer is just a fad. None of the callers agreed with him. Same tired arguments: not enough scoring, Americans like scoring etc.

The argument he was making, that soccer is just a fringe sport and always will be, can actually be made about all American sports now (maybe even the NFL). There used to be a time when everyone watched the World Series and the baseball playoffs. Maybe not everyone but if you weren't watching you at least knew it was going on. Now you have World Series games and baseball fans watch, but the rest of the country could care less. Most of them likely don't even know that a World Series is being played. Same goes with the NBA Finals.

 

Its like that poll that needed to point out how 1 in 15 Americans wont watch the World Cup, which is roughly the exact same number that didn't watch the World Series or the NBA Finals, to speak nothing of the NHL finals. You won't see polls about how many aren't going to watch the World Series though.

It's fear of the highest magnitude. The haters are scrambling, because they know its game over.

 

It's not that all that weird, and wholly expected to be fair. It's the one time in 4 years where the sport takes a firm seat in the sporting landscape, which makes the detractors get fidgety.

 

Posted in another thread, but apt here: The Onion's parody of a right wing political cartoonist...

 

Anywhere I can find a list of companies that sponsor "soccer-haters" in the sports media? I just don't want to buy their products or services.

 

ESPN.
They hate soccer.

 

Ha Ha.
Who would even spend the time to put together such a list? Maybe AASH (American Association of Soccer Haters).

 

Comparing this World Cup to 1994*, the bashing is almost non-existent. Where it does appear, it seems almost quaint. The kind of stupid, ignorant stuff that used to appear in columns by nationally syndicated sports writers now, for the most part, is most likely to appear in the comments section of stories. And it's easy as hell to avoid those.


*This book has an appendix that collects dozens of soccer-bashing comments from the 1994 World Cup. Comparing then and now shows one thing: Soccer is kicking ass.




Not the most scintillatingly written book, but worth checking out and skimming if your an AMerican fan, even if it is a bit dated by now.

 

I don't really engage in the banter anymore, I just leave an open ended cash money offer. First, I laugh in the shit talkers face and then calmly state that I will give 'em $50 cash if they walk into Bull n Bear (a bar here in Houston full of footy mad Scots) and talk shit about soccer. That gets dem haters to pause, think, and marinate on what they had been just talking about. Even the most idiotic, no neck 'Merican puts 2 and 2 together. Works every time.

 

Sometimes they just make it so easy to bash them. But yes, ignore, unless they give you excellent ammo to prove a point, or make fools of them, or both.

 

I would prefer... ASSHOLES.
American Society of Soccer Haters and Organized Loathers of Everything Soccer.

So whenever you come across such a person, ask him/her... are you a member of that group of ASSHOLES?

 

This happened about thirty years ago. I was coach and under 12 club team. The field had lights started at 5 ended at 7 pm. We had a permit for e fieldthe field.

Around the perimeter of the field were baseball diamonds. There was a men's softball team getting ready to practice at 6:30 pm.

Then while we are practicing. The bozos start hitting soft ball out at our practice field. Then one of the parents goes to them to wait we will be off the field in a few minutes.

Well they kept hitting balls where we are practicing. Their way of telling us to get off the field now and not latter.

I had a temper in those days and even today under the right conditions.

I told the team good practice lets go home now. Their we're a few soft balls on the field as they left. I took one and walked over to the soft ball guys.

I guess they thought I was bring them back their ball. I told them what were they trying to do hurt some little kids. While I am talking to them I also picked up one of their aluminum soft ball bats.

Then one of them said no we were telling you to get off the field. I went wild I told them this is my ball now and this is my bat. When one came over to me I hit him in the face with the ball. The hit two others with the bat a few times and left them in shock.

I get to my car and I saw one of my parents giving me a bad look. I am still mad I tell him get in your car and go home. What did he do when those kids almost got hit nothing.

But I made sure that I never did that again. At least when their witness around

 

I could have seen you calling the police and attempting to get the softball players charged with endangering the welfare of children.

 

Call the police? you have the same problem next week. There not my favorite people. Plus they never seem to be there when you need them.

You have a fight with someone you call the police. They don't just arrest the people you want arrested. They will also arrest you.

I would never advise anyone to call the police

The only good thing about the police is they can be bought to look the other way. That is because that is what they do best look the other way.

 

I had the exact same thing happen Nick. 'Cept it was a kids team and a bunch of us adults from many nations were playing on the field we always play on for years and years and one of the dads from the baseball team walks up and gets in the face with all the F you foreigners get off the field now, to which I took the high road and gave him a Texas chill out partner talk. He didn't take to that so I upped the anty. Some guys need to be humbled. If it happens when they least expect it, i.e. from commie soccer players, then that is just icing on the cake now isn't it.

Recall that scene in the movie The Town. When the crooks are in nun outfits and armed to the teeth. The cop on duty spots their get away attempt... just looks the other way.

 

Don't sweat 'em. Soccer has reached escape velocity.

 

Did you have a video camera by any chance? If you showed the parents of the kids playing soccer that the kids were in danger maybe they could have helped convince the men to not hit softballs there. If you could have turned it into a safety issue rather than a softball vs. soccer issue that could have helped. If you had video of a kid playing soccer being hit by a flying ball and could get TV news to show it, it could have given whatever organization the softball players were part of some bad publicity.

 

There is and they came out of the woodwork a little after the Germany game "only soccer rewards a loss" (yeh because no American team has ever backed into the playoffs). But we have now reached the point that the world cup is part of the American sports landscape the same as the Olympics. There are bashers of the Olympics but there few and far between and they make their statements knowing they are in the minority.

 

I think there is such a group, probably always will be, but it gets easier every day to ignore them.

 

You don't. Many of them genuinely think soccer is a crappy game. You can't hope to talk sense into those kind of people ever. To everyone to their own. You can't force somebody to like something.

The second category of trolls would be someone trying to get a rise out of you - the best defense in such a scenario is to not respond as by not responding, you have defeated the trolls agenda of getting a rise out of you.