US National Team About to Sell Out Ravens Stadium

Some clarification is probably in order, since many of you most likely don't know what the Gold Cup is. Think of it like the World Baseball Classic. It's a tournament that takes place every two years among all the teams in North and Central American and the Caribbean. It's known as somewhat of a joke. I'm not sure how long it's going to be known as such.

The US vs. Puerto Rico match in the knockout round of the World Baseball Classic 2013 brought 19,000 fans to Miami Marlins Stadium.

The US vs. El Salvador match in the knockout round the Gold Cup 2013 is going to bring 70,000 fans to Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium.
 
wundergrape said:
Think of it like the World Baseball Classic.
Click to expand...

Except that it only involves North America, which houses pretty much zero soccer powerhouses. Just like Americans to think that any tournament with foreign countries is vs. the world, even though it only includes one continent.

All that said I try to watch all the USMN games, and was a bit upset I missed the match on Tuesday.

PS. US is playing their "B squad" in this tournament.
 
HawkeyeDug said:
Except that it only involves North America, which houses pretty much zero soccer powerhouses. Just like Americans to think that any tournament with foreign countries is vs. the world, even though it only includes one continent.

All that said I try to watch all the USMN games, and was a bit upset I missed the match on Tuesday.

PS. US is playing their "B squad" in this tournament.
Click to expand...

Huh? I don't think that. I said as much in my post. I'm pretty sure most Americans know that the World Cup is the one where it's U.S. vs. The World. I just don't think that most Americans know what the Gold Cup is, period.

However, I forsee that changing if they keep showing it on FOX and 70,000 people keep showing up for the games.
 
Trying to prove over and over how relevant soccer is to people makes it seem very irrelevant.

You are starting to act like pin2win with wrestling.
 
Well Fifa is by far my favorite video game to play. I also love to watch the U.S. compete. I'm a patriot at heart. The U.S. is dominant in pretty much everything, but soccer. Soccer is the world's most popular sport. I would love to see the U.S. get to the point where they are considered one of the best in the world.

Whether the U.S. is playing their "B" squad or not I don't know, but they are certainly getting better. Wondolowski or whatever his name is has been on fire lately.
 
Isnt Mexico pretty good? I saw the stars and bars beat Cuba the other night. This Wondo guy intrigues me, also Corona seemed very active.
 
Mexico's been playing horribly for the last six months, but yeah, they're always dangerous.

It's great to see Wondo playing so well. He's been scoring goals like crazy in MLS, but he was never able to do it for the national team before now. It always seemed like he was outclassed on that level. It's great for him, good for MLS, and great for the U.S. team to have another option up front. We could make some noise in Brazil...

Corona's good. He might crack the first team in the next couple of years. If you have enjoyed watching this team, you're gonna love seeing our "A" team. They're really clicking. Next World Cup Qualifier with the first team is September 6 vs Costa Rica, and then the big one is Sept. 10 vs Mexico. Gonna be fun to watch.
 
OLWPAORWWM said:
Seems to be a disconnect there.
Click to expand...

Well, this is dumb.

Me not caring about what section136 thinks of me does not mean that I am validating incorrect impressions of people not caring about other things.

Using the same word twice doesn't mean that you're talking about the same thing twice, OLWPAORWWM.
 
wundergrape said:
Well, this is dumb.

Me not caring about what section136 thinks of me does not mean that I am validating incorrect impressions of people not caring about other things.

Using the same word twice doesn't mean that you're talking about the same thing twice, OLWPAORWWM.
Click to expand...
Perhaps you and I inferred different meaning from what Section136 said then.
 
He compared me to a zealot of a dying sport. The sport I enjoy is thriving. His opinion is not only irrelevant, but wrong.

I was referring to his second point. He first is just silly. One overexcited fan can't diminish the very real and demonstrable growth of a sport.

But, yes, I'll admit that if I stated I didn't care about his first statement, it would be contradictory. That was not my intention, though.
 
I can't support a sport that still has a culture that quarters, beheads refs and the stakes the head in the middle of the pitch.

Soccer is more corrupt than Olympic judging. Maybe not in the US, but around the globe. Also, the 'hooligans' are the worst thing for any culture of sport.

Great values the sport has.
 
sportstalent said:
I can't support a sport that still has a culture that quarters, beheads refs and the stakes the head in the middle of the pitch.
Click to expand...
With all due respect, that's an idiotic statement. It is like saying Marathoning has a culture of setting off frag bombs to kill people in the middle of the road. One incident does not reflect on an entire "culture".
 
OLWPAORWWM said:
With all due respect, that's an idiotic statement. It is like saying Marathoning has a culture of setting off frag bombs to kill people in the middle of the road. One incident does not reflect on an entire "culture".
Click to expand...

Yeah because there is no other violence at all in Soccer...not idiotic at all. There are a lot of deaths from crowd stampedes, players getting shot because their team lost...know the history and violent nature of the sport off of the pitch and it is not a surprise this happened.

If Football had an instance like what happened in 'The Last Boy Scout' I would have a difficult time with liking the sport because what caused it.

It isn't an isolated incident, just one of the more gory ones that we know about. Get off the high horse here and think that was a blip on the radar. The history of the sport is ugly and hasn't done a whole lot to change my perception of the sport.

Check this out and this doesn't scratch the surface I have posted before, but just read...violence just doesn't happen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_hooliganism

What happened to Brian Stow doesn't reflect on the "culture" of MLB.
 
Last edited:
If hooliganism truly is the reason why you don't like soccer, more power to you. It doesn't really matter to me if people don't like the sport. The only thing that mystifies me is when these people claim that no one else does either. That's just blind.

However, it's an oversimplification to claim that soccer is responsible for violent fan behavior. Disaffected youth is not bred through sport.

Millions of soccer matches take place around the world with hundreds of millions of attendees every year without a single incident of violence. If hooliganism was inherent to the sport, we'd have seen it accompany MLS, and it hasn't...even while SF Giants fans are beaten into comas, Raiders' fans are shooting people, Indiana Pacers are punching people in Detroit's stands and fatal riots break out after Red Sox games.

You can say you hate sports, you can say you hate alcohol, you can say that you hate the economic policies which breed a hostile lower class, but to say you hate soccer is letting the tail wag the dog.

My best guess is, though, that you hate soccer just because you do, and you seize on its most undesirable elements to help you win an unwinable argument, which is that soccer is an "epic fail" in this country (your words).
 
At any rate, the game mentioned in the OP will be broadcast today at 3:30 EST on FOX.

Tune in to see the riot and/or beheading.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Share this page

Top