Women's Olympic Soccer

[roo_ster]

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/08/womens-soccer-usa-usa-usa.html

Women's soccer: USA! USA! USA!
It's especially amazing that the American women's soccer team triumphed in its semifinal and final games over two countries with such long histories of soccer excellence, places where kids are dribbling soccer balls all over the favela from the time they can walk: Canada and Japan.

The problem is that there's nobody left for our women to beat. So, they'll just have to start up a women's pro soccer league, just like all the other super successful women's team sport leagues that got launched in the excitement after the USA proved its feminist superiority by crushing disgusting sexist foreigners for gold in women's basketball and women's softball in 1996, women's ice hockey in 1998, and women's soccer in 1999.

Maybe they should form a Republican women's soccer team and a Democratic women's soccer team that would barnstorm around the country playing each other to see who deserves to win the election. It would be like the Blue and Green chariot racing teams in Justinian's Byzantium. That worked out well.

But seriously, I think we should now spend a quadrillion dollars to send the U.S. women's soccer team to Alpha Centauri so they can win the Galactic Women's Soccer Championship over Epsilon Eridani. Man, I hate those those seven-legged freaks. They are almost as bad as the Canadians.

Hey, how about the American gold medalist in women's boxing! How come Women's MMA isn't in the Olympics yet?

And what about that Aztec game where the losing team captain's heart gets ritually torn out on top of a pyramid? It's sexist that isn't in the Olympics. I can think of a lot of American dad sportswriters who would volunteer at the 2016 Rio Olympics to personally rip the heart out of any foreign upstart who dares challenge the supremacy of our women's ōllamaliztli team. USA! USA! USA!

It is only natural that America wins women's soccer gold, since we have the best & most capable women.  (And soccer is a women's sport, after all.)

[makattak]

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/08/womens-soccer-usa-usa-usa.html

It is only natural that America wins women's soccer gold, since we have the best & most capable women.  (And soccer is a women's sport, after all.)

There is also the fact that our best female athletes aren't naturally drawn to several other competing sports.

We would have the best male soccer team in the world if our best athletes weren't (completely rationally) drawn to sports that are actually popular in the United States: Football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Tennis, Surfing, Ultimate Frisbee, Limbo, and the Macarena ... and then I think we finally get to Soccer.

Women's soccer generally only has to compete with a couple other sports for athletes. It may even be the most popular women's sport in the U.S.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Women don't watch sports as much as men do. NBA, NHA, NFL, and the baseball leagues have fans spanning generations. Hard core fans can be second and even third generation of the initial family member who watched a certain team. And that initiator was most likely male, watching the teams that were in exsistance before women's sports was even a thing.
Yes, more women are athletes, and there has been efforts to create pro leagues, but they were all forced efforts in the wake of a big win and "OMG, MUST MAKE FEMALE ROLE MODELS FOR THE CHILDREN!!".
And then they failed, and it's not shocking. For the most part female spectators got into watching sports and being fans because of a male influance, father, brother, SO, who were not watching the female leagues. The rest of us just don't do spectator sports.
I played soccer starting when I was 8 till I was 20. I also played three years of basketball, a season of rugby, years of horseback riding and lots and lots of skiing.
Of those sports, I don't watch or follow any religiously, and the only ones I will watch if I see it's on the tv, are not any of the team sports, even the ones I played.

So basically, the efforts for professional league womens sports was always a bust. The women that do watch sports already have teams they want to watch, and most the rest of us just don't want to watch sports. That doesn't leave a large margin for fans to spend money on the tickets and merchandise that support such teams.

[AZRedhawk44]

A reasonable measurement of societal advancement is the degree of tool-use it demonstrates, in both work and recreation.

The reason soccer is more appreciated in 3rd world societies is because it doesn't require much for tools, to play.  A ball, and some lashed together sticks for a goal, and a big open patch of dirt or grass.

Americans have better things to do.

-Monster trucks
-Nascar
-Football
-Computer Games
-Warrior robots
-Shooting Sports
-Dirtbike racing
-Hang-gliding
-(anyone care to add to this list?  It can go on and on and on...)

[makattak]

A reasonable measurement of societal advancement is the degree of tool-use it demonstrates, in both work and recreation.

The reason soccer is more appreciated in 3rd world societies is because it doesn't require much for tools, to play.  A ball, and some lashed together sticks for a goal, and a big open patch of dirt or grass.

Americans have better things to do.

-Monster trucks
-Nascar
-Football
-Computer Games
-Warrior robots
-Shooting Sports
-Dirtbike racing
-Hang-gliding
-(anyone care to add to this list?  It can go on and on and on...)

I was about to object and point out that a game that utilizes almost no tools to play is exactly what children, if left to their own devices, will play.

And then I saw the flaw in my argument: we don't leave children to their own devices much in this country anymore.

I have fond memories of backyard football. I don't know how many parents would allow such a DANGEROUS thing anymore. Or, allow them the chances of getting hurt if we, heaven forbid, gave them autonomy to go play however they want.

(Aside: I remember the whiplash I got from landing on my head when I went up to catch a pass and someone took my legs out from under me. [Probably didn't help me that I was 120 lbs until my junior year in high school. I was ecstatic when I hit 150 before the end of my senior year- keep in mind I was a cross country runner.] Such experience doesn't frighten me from allowing my little ones, once they are semi-autonomous to play such games.)

[agricola]

Five posts and noone mentions Hope Solo or the rebel Sydney Leroux?  You people should be embarrassed of yourselves.

[Perd Hapley]

It's not a real sport. 

[AZRedhawk44]

Five posts and noone mentions Hope Solo or the rebel Sydney Leroux?  You people should be embarrassed of yourselves.

I didn't watch the girl version of Star Wars.   

[seeker_two]

The US match against Canada was the real gold medal match....and as close to bloodsport as soccer ever gets. If a women's pro team could make their matches that exciting every week, it might work.....

....that, or have their uniforms designed by the women's beach volleyball team.

[agricola]

The US match against Canada was the real gold medal match....and as close to bloodsport as soccer ever gets. If a women's pro team could make their matches that exciting every week, it might work.....

....that, or have their uniforms designed by the women's beach volleyball team.

Also youse stole it off the Canadians. 

[seeker_two]

Also youse stole it off the Canadians. 

And the Canadians played like a bunch of Eastender thugs.....but it was still a great match....