As I was waiting for Around the Horn to come on I caught the last few minutes of "Jim Rome is Burning". While he is generally an overly opinionated ass, his final burn struck me. Over the weekend a Brazilian National fan attempted to blow up an opposing team's fan bus with a live grenade. This caused Rome to remark, "That is why soccer isn't a sport, just an excuse for people to riot." It caused me to wonder how much of an impact coverage like that has on the American people's view of soccer in general. How much of an effect do extremists have on the casual American view of soccer? With the exception of very few isolated incidents, there is really nothing all that bad going on in American soccer with the exception of verbal assaults, no different from that of any other major sport. Any thoughts?
i went to london back at the end of april, for the sole purpose to see an arsenal match live and in person. before i left, there were a handful of people who kept telling me to be careful at the game, and to watch out for "all the rioting". to be honest, sitting in my seat at the emirates, and even walking around the concourse, it had a more "corporate" feel than walking around the linc on a football sunday. it's always the negative elements and incidents that stick out in people's minds. they see a handful of riots and hooliganism and the assumptions are that this is the case everywhere.
Theres no doubt that the American sports media can create a negative perception of any sport, especially soccer. Even the PTI guys, who I feel can be as objective about soccer, pointed out how the Danish fan tried to punch the referee out over the weekend and they sounded as if that only happens in soccer. Have they already forgotten about the incident that occurred about 5 years ago at a Chicago White Sox game when a father and son tried to roll on an ump?
Even funnier is the fact that the Danes had fought back from 3-0 down to tie the match...it was in the 90th minute and the ref abandoned the match...awarding all 3 points to Sweden...nice job, however you translate Steve Bartman into Danish....Sven Bartsvenken
i thought they'd be deciding later this week ... http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=436314&cc=5901 best part is: ... said at a court hearing he had drunk 15 to 18 beers before the match and had little memory of the actual incident.
Personally, I'm too much of a hooligan to care what people think of soccer fans. Whenever someone tries to lecture me, I just punch a puppy while it's sleeping. And then I chug an 18-pack and rush the pitch.
I'll use Elderfish to translate You guys are ********, come strong, go long hooahh. Everytime one of you interweb nerds steps to me, I switch from BigSoccer to WorldGroups and ruin another sock. Then I load my paintball gun and shoot myself from point blank range to savor the pain.
I think SportsCenter has shown two European, non-Champions League, non-Beckham highlights all season. Arsenal and Chelsea fighting in the Carling Cup final and the Denmark-Sweden clip. Did they even show the six goals in that match or did they just cut right to the fan charging the ref? Wait, I think that they also showed owl at the Belgium/Finland match.
Over in the soccer videos section, I posted a link to a YouTube video. Apparently, some guy tracked the owl for over five minutes. The crowd reactions were great.
Money has wiped out hooliganism from england, all seater stadiums, corporate hospitatilty, cctv cameras everywhere, severe punishments for trouble makers, large rise in ticket prices, almost every club caters for the middle/upper classes, yes trouble still happens but mainly away from the stadiums. Most countries have tried to combat the hooligans with a lot of success, they know if trouble carries on they won't make the money they want to. Most countries have moved on thankfully so hopefully you lot in america aren't stupid enough to think just because its a soccer match theres going to be trouble, and will hopefully move with the times, because if you have problems over there it will probably destroy the league forever so its up to the real fans to police yourselves and make sure any trouble maker knows there not welcome. Make noise, be intimadating there's nothing wrong with that but don't cause trouble thats just boring now.