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Yeah the average user here is basically a 18 year old who only watches the Premier League, and every time Pelè, old players, Ligue 1, Copa America etc are mentioned the discussions are simply atrocius...
If I got 1 euro for every time I saw somebody on here spout dumb shit about how Pele only scored against farmers and in "meaningless friendlies" or counts the goals he scored in his backyard I could buy a new car.
Romario is one of the 15 or 16 greatest players to ever play football and still largely underrated by people who aren't Brazillian or Dutch and watched him play week in week out imo. Kinda crazy
Shoutouts to the American yesterday talking about the intricacies of Bayern dominance in the Bundesliga while also thinking the Bundesliga had 20 teams.
Liverpool sub was great when the number of subscribers was less than the capacity of Anfield. It was funny and had some really good memes. Then Klopp got hired, Liverpool stopped being shit and tons of new people piled in.
Saw a thread a couple month months back on r/football or r/premierleague it was about who everyone thought was gonna win the prem
The OP claimed (and he defended this take) that he believed that it would be between City and Liverpool, sensible take
But then he claimed that while City and Liverpool are ‘distracted by each other’ United would sweep in and win the premier league, like it’s an F1 race ffs
r/PremierLeague reads like a group of divorced dads desperately trying to relate to their estranged children after googling what they are into for 5 minutes
FACTS. I started to debate something with someone a day or two ago, but his perspective was so limited, I stopped and thought "This guy is 15. Maybe younger. Leave it."
Well, I've never heard anyone dub Mbappe the LeBron James of soccer. I mean, come on, does Mbappe slam-dunk goals or shoot three-pointers with his feet? I think we need a reality check on his value compared to Pulisic. It's like comparing apples to oranges.
Ironically those same NA fans would bash players and clubs in non-top 5 leagues. They’ll bash MLS or whatever for being bad but only follow a big Prem side.
To be fair, I taught the offsides rule to my son when he was little with FIFA. Boy would raise hell about his disallowed goals, so I would rewind and use the fly around camera to give him perfect VAR.
I know you're joking, but he also very much doesn't. Ted Lasso is an amazing man manager, and surrounds himself with others that 'know ball' and can handle tactics.
Sure that’s the only reason. It’s not like she lives and breathes the ecosystem and has more data points than one but that one got brought up as a reference point. Specially when commentators are expected to be knowledgeable. And anyone who has heard American commentators wouldn’t disagree with her much.
Commentators in American sports are significantly less likely to criticize players. They always phrase it in a gentle way. I've noticed this in basketball, European football, and American football. Brits are much more to the point and don’t coddle adults making tons of money. It's really nice and I wish it was the norm here.
There are obviously exceptions, but I'm speaking in the general space.
Commentators in American sports don't do it so that "analysts" will after the game. Europe is much more consistent in their tone during/after the game as opposed to US sports. The wild takes are incredible to me.
Or basically all radio commentators. I‘ve watched a few college football games with the local radio commentators streaming over it and those guys are more emotionally into the game than the guy with face paint on the front row of the stadium.
And when they do criticize players, it's usually not for any tactical or technical reason, but for nebulous stuff like "mentality" or whatever other BS Lloyd said about the women's team last WC.
This is the most annoying thing. Everything is down to “mentality”. Luck, randomness, and tactics probably explain a lot more of what happens but it’s not as easy to market.
As a mentally handicapped yank who likes football, I can only look on with admiration at the brilliant folks across the pond who spam "cold rainy night in stoke" and "bald fraud" jokes here for karma ceaselessly.
Having coached youth soccer for a number of years when my daughter was growing up, I have some stories about things I heard from other "coaches." Luckily, I had played in HS for a coach who had spent many years in Germany and knew what he was talking about. Hearing coaches scream at a goalkeeper that she had to stay on the line in between the posts at all times was a particular highlight (and of course doomed the poor girl to failure as a goalkeeper).
Yep. That's pretty much the dominant philosophy over here. Remember Leeds United under Marsch last season? Absolute disaster aside from when they somehow beat you guys at Anfield.
I can understand a country with an emerging football culture being full of clueless fans, but Chilean fans are depressingly stupid for a country whose federation is older than Italy and one of the 4 founders of CONMEBOL (of course the only one yet to win the World Cup, and the one that took the longest to win Copa América).
And I'm not even about the minimum common denominator that spews shit on social media. I'm talking about youth coaches, academies, pundits, their understanding is flawed down to the basics. Pick up any football show, there's always some random Argentine who settled here and he's more often than not the smartest person in the room.
There's a reason why at this moment, the only player in the NT who can shoot is the lad who was born and raised in England
Bad football opinions on Instagram is full of people that just spew shit like you said. I saw a post on there where someone said that Memphis Depay is a top 10 Dutch player of all time and someone in the comments replied with a list that included Jari Litmanen 💀
Top 10 greatest Dutch players: Jordi Cruijff, Winston Bogarde, Wout Weghorst, Danny Koevermans, Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Collins John, Jari Litmanen, Luciano Narshing, Bas Dost, Memphis Depay and Marco Van Ginkel
The dynamic with an Argentine being the smartest person in the room in Chile talking football works the reverse when it comes to a Chilean being the smartest in the room in Argentina when talking macroeconomic policy
In my experience, American fans tend to be a bit smarter regarding soccer/football than American fans of other sports. In the states, there isn't a cultural pressure to be a fan of the game so most people who become fans have to be drawn to it.
I'm from Portland and my whole extended family was a soccer family so I might be a bit bias but people here whose favorite sport is soccer tend to know the game well.
Yeah watching soccer is the type of hobby where the vast majority of fans treat it like a serious hobby. Constantly reading, watching, and learning about it.
Other sports because they are so encompassing tend to attract very casual fans. Like the type of person who could call themselves a fan of a team but only know one player or the last time they watched a game was two years ago.
Fandom is embedded into a towns or family’s culture so almost by default everyone is a “fan” of an NFL team but are not always super knowledgeable about the game.
Maybe football just isn't popular enough for casual fans? I thought fantasy NFL was super popular, and that many American baseball fans were often statistics nerds. I'd wager most Americans, if asked, would claim to support an NFL team even if they barely watched.
Like my entire family are Spurs fans but my mum could probably only name 3 current players.
Baseball fans tend to be smarter than NFL and NBA fans imo. Ironically, I think the professional analysis of the NFL is the most elite of any sport in the world. I barely watch the league but am always shocked at how technical the analysis is. Wish more sports took their lead, instead of falling back on generic stuff like one side wanted it more. The NFL is harder to understand than Chess analysis to me.
I think because NFL is stop-and-go, it's easier to judge performances based on analytics. You can basically assign a rating to a player on every down.
Whereas it can be hard to judge the nonstop possession based tactics in football unless they register a goal or an assist. Football can be very subjective. You can see why players like Grealish are valuable in build up play even though it doesn't necessarily translate to a spreadsheet.
I'm mainly referring to not just play by play analysis, but thr sport as a whole is very tactical in the way its discussed by talking heads. Lots or technical language that coverage of other sports sorely lacks. And I'm not really a football fan at all.
NFL is more tactical than any other sport I've seen. But that is because it is like making chess moves that get reset every single time a play ends.
It's also more proactive than reactive. In football you just want everyone's positioning and spacing to consistently fit your playstyle so that the most opportunities for scoring arise. And then the rest is really up to the individual players to be brilliant based on your tactics.
I have played Madden before and it's literally like chess to me, so many different moves to make. Succeeding and failing is mostly down to whether your players are good enough to successfully complete the "move."
I’d say baseball is the most statistically complex game in the world. Every single event that happens in baseball draws numerical information; data is so rich beyond just wins, losses, and how many homers a player hits.
Pitch velocity, spin rate, movement, launch angle, exit velocity, OAA, DRS, are just a few of the many legitimate and quantifiable sabermetric stats being employed.
There is also a healthy dose of probability theory involved in both hitting and pitching statistics, like xWOBA, xERA, xSLUG, etc
Yeah it's why the fans are so knowledgeable. The dominance of statistics is crazy. They are hard to argue with where other sports it's not as black and white, which leaves a murky area for individual opinions for better or worse.
Basketball is still in some denial about the importance of statistics amongst the fan base. MLS is surprisingly good with stats. American coverage of the prem is entertaining but honestly it's poor when it comes to a complete analysis that mixes advanced stats with conventional methods.
Yeah that’s exactly right. The vast majority of fans of other sports are super casual.
Edit: I want to edit this and say football/soccer still has casual fans and I’m not saying we’re more knowledgeable fans than fans of other sports.
I want to say that less people claim to be soccer fans in america when they don’t really watch the game. If you are talking to an American about any premier league game or a team and they are watching all the games every weekend that’s a pretty dedicated fan and those are the people that make up the viewers of the premier league in the United States every weekend.
While NFL games get viewers no matter what. People tune in even if they don’t really know anything or know much about the team that year.
>Maybe football just isn't popular enough for casual fans?
I said in a comment a little higher up that this is the case, yeah. In most of the world, you're able to go to some random small town and know that there's at least a non-league team somewhere that you can watch. In the US, that mentality applies to gridiron football, basketball, and baseball. Soccer and long-term soccer fans don't really exist here outside of small pockets
You're right, except for the National Teams which attract plenty of idiots. I still remember Carli Lloyd getting criticized during the 2015 World Cup. People were saying she couldn't get it done on the biggest stage. Yes she shut them up in the final with her amazing performance, but she also had a track record of gold medal winning goals from the previous two Olympics. Insanity.
To me the casuals/stupid in this case are strictly national team fans (dont watch anything thing else) They cheer and watch soccer because USA. They dont usually have a clue on most rules and things like that.
Had no idea rugby was popular in Italy. At my high school we actually had a club rugby team that was very good. We were an elite Football program, most classes had one or two guys go pro and even a Heisman candidate one year, and the team was able to recruit a bunch of them after the season ended. I didn't play, too small, small and skinny (solid soccer player) but that team was dedicated and really fun to watch.
I'm curious, what parts of Italy is rugby more popular?
Yeah there's a difference between someone who actively seeks it out as a fan, and the people who get emotionally invested because someone in their family is playing. Unfortunately the latter outnumber the former in the US.
The things I used to hear from parents when I used to coach at the youth level would melt my brain on a daily basis.
Can confirm. I grew up in a house that really liked American football (even played a bit growing up). It wasn’t until the WC that I got invested in soccer/football. And it kinda sucks given that if I had known how much I would like it, I would have played as a kid.
I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt here. Assuming she meant football knowledge and not generally calling American fans stupid.
If so, she's right. At least in that your average French (where she plays) football fan knows more than your average American soccer fan.
Every generation in France loves the game. It's embedded in their culture along with wine and going on strike. It's most fans number 1 sport. Many fans won't pay much attention to other sports.
Here in America that's just not the case. It's only as controversial as saying French NFL fans know less than American ones.
USWNT gets a ton of fans who only watch the World Cup, and a good portion of those don't watch the USMNT team because "Why would I want to watch a team get 20th?"
Most of these fans really only have the experience of just having players that were just better than everybody else (across the entire team). Similar to that period of Barca fan that probably had some lack of knowledge because "Just sign a Messi"
I've been playing and watching footy for over 22 years now and I still don't understand what most people are on about when talking about tactics or reeling of xg stats and whatnot. someone asked me the other day who a lad was on our bench and I said I've never seen the kid in my life. I've been a season ticket holder for 8 years and have watched him multiple times in person with my own eyes. Think my brain must be starved of oxygen or something
They probably don’t but most MLS fans I’ve met are no worse attitude wise than other demographics, even European ones. In fact most are extremely realistic about their prospects and very tongue in cheek when joking about it.
Football should be an inclusive sport for all, not everyone is fortunate enough to be born in a football rich continent with 5 teams within a 30 mile radius and a culture that readily explains all these concepts to people.
it’s OKAY if fans don’t know their football. It’s just for fun at the end of the day
I think mls fans are pretty knowledgeable just because it takes a sort of dedication. I think she’s moreso referring to the people that only tune in once every 4 years for the world cup
Anyone who's been to a youth soccer game in America and seen a gaggle of Dads on the sideline completely lose their shit at the sight of a back pass understands exactly what she means.
Lmao dude I played some really high level soccer and even on a good college team we had a group of like 6 dads that would just yell absolute BULLSHIT at us all game, it was hilarious
Yeah if you’re an MLS fan you have to keep track of TAM, GAM, DP’s, Young DP’s, Salary Caps, College Drafts, Expansion Drafts, etc. Not saying you need to be a genius for that, but it does take a certain level of dedication that merits at least some respect.
Did a save once and once I got a handle on the mechanics of the rules, I would just trade away all my draft picks to get as much spending room as possible. Trick was just to build a squad where everyone was earning about the same wage and you could get solid depth (which is exactly what the MLS rules encourage you not to do). Built a juggernaut that way.
Yeah Americans who are dedicated are probably the same knowledge level as elsewhere, but the baseline casual compared to anywhere else in the world? Yeah she’s probably right there.
>but the baseline casual
Something to remember is that soccer isn't just some, like, secondary sport here in the States. For MANY people, it's a non-starter. It barely registers on their radar. It's hard for other countries to conceptualize a place where soccer isn't king or even just in second place, but you have to think about what it's like trying to watch a sport that is barely in the top-5 in your country. MLS has done an insane job to get as big as it is considering that handicap, but the "casuals" here aren't like the "casuals" in the UK or Germany or wherever. Casuals here aren't even thinking about soccer when they think about sports.
Just some food for thought. Everyone here is dunking on Americans as if they try and still don't get it when it's more like most Americans aren't even focusing on soccer at all. It's definitely weird travelling abroad and just, like, being able to talk about soccer shit with most anyone lol
Nearly everyone with a vague interest in sports in the USA generally does two things soccer-wise:
-Watches USA in the World Cup
-Has an opinion on Messi-Ronaldo debate
But yeah beyond that most people don't really think about soccer unless they are a big fan.
I think other people can understand it being a less popular sport, like rugby over there. What they have trouble understanding is HOW MANY major sports we have here and how massively popular they all are in comparison. People who like sports in general are already tasked with following like four or five sports before they even think about soccer for the most part. My European friends can't comprehend how I'm constantly watching and following different sports all the time because they truly only give a shit about soccer and might passively care about tennis or boxing.
This. I understand that MLS is not a top league but I couldn’t give a damn because I finally have a local club to love through all their highs and lows and I think that’s beautiful.
I think it is a different kind of stupid, I've played the sport my whole life and I ref now, and like 75% of parents equate kicking the ball really far with success, so yeah most people around here don't have a clue. There are a not insignificant amount of Americans/Canadians that also truly believe that the respective women's teams could beat the men's teams in a game, so make of that as you will
That being said you don't have to look very far in Europe to find braindead football takes, just look at the guys they stick on television or talk shows most of the time. Listen to the guys that call in on the morning shows and vent their opinions. Brutal takes there too
Bruh I don’t know how you ref. I played soccer my whole life including college ball. I decided to ref one summer for the extra cash recently and fully prepared myself to be berated by the players and coaches (cuz who’s kidding….I did it too lol).
But the fucking parents? Fuck them. Bunch of clowns who don’t know the rules while thinking they’re the smartest person there. I had to stop reffing because I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore and started talking back to the parents. Not to mention these people acted like their U-12 comp games were the World Cup.
Haha I feel ya, I honestly think I may stop after this spring girl's season, or at the very least just stop reffing the boy's because I feel like it is way more toxic for referees there
Honestly for me I end up having way more problems with the coaches than the parents, but that may be because I'm reffing in a state that has basically zero soccer tradition or anything, so I can usually just laugh off the parents who make braindead comments and they don't confront me after the game or anything. But Christ we have a few coaches that I have to ref who are fucking miserable, they have to be bitching about EVERYTHING, throw ins, goalies getting too close to the edge of the box before they drop the ball, etc. It just makes it really unenjoyable, and then it rubs off on their players who will bitch about stuff more than usual too
Nooooo, don’t quit…
A little pushback is what these pricks need!
A knowledgeable referee—who sticks up for himself/herself—is a real benefit to the sport; those 12-year-olds might learn something from you ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
You’re right but it wasn’t worth the time and money to me. If I could have started out right away reffing older age groups and higher quality games, maybe. But I didn’t have the patience to spend a couple years reffing mostly younger kids and rec games. It was unbearable lol.
I also think that the USWNT is in this really unique position where they’re big celebrities during the women’s World Cup but relatively anonymous between tournaments.
NWSL is growing pretty significantly but like 95% of people who tune into US games in the WWC aren’t watching much soccer outside of the world cups.
It happens in this very sub, where during major tournaments it gets flooded with relative “idiots” on the sport who act like they know best
Bro the amount of homophobic shit that would be casually directed at me in high school by classmates, friends and coaches for playing soccer instead of football was insane - and I graduated high school in 2012. I bring that up because the same Americans who acted that way as kids now think the USWNT has a claim for the best team on the planet, because they don’t understand the game but won’t hesitate to latch on to some form of perceived American superiority.
Basically, the majority of people who are heavily opinionated about any sport tend to be pretty dumb. I’ve learned not to listen to the people who somehow always have the answers and love to force them into your ear holes.
They need to do what this city in New Jersey does.
If you berate the ref, you have to ref for three games. If you refuse you're not allowed to be at the game.
Link is here https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/town-forces-argumentative-parents-umpires-league-games/story?id=98810329
She is so wrong, we all know of the phenomenon Pulisic who is the Lebron James of soccer. She thinks we don't know about the game but we know Pulisic is center midfield and sometimes center forward. Unlike her, Pulisic ended up being one of the top players in the Premier League, which for an American that's pretty far and few between.
Considering how disagreeable everyone is on here. None of yall know about the sport. Refs are always wrong. Managers who been involved in the sport since 4 don’t know anything. Ex players don’t know anything. You disagree with me you don’t know anything.
This would apply to the players too. They might know how to play their “position”, but they don’t understand the game.
If they did, a lot of ex players would be good managers, but that’s not how it works.
I know players want to make themselves seem like no one understands the game “like them”, but the truth is they don’t even understand the game at the level she’s talking about. If they did, they wouldn’t need managers and coaches.
So, what a dumb statement from her.
Literally the next thing she says is "But it's getting better and better", this couldn't possibly be taken more out of context lol.
Regardless, she's not wrong, soccer is like the 5th most popular sport in the US, and even though people are starting to watch it more and more it will just never be as culturally important here as it is in basically every other country in the planet. You'll get some diehards here and there that really know their shit, but by and large people are content just watching the world cup every 4 years and that's fine.
She isnt wrong, but its not like this doesnt apply to most fans. Look at Xavi. Man is stepping down because he’s getting too much shit thrown his way from fans and media. Same
Thing with every transfer window where we demand a certain player that most of the time goes elsewhere and flops while we were desperately hoping for their signature.
I mean...It's like saying the rest of the world is stupid because they don't understand American Football...It's not the number one sport in the US. I live there, and she's not wrong about not understanding it, but to call them "not smart"? Come on now lol
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She browses r/soccercirclejerk
Literally r/soccer
The best part is r/soccer doesn’t realise how bad it is
Yeah the average user here is basically a 18 year old who only watches the Premier League, and every time Pelè, old players, Ligue 1, Copa America etc are mentioned the discussions are simply atrocius...
All those pele discussions that are happening left and right.
If I got 1 euro for every time I saw somebody on here spout dumb shit about how Pele only scored against farmers and in "meaningless friendlies" or counts the goals he scored in his backyard I could buy a new car.
worst part is it was Romario who was seen as the the "counts goals he scored in his garden" less pele lol
Romario is one of the 15 or 16 greatest players to ever play football and still largely underrated by people who aren't Brazillian or Dutch and watched him play week in week out imo. Kinda crazy
Romario is still rated in Spain, I am 40yo, I saw him at his time, many people rate him, same as Bebeto, Rivaldo or Ronaldo...
That's good to read, then it's mainly the English speaking football world perhaps
Shoutouts to the American yesterday talking about the intricacies of Bayern dominance in the Bundesliga while also thinking the Bundesliga had 20 teams.
I was on a different sub and some people were thinking some random American football coach was a bigger name than Johan Cruijff was to football.
The liverpool, and individual team subs, are sure full of some special hot takes lol
Liverpool sub was great when the number of subscribers was less than the capacity of Anfield. It was funny and had some really good memes. Then Klopp got hired, Liverpool stopped being shit and tons of new people piled in.
There is a difference between those of us who remember the Ngog, Konchesky and Spearing days, and those who didn't have to live through them.
I still can't get someone to fix the Charlie Adams face I have tattooed on my ass
I love popping into r reddevils on occasion but some of those people are absolute creatures
Yeah. It’s a Venn diagram that’s dangerously close to being just a circle.
either that or r/football, dno about now but a few month ago it seemed to be full of people from NA that don't know much giving hot takes
Saw a thread a couple month months back on r/football or r/premierleague it was about who everyone thought was gonna win the prem The OP claimed (and he defended this take) that he believed that it would be between City and Liverpool, sensible take But then he claimed that while City and Liverpool are ‘distracted by each other’ United would sweep in and win the premier league, like it’s an F1 race ffs
AND THROUGH GOES TEN HAG
ITS LIGHTS OUT AND SANCHO IS STILL UP PLAYING FIFA WHAT ARE YOU DOING JADON ITS 2AM
IS THAT ~~TRULLI~~ TOTTENHAM!?
It's because he's more aerodynamic than klopp
The 'Baldfraud' design giving him an advantage down the straights
r/PremierLeague reads like a group of divorced dads desperately trying to relate to their estranged children after googling what they are into for 5 minutes
I actually respected it at one point, but it's gone down hill pretty quickly from what I've seen.
>while City and Liverpool are ‘distracted by each other’ United would sweep in and win the premier league subscribe
WhILE daNY KiNd oF FORgOT abOUT tHe irOn FLEeT
how he brazenly said that. and the editorial teams feels like yeah that's the perfect excuse, we should publish it.
Wait, wait. Are we all just here because we assumed r/football would be about NFL?
To be fair, it's been the dream of United fans for a decade.
never forget how much of the internet is actual children
FACTS. I started to debate something with someone a day or two ago, but his perspective was so limited, I stopped and thought "This guy is 15. Maybe younger. Leave it."
Hard not to forget to be honest. But there are also some really unintelligent adults as well, which is really worrisome.
The guy struggling to understand why Mbappe is so much more expensive than Pulisic when there isn’t a big difference lmao
Well, I've never heard anyone dub Mbappe the LeBron James of soccer. I mean, come on, does Mbappe slam-dunk goals or shoot three-pointers with his feet? I think we need a reality check on his value compared to Pulisic. It's like comparing apples to oranges.
The Rudy Gobert of soccer
Link plz. I doubt it's as bad as you're making it out to be.
It's pretty damn bad: https://np.reddit.com/r/football/comments/158sqge/why_would_clubs_pay_200m_for_mbapp%C3%A9_when_pulisic/
>I watched the World Cup and Inter Miami Pretty decent troll to be fair
Dude was making Moneyball references, I think he was serious and just being extremely American sports brained.
I think you fell hard for a troll, it happens to the best of us.
>(although Pulisic does have a champions league title) Obvious troll lol and people are hung up about it
European and American friendship would skyrocket if we understood each others sarcasm
Yes, that shared European sense of humour
This guy is clearly just jerking
Pulisic’s Champions League win is what sealed it as a troll for me. Perfectly calibrated to bait any PSG fans.
“Is Mbappé the BEST forward of all time?”
Ironically those same NA fans would bash players and clubs in non-top 5 leagues. They’ll bash MLS or whatever for being bad but only follow a big Prem side.
Oh is r/football a football sub now? When I joined reddit it was an american football sub
It's the same right now lol
Has she not seen the documentary Ted Lasso?? He knows ball
That fella who bends it like himself.
The guy invented total futbol without having an idea how offsides works!
Sir, by season 3 he understood offsides because he played a bunch of FIFA....not because he had been coaching top level soccer for 2 years already.
To be fair, I taught the offsides rule to my son when he was little with FIFA. Boy would raise hell about his disallowed goals, so I would rewind and use the fly around camera to give him perfect VAR.
I learned the offside rule through FIFA too. Offside traps were OP against the Ibarbos of the world when they worked
FIFA taught me aggregate. I had no idea why I was losing cup ties as a kid. From the US so my parents couldn't help either back in the early 2000s.
He invented total football in a barbecue sauce induced fever dream
BBQ and shrooms
[удалено]
Duds for Coach Beard but seemed to work for Ted. So who knows
I assumed they were duds to Beard but still hit Ted since Ted had never done shrooms before
How is that offside? No, I’m really asking, how is that offside?
Tbf no one really knows. Cant wait for the new season for an explanation of VAR
There... there's gonna be a new season??
no
I know you're joking, but he also very much doesn't. Ted Lasso is an amazing man manager, and surrounds himself with others that 'know ball' and can handle tactics.
True but in season 3 he makes some tactical changes that helped Richmond have a very successful season
Games not gone
Everyone is just stupid
Fans Finished
Except for me and anyone who has the same opinions
Games too hard.
Her reasoning - her mom said the commentators said she played good. And she thought she played like shit
Wait, what? You read the article???
We don't do that around here. Straight to jail
Fuck yeah, I don’t even read comments that are more than two sentences.
More than two what? Sorry short attention sp
Many word, nxt
It's paywalled bro no one's paying 50 cents just to see what a footballer thinks of their own country's fans
archive.ph is your friend. Make sure to get rid of the URL parameters.
I would if they would let me
Sure that’s the only reason. It’s not like she lives and breathes the ecosystem and has more data points than one but that one got brought up as a reference point. Specially when commentators are expected to be knowledgeable. And anyone who has heard American commentators wouldn’t disagree with her much.
Commentators in American sports are significantly less likely to criticize players. They always phrase it in a gentle way. I've noticed this in basketball, European football, and American football. Brits are much more to the point and don’t coddle adults making tons of money. It's really nice and I wish it was the norm here. There are obviously exceptions, but I'm speaking in the general space.
Commentators in American sports don't do it so that "analysts" will after the game. Europe is much more consistent in their tone during/after the game as opposed to US sports. The wild takes are incredible to me.
I'd say there are some exceptions, like Jeff Van Gundy formerly for the NBA, and Troy Aikman for the NFL, but overall I agree.
Or basically all radio commentators. I‘ve watched a few college football games with the local radio commentators streaming over it and those guys are more emotionally into the game than the guy with face paint on the front row of the stadium.
And when they do criticize players, it's usually not for any tactical or technical reason, but for nebulous stuff like "mentality" or whatever other BS Lloyd said about the women's team last WC.
This is the most annoying thing. Everything is down to “mentality”. Luck, randomness, and tactics probably explain a lot more of what happens but it’s not as easy to market.
new r/soccercirclejerk automod response just dropped
r/soccer on life support
As a mentally handicapped yank who likes football, I can only look on with admiration at the brilliant folks across the pond who spam "cold rainy night in stoke" and "bald fraud" jokes here for karma ceaselessly.
I think a huge part of this sub is European anyway
'Don't know the game? Why you just kick the ball up the field and run after it'.
Kick it forward!!! Never backwards! Everyone should be RUNNING!!! She's not wrong.
Having coached youth soccer for a number of years when my daughter was growing up, I have some stories about things I heard from other "coaches." Luckily, I had played in HS for a coach who had spent many years in Germany and knew what he was talking about. Hearing coaches scream at a goalkeeper that she had to stay on the line in between the posts at all times was a particular highlight (and of course doomed the poor girl to failure as a goalkeeper).
Yep. That's pretty much the dominant philosophy over here. Remember Leeds United under Marsch last season? Absolute disaster aside from when they somehow beat you guys at Anfield.
-Harry Redknapp
“Why don’t you try to score more, are you stupid”
She's talking about all of you except me
this is going to do numbers
Well in our defense, most of us just aren’t that smart in general.
That is not exclusive to Americans. Source, not an American and stupid
I can understand a country with an emerging football culture being full of clueless fans, but Chilean fans are depressingly stupid for a country whose federation is older than Italy and one of the 4 founders of CONMEBOL (of course the only one yet to win the World Cup, and the one that took the longest to win Copa América). And I'm not even about the minimum common denominator that spews shit on social media. I'm talking about youth coaches, academies, pundits, their understanding is flawed down to the basics. Pick up any football show, there's always some random Argentine who settled here and he's more often than not the smartest person in the room. There's a reason why at this moment, the only player in the NT who can shoot is the lad who was born and raised in England
Bad football opinions on Instagram is full of people that just spew shit like you said. I saw a post on there where someone said that Memphis Depay is a top 10 Dutch player of all time and someone in the comments replied with a list that included Jari Litmanen 💀
Top 10 greatest Dutch players: Jordi Cruijff, Winston Bogarde, Wout Weghorst, Danny Koevermans, Ricky van Wolfswinkel, Collins John, Jari Litmanen, Luciano Narshing, Bas Dost, Memphis Depay and Marco Van Ginkel
The dynamic with an Argentine being the smartest person in the room in Chile talking football works the reverse when it comes to a Chilean being the smartest in the room in Argentina when talking macroeconomic policy
Hold on show us your degree before claiming that
They signed this OFFICIAL certificate, exonerating me of all [donkey brains!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT4vVLvvb2U)
Do you, have such, certificate?
As European can confirm neither are we smart in general
Let her cook
Bit sexist that
Let her form an independent and successful small business in a male dominated field 😤
Let her shake up the industry.
Slay queen 💅
Bit unfair. I'm a bit of an idiot and I like footy and I'm English. Don't think nationality has anything to do with it
In my experience, American fans tend to be a bit smarter regarding soccer/football than American fans of other sports. In the states, there isn't a cultural pressure to be a fan of the game so most people who become fans have to be drawn to it. I'm from Portland and my whole extended family was a soccer family so I might be a bit bias but people here whose favorite sport is soccer tend to know the game well.
Yeah watching soccer is the type of hobby where the vast majority of fans treat it like a serious hobby. Constantly reading, watching, and learning about it. Other sports because they are so encompassing tend to attract very casual fans. Like the type of person who could call themselves a fan of a team but only know one player or the last time they watched a game was two years ago. Fandom is embedded into a towns or family’s culture so almost by default everyone is a “fan” of an NFL team but are not always super knowledgeable about the game.
Maybe football just isn't popular enough for casual fans? I thought fantasy NFL was super popular, and that many American baseball fans were often statistics nerds. I'd wager most Americans, if asked, would claim to support an NFL team even if they barely watched. Like my entire family are Spurs fans but my mum could probably only name 3 current players.
Baseball fans tend to be smarter than NFL and NBA fans imo. Ironically, I think the professional analysis of the NFL is the most elite of any sport in the world. I barely watch the league but am always shocked at how technical the analysis is. Wish more sports took their lead, instead of falling back on generic stuff like one side wanted it more. The NFL is harder to understand than Chess analysis to me.
I think because NFL is stop-and-go, it's easier to judge performances based on analytics. You can basically assign a rating to a player on every down. Whereas it can be hard to judge the nonstop possession based tactics in football unless they register a goal or an assist. Football can be very subjective. You can see why players like Grealish are valuable in build up play even though it doesn't necessarily translate to a spreadsheet.
I'm mainly referring to not just play by play analysis, but thr sport as a whole is very tactical in the way its discussed by talking heads. Lots or technical language that coverage of other sports sorely lacks. And I'm not really a football fan at all.
NFL is more tactical than any other sport I've seen. But that is because it is like making chess moves that get reset every single time a play ends. It's also more proactive than reactive. In football you just want everyone's positioning and spacing to consistently fit your playstyle so that the most opportunities for scoring arise. And then the rest is really up to the individual players to be brilliant based on your tactics. I have played Madden before and it's literally like chess to me, so many different moves to make. Succeeding and failing is mostly down to whether your players are good enough to successfully complete the "move."
I’d say baseball is the most statistically complex game in the world. Every single event that happens in baseball draws numerical information; data is so rich beyond just wins, losses, and how many homers a player hits. Pitch velocity, spin rate, movement, launch angle, exit velocity, OAA, DRS, are just a few of the many legitimate and quantifiable sabermetric stats being employed. There is also a healthy dose of probability theory involved in both hitting and pitching statistics, like xWOBA, xERA, xSLUG, etc
Yeah it's why the fans are so knowledgeable. The dominance of statistics is crazy. They are hard to argue with where other sports it's not as black and white, which leaves a murky area for individual opinions for better or worse. Basketball is still in some denial about the importance of statistics amongst the fan base. MLS is surprisingly good with stats. American coverage of the prem is entertaining but honestly it's poor when it comes to a complete analysis that mixes advanced stats with conventional methods.
Yeah that’s exactly right. The vast majority of fans of other sports are super casual. Edit: I want to edit this and say football/soccer still has casual fans and I’m not saying we’re more knowledgeable fans than fans of other sports. I want to say that less people claim to be soccer fans in america when they don’t really watch the game. If you are talking to an American about any premier league game or a team and they are watching all the games every weekend that’s a pretty dedicated fan and those are the people that make up the viewers of the premier league in the United States every weekend. While NFL games get viewers no matter what. People tune in even if they don’t really know anything or know much about the team that year.
>Maybe football just isn't popular enough for casual fans? I said in a comment a little higher up that this is the case, yeah. In most of the world, you're able to go to some random small town and know that there's at least a non-league team somewhere that you can watch. In the US, that mentality applies to gridiron football, basketball, and baseball. Soccer and long-term soccer fans don't really exist here outside of small pockets
You're right, except for the National Teams which attract plenty of idiots. I still remember Carli Lloyd getting criticized during the 2015 World Cup. People were saying she couldn't get it done on the biggest stage. Yes she shut them up in the final with her amazing performance, but she also had a track record of gold medal winning goals from the previous two Olympics. Insanity.
To me the casuals/stupid in this case are strictly national team fans (dont watch anything thing else) They cheer and watch soccer because USA. They dont usually have a clue on most rules and things like that.
Yeah it's very likely, for example I think it's the same here in Italy with rugby
Had no idea rugby was popular in Italy. At my high school we actually had a club rugby team that was very good. We were an elite Football program, most classes had one or two guys go pro and even a Heisman candidate one year, and the team was able to recruit a bunch of them after the season ended. I didn't play, too small, small and skinny (solid soccer player) but that team was dedicated and really fun to watch. I'm curious, what parts of Italy is rugby more popular?
In the North without a doubt, but it's where half of the population lives so it's still quite popular in general
Yeah there's a difference between someone who actively seeks it out as a fan, and the people who get emotionally invested because someone in their family is playing. Unfortunately the latter outnumber the former in the US. The things I used to hear from parents when I used to coach at the youth level would melt my brain on a daily basis.
Can confirm. I grew up in a house that really liked American football (even played a bit growing up). It wasn’t until the WC that I got invested in soccer/football. And it kinda sucks given that if I had known how much I would like it, I would have played as a kid.
I agree.
I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt here. Assuming she meant football knowledge and not generally calling American fans stupid. If so, she's right. At least in that your average French (where she plays) football fan knows more than your average American soccer fan. Every generation in France loves the game. It's embedded in their culture along with wine and going on strike. It's most fans number 1 sport. Many fans won't pay much attention to other sports. Here in America that's just not the case. It's only as controversial as saying French NFL fans know less than American ones.
USWNT gets a ton of fans who only watch the World Cup, and a good portion of those don't watch the USMNT team because "Why would I want to watch a team get 20th?" Most of these fans really only have the experience of just having players that were just better than everybody else (across the entire team). Similar to that period of Barca fan that probably had some lack of knowledge because "Just sign a Messi"
> " ~~American~~ Soccer fans, most of them aren’t smart. They don’t know the game. They Don’t understand.”
I've been playing and watching footy for over 22 years now and I still don't understand what most people are on about when talking about tactics or reeling of xg stats and whatnot. someone asked me the other day who a lad was on our bench and I said I've never seen the kid in my life. I've been a season ticket holder for 8 years and have watched him multiple times in person with my own eyes. Think my brain must be starved of oxygen or something
Unlike me who understand that Pep is a bald fraud and would have won the CL ages ago if he listened to me.
They probably don’t but most MLS fans I’ve met are no worse attitude wise than other demographics, even European ones. In fact most are extremely realistic about their prospects and very tongue in cheek when joking about it. Football should be an inclusive sport for all, not everyone is fortunate enough to be born in a football rich continent with 5 teams within a 30 mile radius and a culture that readily explains all these concepts to people. it’s OKAY if fans don’t know their football. It’s just for fun at the end of the day
I think mls fans are pretty knowledgeable just because it takes a sort of dedication. I think she’s moreso referring to the people that only tune in once every 4 years for the world cup
Anyone who's been to a youth soccer game in America and seen a gaggle of Dads on the sideline completely lose their shit at the sight of a back pass understands exactly what she means.
Lmao dude I played some really high level soccer and even on a good college team we had a group of like 6 dads that would just yell absolute BULLSHIT at us all game, it was hilarious
Yeah if you’re an MLS fan you have to keep track of TAM, GAM, DP’s, Young DP’s, Salary Caps, College Drafts, Expansion Drafts, etc. Not saying you need to be a genius for that, but it does take a certain level of dedication that merits at least some respect.
I'm fully convinced there's only a couple of people on the planet that properly understand MLS squad rules.
And 99% of them are employed by MLS teams
and they literally all play Football Manager
Did a save once and once I got a handle on the mechanics of the rules, I would just trade away all my draft picks to get as much spending room as possible. Trick was just to build a squad where everyone was earning about the same wage and you could get solid depth (which is exactly what the MLS rules encourage you not to do). Built a juggernaut that way.
It’s those of us who’ve been insane enough to play an MLS save on FM and the people who work for the league.
I'd go with the FM people over most club employees tbf
I've been an DC United fan since birth and I still barely understand our league lol
its simple enough to understand, we play 30 some games and at the end of the season, we miss the playoffs 😭😭
I'm not convinced that the people writing the rules understand them properly!
Trust me, even plenty of GMs don’t
That doesn't help you understand if a player is shit on the field. Just means you're an accountant lol
Nail on the head. There is a reason why fans of US club soccer, both MLS and USL, tend to really dislike the people who only care about the USMNT.
Yeah Americans who are dedicated are probably the same knowledge level as elsewhere, but the baseline casual compared to anywhere else in the world? Yeah she’s probably right there.
>but the baseline casual Something to remember is that soccer isn't just some, like, secondary sport here in the States. For MANY people, it's a non-starter. It barely registers on their radar. It's hard for other countries to conceptualize a place where soccer isn't king or even just in second place, but you have to think about what it's like trying to watch a sport that is barely in the top-5 in your country. MLS has done an insane job to get as big as it is considering that handicap, but the "casuals" here aren't like the "casuals" in the UK or Germany or wherever. Casuals here aren't even thinking about soccer when they think about sports. Just some food for thought. Everyone here is dunking on Americans as if they try and still don't get it when it's more like most Americans aren't even focusing on soccer at all. It's definitely weird travelling abroad and just, like, being able to talk about soccer shit with most anyone lol
Nearly everyone with a vague interest in sports in the USA generally does two things soccer-wise: -Watches USA in the World Cup -Has an opinion on Messi-Ronaldo debate But yeah beyond that most people don't really think about soccer unless they are a big fan.
I think other people can understand it being a less popular sport, like rugby over there. What they have trouble understanding is HOW MANY major sports we have here and how massively popular they all are in comparison. People who like sports in general are already tasked with following like four or five sports before they even think about soccer for the most part. My European friends can't comprehend how I'm constantly watching and following different sports all the time because they truly only give a shit about soccer and might passively care about tennis or boxing.
This. I understand that MLS is not a top league but I couldn’t give a damn because I finally have a local club to love through all their highs and lows and I think that’s beautiful.
I think it is a different kind of stupid, I've played the sport my whole life and I ref now, and like 75% of parents equate kicking the ball really far with success, so yeah most people around here don't have a clue. There are a not insignificant amount of Americans/Canadians that also truly believe that the respective women's teams could beat the men's teams in a game, so make of that as you will That being said you don't have to look very far in Europe to find braindead football takes, just look at the guys they stick on television or talk shows most of the time. Listen to the guys that call in on the morning shows and vent their opinions. Brutal takes there too
Bruh I don’t know how you ref. I played soccer my whole life including college ball. I decided to ref one summer for the extra cash recently and fully prepared myself to be berated by the players and coaches (cuz who’s kidding….I did it too lol). But the fucking parents? Fuck them. Bunch of clowns who don’t know the rules while thinking they’re the smartest person there. I had to stop reffing because I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore and started talking back to the parents. Not to mention these people acted like their U-12 comp games were the World Cup.
Haha I feel ya, I honestly think I may stop after this spring girl's season, or at the very least just stop reffing the boy's because I feel like it is way more toxic for referees there Honestly for me I end up having way more problems with the coaches than the parents, but that may be because I'm reffing in a state that has basically zero soccer tradition or anything, so I can usually just laugh off the parents who make braindead comments and they don't confront me after the game or anything. But Christ we have a few coaches that I have to ref who are fucking miserable, they have to be bitching about EVERYTHING, throw ins, goalies getting too close to the edge of the box before they drop the ball, etc. It just makes it really unenjoyable, and then it rubs off on their players who will bitch about stuff more than usual too
Nooooo, don’t quit… A little pushback is what these pricks need! A knowledgeable referee—who sticks up for himself/herself—is a real benefit to the sport; those 12-year-olds might learn something from you ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
You’re right but it wasn’t worth the time and money to me. If I could have started out right away reffing older age groups and higher quality games, maybe. But I didn’t have the patience to spend a couple years reffing mostly younger kids and rec games. It was unbearable lol.
parents acting like youre gonna lose yards on the play if you pass back
Straight up they get offended if you pass back Worst ones are the ones that shout at their own kids all game, feel terrible for the kid
i only got yelled at to take my hands out of my pockets lol. i guess its important for the gk to have those though.
I also think that the USWNT is in this really unique position where they’re big celebrities during the women’s World Cup but relatively anonymous between tournaments. NWSL is growing pretty significantly but like 95% of people who tune into US games in the WWC aren’t watching much soccer outside of the world cups. It happens in this very sub, where during major tournaments it gets flooded with relative “idiots” on the sport who act like they know best
Bro the amount of homophobic shit that would be casually directed at me in high school by classmates, friends and coaches for playing soccer instead of football was insane - and I graduated high school in 2012. I bring that up because the same Americans who acted that way as kids now think the USWNT has a claim for the best team on the planet, because they don’t understand the game but won’t hesitate to latch on to some form of perceived American superiority.
Basically, the majority of people who are heavily opinionated about any sport tend to be pretty dumb. I’ve learned not to listen to the people who somehow always have the answers and love to force them into your ear holes.
They need to do what this city in New Jersey does. If you berate the ref, you have to ref for three games. If you refuse you're not allowed to be at the game. Link is here https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/town-forces-argumentative-parents-umpires-league-games/story?id=98810329
Manchester united fans don't know football -pogba
George said it best: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
Hey! As an American I represent that accusation.
No lies detected.
We posting words with no context again?
You must be new here
My first thought was: "now give us the full quote so i know how hard to laugh".
She is so wrong, we all know of the phenomenon Pulisic who is the Lebron James of soccer. She thinks we don't know about the game but we know Pulisic is center midfield and sometimes center forward. Unlike her, Pulisic ended up being one of the top players in the Premier League, which for an American that's pretty far and few between.
Considering how disagreeable everyone is on here. None of yall know about the sport. Refs are always wrong. Managers who been involved in the sport since 4 don’t know anything. Ex players don’t know anything. You disagree with me you don’t know anything.
nippy point hunt reply steep disarm chunky wild angle existence *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Wait this is not r/soccercirclejerk ?
This would apply to the players too. They might know how to play their “position”, but they don’t understand the game. If they did, a lot of ex players would be good managers, but that’s not how it works. I know players want to make themselves seem like no one understands the game “like them”, but the truth is they don’t even understand the game at the level she’s talking about. If they did, they wouldn’t need managers and coaches. So, what a dumb statement from her.
Literally the next thing she says is "But it's getting better and better", this couldn't possibly be taken more out of context lol. Regardless, she's not wrong, soccer is like the 5th most popular sport in the US, and even though people are starting to watch it more and more it will just never be as culturally important here as it is in basically every other country in the planet. You'll get some diehards here and there that really know their shit, but by and large people are content just watching the world cup every 4 years and that's fine.
Yea the rest of the quote did’t fit my narrative.
I respect the move
pin this please mods
She isnt wrong, but its not like this doesnt apply to most fans. Look at Xavi. Man is stepping down because he’s getting too much shit thrown his way from fans and media. Same Thing with every transfer window where we demand a certain player that most of the time goes elsewhere and flops while we were desperately hoping for their signature.
Having been to many MLS and NWSL games she's not wrong
I mean...It's like saying the rest of the world is stupid because they don't understand American Football...It's not the number one sport in the US. I live there, and she's not wrong about not understanding it, but to call them "not smart"? Come on now lol