World Cup 2006

[ice grillin you]

just because soccer requires better conditioning it doesn't make it more exciting

for real

go watch a triathalon if thats your cup o tea

its all about watchability....and soccer has none except for once every four years and then it has a minimal amount

[reese125]

I love how everyone is comparing athletic ability to conditioning. Please consider the real meaning behind athletic ability and this argument becomes null and void

[rjs246]

i was merely pointing out that the people who like soccer are the same people who will swear by lacrosse...and that explains your viewpoint...at first i didnt understand where you were coming from that made it crystal clear

Makes sense to me. Carry on.

[Phanatic]

just because soccer requires better conditioning it doesn't make it more exciting

for real

go watch a triathalon if thats your cup o tea

its all about watchability....and soccer has none except for once every four years and then it has a minimal amount

I agree. I think baseball suffers from the same thing. Michael Jordon couldn't play baseball but no one would question that he was athletic so it's not an easy sport. Just doesn't translate on TV as well. I do like going to a baseball game so maybe soccer is more fun at the game too.

[ice grillin you]

i can 100% understand someone not liking baseball
i cannot 1% understand how someone could like soccer better

[NGM]

why the need to bash baseball?

Because everyone defends its lack of action/athletes by saying that it's a 'thinking man's sport'. Truth is that every team sport requires intricate strategy to be successful, not every sport includes standing around and getting fat. Only baseball.

I would argue that baseball requires the least strategy of the any of the sports mentioned in this thread (perhaps excluding today's NBA).  In every situation in baseball there is a "correct" strategy to pursue.  Much like reading a book on how to play blackjack, baseball strategies can be learned though rote memory.  Football schemes must be changed every offseason as is the case in almost every other full motion sport.

[phattymatty]

yeah i think i may have started this.  sorry.

to conclude, i'm not a soccer fan but i think the world cup is exciting.

soccer players, even though they are much better athletes, are still pansies.

i'm not a big baseball fan either and i think it's never exciting.

i hate you all.

[Geowhizzer]

why the need to bash baseball?

Because everyone defends its lack of action/athletes by saying that it's a 'thinking man's sport'. Truth is that every team sport requires intricate strategy to be successful, not every sport includes standing around and getting fat. Only baseball.

I would argue that baseball requires the least strategy of the any of the sports mentioned in this thread (perhaps excluding today's NBA).  In every situation in baseball there is a "correct" strategy to pursue.  Much like reading a book on how to play blackjack, baseball strategies can be learned though rote memory.  Football schemes must be changed every offseason as is the case in almost every other full motion sport.

There's all sorts of strategies:

1.  Pitcher/Catcher vs. Hitter- The pitcher/catcher has to decide what pitch (and which sequence) to throw to best get out each batter.  The batter tries to figure out What each particular pitch is going to be. The pitcher catcher has to be aware of any men on base, and what they're trying to do.

2.  Fielders- Where to position each fielder.  Some position shifts are subtle (outfield to pull, outfield straight away, outfield to opposite field), but some are extreme (anyone see the fielding positions used against David Ortiz the other day?)

3.  Runners- Stolen bases (unfortunately currently out of favor), bunts, hit-and-runs.

4.  Manger decisions- Pitching changes, pinch hitters, fielding changes (Danny Ozark lost an NLCS game against the Dodgers by letting Greg Luzinski stay in the field, and the Bull misplayed a fly ball; John McNamara basically lost the World Series by keeping Bill Buckner in a game situation he hadn't been all season in 1986.

[NGM]

I wasn't trying to say that there are not many strategies Geo.  The manager either decides to use it or not based on stats (which they rarely compile) or a "hunch." 

Personally I love baseball but this notion of it as a thinking mans sport or whatever seems absurd.  Bill Belichick is an innovater and a thinker, Tony La Russa, IMO, is not. 

[Geowhizzer]

I'll never claim that football or hockey do not have strategies.  I do think that baseball has some more, but that's always up for debate.

Needless to say, I must love football, or I wouldn't be on this site do darn much. 

[Diomedes]

Needless to say, I must love football, or I wouldn't be on this site do darn much.

This site is for talking about football?

[Diomedes]

from NYT:

June 6, 2006
U.S. Soccer Team Holds Meet and Greet
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:34 p.m. ET

NORDERSTEDT, Germany (AP) -- Kasey Keller walked to the edge of the field and signed autographs as people swarmed around.

American soccer players got to meet the German people Tuesday, with the Deutsche volk coming out to Edmund Plambeck Stadion in suburban Hamburg for an open haus -- the only scheduled U.S. public practice at the World Cup.

Shedding their jackets and scarves as the sun finally broke out following a gloomy, gray holiday weekend, fans applauded searing shots and sprawling saves. Their energy filtered down to the U.S. team.

''The fever is definitely starting to hit,'' captain Claudio Reyna said.

A mix of Germans, U.S. tourists, American students and diplomats were in the crowd of about 1,000 at the home of Eintracht Norderstedt, a regional team in a city of about 70,000, the fifth-largest in the Schleswig-Holstein federal state. The temperature was in the mid-60s, and the attendance was modest -- 45,000 tickets were distributed for Brazil's training sessions in Weggis, Switzerland -- but fans appeared to have a good time.

''It's 30-minute train ride, and then we walked around for two hours trying to find the place,'' said Christina McCreary of Tulsa, Okla.

She is studying in Lueneberg and was able to snag tickets on the Internet for the U.S. opener Monday against the Czech Republic in Gelsenkirchen. She couldn't attend any of the qualifiers or warmup matches back home.

''It's hard from Tulsa to make it to any of the games,'' he said.

A Chicago Fire youth team sat in the stands, youngsters who are playing clubs from Turkey, Russia and Germany and wanted to watch their national team train.

''You learn a lot, see how they do things,'' said Rob Henehan, a 17-year-old from Oaklawn, Ill.

Not too far away was a group of 6-to-14-year-old German boys in blue shirts with American flags and the letters ''USA,'' a group that will play for the United States in the UeNa Cup youth tournament that features German squads representing each of the 32 World Cup nations. One boy had an American flag painted of his left cheek, and several waved the Stars & Stripes.

Marion Seifert, a German fan from Geesthacht, stood by the field.

''I like the American soccer team because my son, he lives in Florida and he told me please, these are such great players,''

About 17,000 total tickets were sold for the American games by the U.S. Soccer Federation, a figure that doesn't include sponsor tickets or those bought directly from German organizers on the Internet. The USSF estimates more Americans will travel to this tournament than all previous World Cups combined, excluding the 1994 games in the United States.

But, as American players often have learned at their home games, tickets bought in the United States don't always translate into supporters of the red, white and blue.

''We probably have three-to-five thousand Czechs coming from America for the first game, 7,000 Italians coming from America for the second game and 5,000 Ghanians coming from New York for the third game,'' said Keller, the American goalkeeper.

Each team is required to hold at least one open practice. U.S. coach Bruce Arena, a secretive type, chose to hold his the morning after a closed-door scrimmage against Angola -- when U.S. players wore shirts without numbers to make identification more difficult.

Because of the timing, training wasn't very strenuous. The American team anticipated its three first-round opponents would be sending scouts to spy on the workout, trying to glean intelligence about the U.S. lineup and tactics.

''We do less as far as what we'd work on because you don't know who's here,'' Reyna said. ''It was a very -- I don't know -- generic practice.''

The practice venue was picked because the U.S. team is training nearby at the fields of Hamburger Sport-Verein, the big Bundesliga club.

''Just to thank the community because we are a little bit of a nuisance as we come through with our procession of sirens and everything else every day,'' Arena said. ''We rattle them a little bit, so the least we could do is say, `Thank you for all your support and your hospitality.'''

Duane Butcher, the U.S. consul general in Hamburg and a native of Arlington, Va., is counting on the American team to advance out of its group.

''I only have tickets for the knockout round,'' he said.

Notes:@ Reyna said his strained right hamstring has healed and he's set for the opener. ... Players still aren't sure of the starting 11. ''There's positions up for grabs, that's fair to say,'' Reyna said. ''I think that's a good thing, because a lot of guys look well, a lot of guys have pushed for starting positions and have had a good training camp, good games and look sharp.''

If only our official foreign policy had a fraction of the diplomacy, humility, respect, class and wisdom Arena shows here.

[ice grillin you]

i was just reading that the best american player is from the northeast???

[Diomedes]

Of course.  That's where the best soccer in the U.S. is played.

[ice grillin you]

northeast philly dummy

in fact its in this months philly mag

billy convey

why he matters: because convey a middle class white ethnic kid from a big northern city is a demographic throwback to earlier generations of american soccer which is now incresingly dominated by talent from the countrys sun belt exurbs