Why did you choose soccer over baseball, football, basketball and ice hockey?

It's as good a time as any to post a picture of Mrs. Zambrotta.

 

look at the cute high school chicks, haha it makes me remember my pimpin high school days.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtzROK3ZcZo"]YouTube- NorthWestern State Championship Final Soccer by Herald Newspaper[/ame]

 

Grew up following and playing baseball,football, basketball. Never played or followed hockey but have a great deal of respect for the sport. After the first time I played soccer I found it to be the most skill intensive sport I had ever played. The fact that I found it so hard hooked me. The more soccer I watch the less appealing other sports have become.

 

Living in Nebraska, I grew up to be a Nebraska football fan. Soccer didn't take over. I think that's the general sentiment on this thread and possibly Big Soccer. Perhaps a better question may be one that asks why we chose soccer in spite of the high number of other American sports out here.

The question also implies that there was each of us made a choice between soccer and another American sport at some point. My decision to follow soccer was independent of my decision not to follow baseball and hockey.

 

It's the best.

 

Because it is the most nearly perfect team sport in the world

 

In soccer there are not alot commercials, the game is fast, finishes in 100 minutes, fateful fan support and most of all its a sport that challenges me.

But still I like Basketball (#2), rugby (#3) and american football (#4).

Baseball is my least and most unfavorable sport, it seems to be a lazy game and excusable sport game. (no offense, not to worry I dont hate it but I dont love).

And no im not a european, born and raised in TEXAS, yeehaa.

 

I'm from a rustbelt city (Pittsburgh, PA) where NOT playing (American) football is pretty much unexcusable, so I played for a couple years and I was a very good player (got honorable mention in the WPIAL) as well as being a very good baseball player but I never loved those sports, I guess you could say that they never really resonated with me but I started playing hockey and soccer right around the same time in the early 90's and those were the sports that I really enjoyed, to my core.
The constant movement, the flow, and the ability that each player has in those sports to put there own signature on the unfolding game.
That's why I chose soccer.
I've watched the U.S National team since the 1994 World Cup and have loved seeing the progress of the U.S' program, bbut I just started watching European soccer in the last 4 years and it is slowly overtaking my television, pushing aside the NHL, MLB and the NBA.

 

I chose soccer because soccer is more exciting sports.

 

I didn't necessarily choose soccer over other sports, though it definitely is my primary one. I still like other sports. I used to play school basketball and while I did quit it to focus more on soccer, I still think basketball is quite fun to play and decent to watch. I also definitely enjoy watching hockey when its on (I don't rearrange my schedule to make sure I watch a game like in soccer, but still, if its on, I'll be watching. We have a semi-pro team here that is fun to go see, too).

I detest football and baseball though (yes I know, so un-American of me, lol).

I guess if that counts as "choosing" soccer over other sports, its because I've played it my entire life, and my dad is quite the avid fan as well, not to mention the majority of my friends are also soccer fans. Football and baseball have simply never interested me. Ever. I'll give props to basketball though, it definitely is a fun sport. And hockey is just crazy to watch.

 

I played soccer, basketball and baseball as a kid......Never really enjoyed watching anything but soccer though. Basketball, baseball and football all have to many breaks and commercials...I would get bored and decide to go outside and do something else. Soccer was always something interesting to watch....so I would watch the game..then go outside and play....now that I'm 25....its hard for me to watch a football or basketball game...it has to be a close game for me to watch....baseball...********, you couldn't get me to watch a game no matter what...but I do still watch soccer matches whenever possible.

 

Playing, because of two-a-days. Choosing it as my first television sport followed soon after.

 

My favorite sport has always been the one that is in season/the one my team is doing well in.

 

when i was in el salvador i played a lot of basketball, mostly bc there were always girls around the bk court. i do like it but i cant really watch it, the lakers are cool but too many time outs, too easy to score and kind like south american soccer, a lot of diving and stopping the game for "sissy" fouls. i did play a lot of basketball when i lived in california with some of my european friends, also street hockey, i used to love playing street hockey.

i can watch a hockey game but most of the time i cant really relate to anything, somehow i missed the usa vs canada game but i wanted to watch that game so bad. the other things that bothers me about watching hockey is that the puck is too small, kind of hard to keep up with it on tv.

my cousins from canada talk too much crap thought, my competitive side always comes out when im hanging with my cousins, they think they are superior than american hockey players.

one of my cousins from los angeles is a little baseball player, i enjoy practicing baseball with him at the park. honestly thought i cant really watch a full dodgers or angels game, the game is too slow, too many commercials, and this may sound weird but a fat guy cannot be my hero, i have always picked on fat pep so i cant really see myself as a baseball player, i cannot relate to anything in that game, even though i found it pretty cool throwing and catching the ball at the park. i found it cool to hit the ball also, i just cannot watch it.

when i played american football in high school i loved it, i was too fast, i was playing in pe where kids are not usually that athletic but i did enjoy playing it.

when we go to the beach with the boys, we usually play soccer and football, is really fun and it gets competitive. i almost got into wressling in high school but the soccer season is at the same time with soccer so i could not do both. i see american football pretty similar to wressling.

again the time outs are painful in nfl and bk, i cant never fully concentrate on the game, the game is just starting to get really good and exciting and a commercial comes in... hate it.

another no no for football is the fat dudes also, im sorry but i guess is a cultural thing, in my family we do not call a 300lbs a great athlete, in my family and my social circle you have too look good, you have be fit, you have to eat well, you cannot go around showing off your mc donalds belly.

after 10 years of living in america, im learning to embrace american football and baseball more and more, but i dont think i would ever pass the time out crap or the oversized "athlete." just not my taste.

 

It may be a cultural thing to stereotype certain athletes as fat just because they weigh a lot, but it's certainly a narrow-minded thing. Most American football players wouldn't survive a professional NFL game with a McDonald's belly. And if you don't believe that, there are a number of non-American sports where athletes are more than or at least close to 300 pounds (boxing, weightlifting and sumo) easily come to mind.

 

in my competitive culture (im not talking for all salvadorans out there) looking good is not an option, you have to run, you have to go to the gym often, and to me or to any of my friends or relatives, when your face is rounded you are overweight, and you do not look good, overweight does not keep you healthy.

honestly when i came to high school in california, i used to watch many "chobby" people i though they were "fat" but for my american friends, they were just normal people. i would look at the football team and to me most of them looked fat and of course there is always exceptions with a few football players in a great shape.

i think the feeling was the same. i had a football player in my class who thought soccer players were skinny and weak.

there was never a confrontation bc i was usually around big soccer players too and there was always respect for each other.

one thing i can tell you is that my girl looked 20lbs smallers than his girls

ill be willing to bet that girls dating soccer players are usually better looking than girls dating football players. girls like muscles not chobby dudes.

like i say with the time i have learned to enjoy and respect both, football and baseball but my number one would always be soccer.

 

I didn't.

It's one thing that just makes some posters on this board a bit out of touch, thinking that a person to enjoy soccer is not allowed to like football or other sports. Newsflash people, it's not "us versus them".

Funny because the star player most associated with diving in basketball is Manu Ginobili.

I'll take that bet. Girls like money if you're talking pros. Although if you're talking your random soccer player and your random football player, the football player has got more muscles, all the soccer guy's got is leg muscles although if girls fascinate over muscles, they don't usually go for the legs, it's more the pecs.

The random soccer players I knew growing up in high school weren't known for muscles, more just known for being the biggest pot smokers in the school.

 

Yeah, pretty much. Most of the soccer players at my school had more in common with the punk/skate crowd than the football style athlete-one.

And speaking of youth soccer days, I'm reminded of one more reason why soccer was a better choice than other sports:

One time we scrimmaged the girls' team. Running around and bumping into girls > tackling/getting tackled by big dudes.

 

+1

One of my favorite Husker, Ndamukong Suh, is around 300 lbs. He would not last in a soccer match but he's a bunch of muscle who would throw normal-sized people five yards...at least. He'll get a paycheck to match that ability this coming spring.

Calling American football players fat is as ignorant as calling soccer players weak pansies who flop at the first sight of contact.

 

in california, some soccer players did surfing and skating. in south carolina, a lot of soccer players played football, bk and wressling.

we had a dude that went to play football at vanderbild or something, he was pretty descent at soccer but his best sport was football, he was also a basketball star.

at least my brother and i were benching a lot.

i hanged with a few cheeleaders and i remember them going through one of my magazine "they were goingn crazy after ronaldos pictures, and they also liked zidane and maldini"

this is a quote from a former hs cheeleader,

"soccer players are hot, some football and basketball players are hot too, but most football players are fat."

and again, this came from a cheerleader not from me.

personally i had a lot friends that played football but the ones i hang with were the qb and the ones that were didnt look fat, like the running back and the receivers they could hang when it came to chicks.

 

The aspect of soccer that has always irritated me, but never let it impede my love of the sport, was the metro-sexual/pretty boy crowd that makes up a certain percentage of the sport. You're gonna get those types but most of 'em can have that "soft" coached out of them at the lower levels and in high school.
When I was coaching I let it be known very quickly that reckless slide tackles and motioning to the ref for call's wasn't gonna fly, at all.
I always enjoyed playing against the David Beckham wanna-be's, you throw an elbow into their chops, or into their solar-plexor inside the box, when the ref isn't looking, and they wilt like a daisy in the hot sun.

 

Well, I'm not a fan of the Big Four american sports. Somebody else responded to you with exactly the words I intended to, so I owe him rep.

I grew up going to indoor soccer matches at the San Diego Sports Arena. My mother was raising me and just thought it might be a good social event, even though she hates sports.

Around 1995, I started hearing about this thing in the near future called MLS. I was living in Vermont at the time. I was intrigued because soccer is a simple sport as far as rules, and most locales in the rest of the world play it, which can't be said for any sport popular in America (Windhoek Penguins of the Namibian Hockey League, anybody? No? Didn't think so).

So I was on board as somebody who felt like the U.S. is somewhat isolationist in its culture.

Then came the mass unveiling of the '96 jerseys, which caused me to set fire to most of the cars on my block. I was horrified. 15 colors per jersey. Hideous logos and piping. And the MLS rules of the time.

So, I found the USL in a search of "minor league soccer" on Yahoo!, and decided I liked what the USL had to offer, mostly. Started following the Sounders. Started reading about leagues elsewhere in the world, from England to Peru. I think from then on, I just got hooked on soccer. Never have followed the same league throughout the years. I've just wanted to see how they all work.

Except that MLS is finally holding my attention by ridding itself of many gimmicks, and the EPL is great to watch just because overall it seems plenty stable enough not to be close to imploding.

 

There's this team named Portsmouth you need to find some information on.