new thread
Here was the start of the game ...
It totally rocked..
Tristan
Has football got a higher profile now due to Beckham arriving? DO you think it will take off in the us like it did in the late 70's?
There are some parts of the country where soccer is as popular as the other sports. When they brought some of the world competition games to Houston a few years ago, they constantly sold out Reliant Stadium (70,000+, where the Texans play). My kids began soccer at age 4; my son will be playing in college this coming year. In our suburb south of Houston, we have 1400 registered for soccer out of a total population of 31,000; much higher than football and equal to baseball. Kids who began playing when they were small are now in college and going pro; today soccer is as much of our sports as other games. Its the adults who never had a chance to play that don't know or support the game; we are slowly growing out of that. The US teams are on par now with the rest of the world.
Soccer is here. Today.
Around the New Jersey, USA, area here it's definitely growing in popularity, but nowhere near American football or baseball. It seems more younger kids than adults are getting into it.
I don't think Beckham's(sp?) importation will have the effect their hoping for.
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Splat
I think the us will keep playing football and baseball as our main games, im not sure why when you consider that no other country plays either of those 2 games in any big enough capacity for something like the world cup. In short, football and baseball are worthless games. :)
The US is a strange place. Americans seem to do everything differently than everyone else just on principle. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that, but it can get annoying.
NFL football only seems to be played in the US, Canada, and much less seriously a little bit in Germany and the UK, while for baseball the only countries seem to be the US, Canada, Cuba and Japan. Even playing a baseball game between Americans and Cubans would be a problem because of the embargo.
Association football, OTOH, is the most popular game in the world. It's played almost everywhere.
Rugby is similar to NFL football, but it's mostly played in British commonwealth countries and for some reason in France as well. There are amateur rugby teams in the US, despite the similarities to the NFL game. I knew someone who was in one.
Cricket is even played in a lot more countries than baseball, but I think they are all commonwealth countries. Again, there is some amateur cricket in the US. Rounders is much closer to baseball, but only girls play it!
Basketball is also big in the US. I'm honestly not sure what other countries play it? In England we have something like it, but it's called netball and it's another girl's game!
On that theme, lacrosse is hardly a big game in the US, but I was surprised to see it played by guys, as in England, yes, you guessed it, it's played by girls instead!
Nothing wrong with girls, of course. I rather like them, LOL!
I think the bottom line is that association football is probably the only game of any kind where you could throw down a ball and get a game going between randomly selected guys of all nationalities. Except Americans, of course...
Maybe I've figured it out. In the US, association football is a girl's game, or at least the women's team is more competitive than the men's. The US seems to have a sort of sporting gender reversal.
On the subject of futbol being more of a girls game in the usa, I was pretty suprised to see on pele's list of the greatest futbol players of all time, both of the americans are girls. go figure.
Soccer is about the only game I care to watch.Don't think it would make a difference whether some big shot is playing or not.I would have played soccer in school if they'd had it.Graduated in '72 in Texas.We had FOOTBALL,nobody had heard of futbol.I was 5'6" and 115 lbs in '72.To small to play football,to short to play basketball,don't care for baseball.Could have played futbol.I remember watching some Mexican guys playing soccer on one of the football practice fields.One of the coaches came out and ran them off,saying they were tearing up the grass.The high school I went to now has 4 soccer fields.And soccer coaches.Times change.Though not much,football still rules.
Arrick