Strange game, professor Falken. The only winning move is not to play. Well, play hard, anyway.
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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
- In The Mailbox: 12.23.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll truly IS a sad, embittered psychopath
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Jeff – How do those people keep their heads from assploding?
But, to be fair, it is soccer, and they are a strange lot …
(ducks and runs away)
For the children indeed, but not for the children of the children, who will ask, “Where were you daddy (or mommy) when the G-D RS league decided to disrobe in public? Did you avert your eyes?”
Gee, and I thought everyone recieving the same trophy was the ultimate crushing of the sports ethos. But of you dominate the other team too much, you lose by forfeit?
So I guess that means we lost IDF and OIF, you know, by forfeit. And maybe that explains Obama’s Afghan strategy-he doesn’t want to forfeit either…
Talk about the cooption of meaning and hijack of language!
Once the Muslims take over the UK they’ll allow real competition again.
Gloucester Dragons … creating tomorrow’s losers TODAY!!
I think Darth Rove won the thread with #6. But, he won too fast, so SORRY, YOU FORFEIT!
What would Didier Drogba do?
Heal fast, I hope. Pour Les Éléphants, DD.
It seems like a statement about how gay soccer is more than anything else. Europeans are normally in the vanguard of pussyfication and they’d never pull something this pathetic with a sport they care about. Here (and in Canuckistan) soccer occupies a strange place in the culture as a preferred activity for the offspring of proggy nitwits. They don’t even look at it as the competitive team sport it is but as some sort of abstract concept.
Well, in Canada, soccer isn’t about scoring goals or teamwork or sportsmanship, it’s all about kicking a ball and chasing after it. If you’re white.
If you have any sort of International blood in you however, you KNOW what football is all about. And if you happen to be French or Italian, it’s all about grass diving.
That’s because in Football and Baseball you have to follow rules. Strategies are tightly managed by the coach or manager. But, in soccer, it’s more free-wheeling, each individual does what they want; and there is supposed to be no violence under any circumstances (heh).
That and it’s not some filthy American sport; it’s transnational!. Soccer players are from all over the world. They compete for the World cup; and it truly is (sigh).
Not like the violent, pretensious, identity crushing, highly structured, uniquely American pastimes that pretend to be globally inclusive.
World Series? Meh, who cares-save for Japan and Latin America. Super Bowl? Meh, just a marketing gimmick…
But the World Cup? Now that’s something all of the international studies majors at the nation’s universities can get into. Especially guys like Beinart who think we shoulod stop trying to be so dominant in the world:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-05/peter-beinart-on-why-american-dominance-must-end/full/
He, and all the other putzes and yutzes, can sit around drinking their Michelob ultra, Bud light 55, or pretentious drink of choice and gush over the whole multi-culti nature of it; and how it’s sooooooooo great that the eeeevvvollll Americans don’t dominate it.
Italics fail…
Per Abe, I’ll write off Canada when they make this a rule in hockey.
Sorta reminds me of the teachers who banned Legos as a toy for their students:
Because, don’cha know, it’s way, way more important to be “concerned” about childrens’ “assumptions” than it is to manage and teach kids when they play. I’m sure that the soccer nannies felt the same way about the “assumptions” of class power and oppressive athletic achievement mirroring a capitalist society driven to separate “achievers” from others in a purely oppressively constructed “competition.”
Aren’t we all winners, every one?
Gah! HTML Fail! Link-
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/restrict.asp?path=archive/21_02/lego212.shtml
my mom used to blind fold me with her
sweaty woodstock bandana and pushed me into honk honkk traffic..
but thank the traffic gods that dad reeled me in…
i have a fear of curbs
Here (and in Canuckistan) soccer occupies a strange place in the culture as a preferred activity for the offspring of proggy nitwits. They don’t even look at it as the competitive team sport it is but as some sort of abstract concept.
Now now. As a mom of five, soccer is one of the few competitive sports I can AFFORD. And, as I just closed out the season, you’ve never seen a field of more fit kids anywhere – ranging from 6-14. None of Michelle’s Obesity epidemic among those kids (and prolly not a proggy among them.)
Of course, two of my kids have advanced beyond the rec league and have been “requested” to try out for a local travel team. I’ll be a proud soccer mom.
Sorta reminds me of the teachers who banned Legos as a toy for their students:
Yet those idiots would take it all back if there were sustainable Legos made of petrified monkey shit. They’re all about materialism as long as it’s on their own terms.
I will admit to looking forward to the World Cup. I have already denounced and condemned myself, so save it.
(and prolly not a proggy among them.)
Then it’s an altogether different discussion.
’tis true. I’ve sat too close to a few parents that were a tad TOO competitive. Nearly lost my hearing.
KICK THE BALL. KICK. THE. BALL.
[repeat a billion times for an hour]
No one’s saying you shouldn’t be a proud soccer mom Carin. And you’re right, the runnin’ around is better than sittin’ around playingvideo games 24/7. But I bet they don’t have this pantywaist rule in your kids league, nor in the traveling league that your two have been invited to try out for.
Can’t we just whine about weenie rules that sqelch competition for a while; it’s fun.
YOU”RE BEATING US DOWN TOO HARSHLY! YOU FORFEIT!
Congrats on the kids achievements, BTW.
The reason soccer is so popular worldwide is that even the very poor can play it. Sure, they might be using some kind of animal’s stomach stuffed with rags instead of an actual soccer ball, but the game is pretty much the same except you cannot get the distance on the kicks. Otherwise, all you need is a clear area that allows you to set some boundaries for the field.
I don’t see the game as something to watch on teevee, but playing it is just fine for the kids. Some places here pussify it by pretending not to keep score, but the kids keep track of the score and know who won, even when “well-meaning” parents and other scolds try to control events so the outcome of the game is “fair.”
Well, I just wanted to straighten it out before this turned into a bash-soccer thread. We should be focused.
I mean, it’s ironic to bash soccer as the sport of the yuppies and their privileged/coddled offspring – when so many other sports cost a HECK of a lot more. You can’t drive through town w/o seeing some sports team hitting you up to supplement the costs. Have you ever seen a soccer team to it?
Yes, soccer is the ultimate sport for the proletariat.
:)
Pretty soon soccer will be the only sport anyone can afford for their kids, except for the few elite progressives.
My kids started out playing hockey. OMG, way too expensive. And, to make it worse, to be competitive, you’d better have the $$ for extra ice time and special clinics and summer leagues.
for soccer? my kids head outside and play against each other on the lawn. That’s why my two youngest have gotten so good – playing against their oldier siblings.
And, no to sound too pc, but I’m ok with her coach benching her for a bit, or putting her on defense after she’s scored three or four goals. We don’t want to crush the opponent too much.
cranky – you are so right. As I mentioned in comment 26.
Have you seen the cheerleading phenomena? OMG – parents are spending several hundred dollars a month, etc.
It’s crazy.
the best part about futbol is hooligans
You definitely have a point about the expense. I can only imagine outfitting multiple chilrunz in hockey gear.
Are parents spending all that money out of guilt? I don’t get it.
For hockey practice, I’d get them some inline skates and tell them to use that when there isn’t snow on the ground. I know it’s not the same, but it’s likely similar enough. If not, then tough titty for the kiddies if there isn’t enough money. Build your own ice rink in the winter in your backyard if it’s big enough. I imagine that the best players had to so stuff like that, or came from wealthy families.
Of course, this is incredibly easy for me to say, because I don’t have kids and don’t know how much money they cost to keep around. I imagine it’s every dime you have.
I think it’s a mix of things. Guilt. Living vicariously through their kid’s success. Part of it, though, is that kids can’t be simply allowed to play outside; they can’t be “free range kids” anymore. The parents start along the “organized sports” track, and that becomes a feeding frenzy of competitiveness. I became a cheerleader when the coach saw me doing back flips in my marching band uniform. Want to be a cheerleader today? You’d better have started when you were six at the local gym …
Is now the time to designate JD as “Prancing Gay World Cup Soccer Impresario?”
NTTAWWT, BTW!
Hockey is the only sport I recall being expensive to play when I was a kid. What seems to have changed since is that overbearing parents have made youth sports so hyper organized that you don’t see kids going out to play and practice on their own en masse anymore. The serious athletes tend to focus on a sport or two and they become year-round supervised activities. Otherwise, buying cleats and a baseball glove ain’t expensive. A basketball isn’t either.
Yes, it’s mostly the “organized” aspect of the sport that makes it expensive (although in hockey the ice time is really expensive.) First, they join a “league” – then they have camps and clinics and what not. These become necessary, or the other kids quickly leave you in their dust.
Baseketball is an exception and at least near me I see folks from teen to adult playing pick-up games at the gym in the winter and outside in the summer.
Another good sport for the prole. Of course, soccer is still better since you don’t need a hoop.
“kids can’t be simply allowed to play outside; they can’t be “free range kids” anymore.”
That’s is what is probably the most regrettable change since many of our collective childhoods. Heck, we were thrown out of the house every morning in the summer and told, outside of lunch, not to return until dinner time. The exception was if it was raining; then we were still thrown out, but allowed to play under the carport…
Heck, when I was a young teenager, and my brothers tweens, Mom would drop is off in one location so we could spend a week hiking the Appalachian trail, and pick us up at a pre-determined ending location.
“If there’s any problem find a park ranger, policeman, or fireman, boy; you’ll pass through several parks and by more than a few small towns”…
Not something that goes on much these days, I’m sure.
Carin,
There’s an entitlement written into the law for folks to shoot hoops for free, nearly. I think it was part of the civil rights act.
I know…I know…JD will be along any moment to take care of bidness.
“Heck, when I was a young teenager, and my brothers tweens, Mom would drop is off in one location so we could spend a week hiking the Appalachian trail, and pick us up at a pre-determined ending location.”
Mine did the same thing, only I was ten or so and it was for the day at the Smithsonian from time to time. Friends have told me similar stories of themselves at the Franklin Institute in Philly or the Natural History Museum in NY.
Well, it’s funny because when I lived in Detroit all the outside courts were usually pretty busy in the summer, but now I’m in the boonies, and basketball is pretty popular out here. We have a rec center with indoor courts (small fee) and outdoor courts (free.) Kids come from Detroit or Flint thinking they’ll “own” the courts, but they don’t. They are some SERIOUS rec players here. Play all the time.
I think it’s cool.
Soccer?
Rugby, please. And I don’t mean any of that “League” crap either. And 7s for summer fun.
Tougher play than soccer, but cheaper than football…
Damn right. Or Oz Rules footie. Any sport that encourages its players to be drama queens if another player brushes by them too close, as soccer does, there’s probably an estrogen-doping problem.
Heh.
CNBC shows the difference between men and woman… a perfect exchange. Now Erin Burnett is a sweety and very cute. But Mark Haines is right.
Of course, the next day, he had to apologize for his
jokethought crime.Oh well.
And because I am probably going to hell anyway for taking Haines side above….RIP Gary Coleman.
Apparently women are in charge of sports television.
I have to imagine that Bob Reed’s mother would be thrown in jail for reckless child endangerment and god knows what else if she tried that in these More Enlightened Times. I mean, can you even legally leave a 10yr-old alone in the house these days? (I don’t have kids; that’s a serious question!)
and there is supposed to be no violence under any circumstances (heh).
actually, when played correctly soccer can be a very violent sport. My son played HS soccer and there wasn’t a fame he didn’t come home from bruised. He gave some good bruises too, was only red carded once (too blatent).
As far as cheap, when you have to drop over a c-note to buy good spikes, cheap has kind of gone out the window.
John,
Lots of things that Momma used to do would be considered CPS events these days.
I lived through, and came through all the better for it, in my opinion. Unfortunately, tolerance has led to more nut-jobs runnin’ round, so kids can’t enjoy the same degree of freedoms that my brothers and I used to in Maryland…
As sdferr mentioned, the Smithsonian, or the Capitol, was a lovely and safe place to wile away the afternoon back in the day. You had to suffer too long a line for the Washington monument on most summer or weekend days.
“…the Capitol…”
Ah yes, I’ve told the story before of a large gang of us tweenager/teenager kids back in the ’60’s, set loose from our work at early church service on Capitol Hill while our parents were busy with their work at 11:00: we headed straight for the doughnut shop and thence to the Capitol itself, where we ran the halls for half an hour or so without any trouble from the bemused guards. Nowadays, we couldn’t get near the joint.
When I was a kid a friends father would shovel the snow in their backyard into an roughly oval shaped ridge and spray water inside till we had a hockey rink for the winter. Every boy I knew owned hockey skates so only the stick was left to buy and one puck. Pads, helmets, say what? This was the 50’s.
#40 – oh yeah – I saw the Western Bulldogs on TV once (with some Aussies, in Baghdad, of all places) and two of their players got absolutely labeled…one guy had to have his ear partially stitched back into place, and the other guy didn’t even notice the blood from his head injury until he had to start to wipe it out of his eyes. He got patched up and back in too… Mighty impressive – they came back from way down to win, led by the dude with the ear stitching. For seeing that one match in 2008, I am now a Western Bulldogs fan for life.
LTC, I only got to see one Oz Rules match on TV, years ago, and already I know I’d be a big fan if it took hold here, or if I somehow managed to con them into letting me immigrate. Here’s a dome-scratcher for ya: I learned about the sport from Jacko (for non-clickers, not the late King of Pop) when that show was on.
#48: all you needed was a zamboni attachment for the lawn tractor and you would have been set.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
ESPN use to show Ozzie Football late night all the time back when ESPN was still cool. Amazing game, I watched it all the time. I remember they didn’t stop play for anything. A dude blew out his knee and had to be carted off on a stretcher, play continued around it. Coolest officials in all of sports, too.
#53 – that is how I was introduced to the game, lo those many years ago… And I will say, their officials really do keep it cool. And who else gets to make that fun run up to the posts, stop and signal goal or behind?
A very non-progg game.