In Soccer, America’s Team Is European

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) The Olympic torch is out. Baseball is plodding along, one painfully drawn-out at-bat after the next. The U.S. Open tennis tournament is still 11 days away. College and professional football are floating even further in the distance.

But a lot of Americans are looking at this weekend’s sports calendar and thinking red meat: Saturday is the start of the Barclays Premier League season.

That’s football season, if you are reading this anywhere outside of the U.S. In the U.S., we of course call it soccer, as in the perennial question: Will soccer, the most popular sport on the planet, ever take hold here?

The answer is, it already has. It’s just not the U.S. version. Instead, we have fallen in love with England’s Premier League. So maybe we are ready for a new question: Can American soccer ever make it in America? .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-15/in-soccer-america-s-team-is-european.html

[SoapBox]

1. "as in the perennial question: Will soccer, the most popular sport on the planet, ever take hold..."

Not as long as the scoring is, like it was with the USA vs. MEX game last evening...

90 minutes and a final score of 1-0.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[charlie and algernon]

2. So I guess you didn't catch the perfect game yesterday that also ended in a 1-0 score

Defensive/pitching gems can be just as exciting as 10-8 shootouts.

[Renew Deal]

4. Nicely done

[Renew Deal]

3. This is dumb

The MLS is the only US sports league with growing attendance. Also, Americans follow several leagues. England is probably the most prominent because they speak english, get lots of TV coverage, and play an entertaining brand of soccer.

[a la izquierda]

5. My husband follows EPL...

I follow La Liga, and we both follow the MLS.

Though I'd argue with you about the speaking English part A few years back, I flipped through to FSC, and caught a ManU-Liverpool match, apparently narrated by fans. I couldn't understand a good goddamn thing either announcer said. I'd have had an easier time watching a Barca game narrated in Catalan.

[Upton]

6. That's FSC's Fan Zone..

those EPL games are just shown on tape with fans of each respective team commentating. I don't particularly like it either. However, the regular live EPL games have the British announcers..who I must say are far superior than anything the US offers.

[a la izquierda]

7. Oh, I know. I was partly kidding...

And yes, the British announcers are a million times better.
But it really was funny listening to the Queen's English...and not being able to understand a damn thing. My husband and I sat there completely stunned (and we have a good friend from Liverpool--can't understand him either, especially if he's drunk).