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In honor of the upcoming soccer game ...

One thing is for sure, there has been an explosion of new soccer fields for the youth in the USA. It may still take off in a big way yet.
 
lefty said:
Re American football, I don't wish to get into a debate about the relative merits of different games.

I just want some one to tell me why a 'touch-down' is so named ??????

PS I like gridiron - edited highlights, that is !
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In the beginnings of the game, when someone crossed the goal line, they would touch the ball to the ground in the end-zone, rather like in rugby. Hence, Touch-Down.

JAMES
 
Cratermaker said:
One thing is for sure, there has been an explosion of new soccer fields for the youth in the USA. It may still take off in a big way yet.
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Soccer has been a very popular youth sport for decades now in the US, with boys and girls. For several election cycles now, politicians have made a point of identifying with the "soccer moms". What it is not is a media-fueled money machine like football, baseball, and basketball. Basketball especially has a very high profit margin, both at the college and professional levels.

I love football but I was always too small to play it in high school. You really need some size to play full contact sports. Our sport was condesended to by some (not all; maybe not even most) of the football players, as being for people who couldn't make to football team. I'm sure some of that attitude still survives, but the sport is much more widespread than when I played. I was in the best physical condition of my life when I was on the team, and had my highest grade point average acedemically.

I'm afraid what will have to happen for soccer to become a big pro sport in the US (assuming the big money sports owners here don't feel the need to undermine it) is the game would have to be modified to make it faster and higher scoring. IMO this has already happened with baseball and football. Before the introduction of the standardized "live" ball, baseball scores were similar to those in the World Cup. There were were no such things as Designated Hitters to run the score up - an abomination IMO; detracts from the purity of the game. Football IMO has, with a series of rule changes, been completely skewed toward the offense, both to boost scores, and to protect the highly-paid franchise players from taking too many hits to the body. I'd better stop here before I jack my blood pressure up.

JAMES
 
Eoraptor1 said:
COMPLETELY uninterested in opening that particular can of worms.
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Me neither, just wanted to make a half-witty remark. :d



Mathias said:
The US team earned quite some respect amongst football fans in the past years for their team play.:d
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Yeah, they got really good over the years. At least that's my impression.



Lewis-A2A said:
Bit of a shame really as a team sport that is actually on the world stage and they are quite good at yet the Americans dont seem all that bothered.
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Isn't european football quite a popular sport on colleges and universities in the US?
 
Bjoern said:
Knock 'em out as early as you can.

Italy...*Evil stare*
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Well we did our bit...
Sad that we don't go through to the next round, even though undefeated (a goalless draw with Paraguay the latest).

But Italy...
Italy is going to have a change of government!
 
stuartcox said:
Germany have only failed once in 72 years to reach the quarter finals...Impressive!
I'm hoping for a BoB reenactment!
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Remember Gary Lineker's famous words:

"Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins." Gary Lineker

;) Huub
 
huub vink said:
Remember Gary Lineker's famous words:

"Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins." Gary Lineker

;) Huub
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Do I detect a little national pride. LOL

:salute: (No thumbs Up GIF)
 
jmig said:
Do I detect a little national pride. LOL

:salute: (No thumbs Up GIF)
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Huub is Dutch, and probably still *sad* that they didn't win the 1974 final against us (Germany).
Just kiddin. But who knows, with much luck Holland can get a revenche this year.
Piece of cake for Germany: Beat England on Sunday, Argentinia in the quarter, Brazil in the Semi and Holland in the final. :engel016::d
 
huub vink said:
Remember Gary Lineker's famous words:

"Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins." Gary Lineker

;) Huub
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I've never seen that quoted accurately before. The version I'd heard ends "... and the Germans always win on penalties"

Looking forward to another penalty shootout on Sunday (and only slightly encouraged by Podolski missing one against Serbia) :frown:
 
cajj1 said:
I've never seen that quoted accurately before. The version I'd heard ends "... and the Germans always win on penalties"

Looking forward to another penalty shootout on Sunday (and only slightly encouraged by Podolski missing one against Serbia) :frown:
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And I bet he never said "SOCCER"!
 
I'm off to the "Biggen Hill International Air Fair" this weekend, especially commemorating the 70th aniversary of the BoB!
And guess what: They have big screens set up to satisfy the football fans! How ironic!:salute:
 
Well, it's all over for the USA.

The USA had every opportunity in the book of world-wide football the second half today and came up lame. They deserve to go down, at one time in the first half, Ghana controlled the ball for 5 minutes! The USA had no mid-field play or team ball control today whatsoever and two shots in the second half were "give-me" and they still muffed them. Our girls play better football than them.

Caz
 
Joooo cajj1, and Germany dis-qualifies England 4:1!
Ok, could have been 4:2 but that hadn't made a difference and I think we can finally lay the '66 Wembley goal to rest.
Talking about late satisfaction. :)
I bet the line referee had the distinct sensation of..."Wembley! No, not with me!". :wavey:
 
In spite of the rout today, the first 22 minutes of the second half was the absolute epitome of football. Both sides were in hand-to-hand combat, attack after attack until Mueller scored the third goal for Germany. The US could look at replays of Germany's fourth goal. Yesterday they had a give me like that, all the attacker would have to do is a little finesse kick to Donovan attacking from the right, but no, he has to be the star and kick the frikkin' ball right into the goalie's hands. Oezil could have easily taken that shot today, but he nicely lays it off to the right for Mueller. Football 101, A+.

Caz
 
huub vink said:
Remember Gary Lineker's famous words:

"Soccer is a game for 22 people that run around, play the ball, and one referee who makes a slew of mistakes, and in the end Germany always wins." Gary Lineker

;) Huub
Click to expand...

FIFA could do more to improve the officiating if they wanted. They act as if a goal buzzer like we have in every hockey arena in the United States would destroy the game. I'm always suspicious whenever there's a lot of money changing hands. I just saw a really fraked up call giving Argentina a goal which should have been offsides. That should not be happening at this level of play.

BTW: Congratulations to Ghana and Germany. Germany is my pick to take it all.

JAMES
 
stuartcox said:
And I bet he never said "SOCCER"!
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Could be, actually I heard the version with the penalties as well. When you do a "google" on this quote you will find quite some hits. But I found the quite here:

http://expertfootball.com/gossip/quotes.php?search=Gary_Lineker

Eoraptor1 said:
FIFA could do more to improve the officiating if they wanted.
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There is a strong movement in the football world which supports the use electronic devices. However an even stronger movement inside FIFA is against it. Don't you wonder why????

Cheers,
Huub
 
The text to an anglo-irish friend of mine after that near 2:2 was "REVENGE FOR WEMBLEY!". :icon_lol:

The final score totally blew my expectations! I was expecting a knifefight with one goal at best, but I got a Fall Gelb, BoB, North Africa and Dunkirk instead! It practically proved that Blitzkrieg still works these days. :icon_lol:

Regardless, kudos to both teams for an almost noteworthy amount of fairplay!
 
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