Episode #2 of the Global Voices Show has landed! In this edition we feature excerpts from the following podcasts:
XiaoQiao (Singapore)
Africa Files: The Pulse (Canada/South Africa)
BahasaPod (Indonesia)
Kazakhstan Stories (Kazakhstan)
Free Talk wit…

we are just big enough to support our own sports competition. its probably simple as that, no need to add complications.

we also invented our own sports, or atleast evolved our version from others. basketball i know we totally invented, baseball and football are probably evolved from stuff from england like cricket.

i just think theres too much sports obsession in general to worry about yet another sport.

But as much as the irrational soccer haters might detest it (I’ve never understood why Frank DeFord, Jim Rome, and other sports media figures who are, to varying degrees, intelligent find the need to spend so much time heaping abuse upon a sport that they profess to dislike), the game is growing in America–and it’s not a recent import. Soccer has been in America just as long as our major sports, baseball excepting of course. Soccer and football grew together in America.

So darwhin, you say best for Americans to leave soccer alone, but that’s not possible because as long as soccer has been here, there have been Americans that love soccer. You might not, but let us have our fun.

and would it be such a good thing for the us to watch soccer? we already watch too much sports one could argue. the good of becoming soccer fans is debateble. we certainly don’t need more fat bums glued to the tv watching yet another sport. we’ve already learned from the other sports that watching generally doesn’t lead to fitness:P

and is mixing rabid nationalism/politics+the insane loyalty of sports fans + a bit of racism a good thing? i think its best to stay out of that kind of toxic stew. the us would be hurt no matter what it did if we cared about the world cup. hated if we won, hated if we lost.. its a no win situation. best to leave it as is.

Anyone else?

Highly recommended.

Tenrec – you definitely need to read it. See if you can track down his “Letters from London” as well.

With that, au revoir.

Soccer Thoughts, my blog.

Weiland and Wilsey’s book is a welcome contribution to the soccer literature, and I’m sure it was intended as an introduction to Americans perhaps not familiar with the game, but some of the essays in the book are tangential at best, and there are some errors, particularly in Wilsey’s introduction.

Tonight is the eve of the World Cup. Tomorrow and over the first week of the World Cup much of the world will stop and send prayers, luck, and cheers towards Germany.

In the sporting world there is no event quite like the World Cup. Tonight the world is giddy in the way college basketball fans get giddy on the first friday of March Madness. There are the hopes of whole nations riding on the next month, not just Duke alums or south-side Chicagoans. Bruce Arena, the US coach, mentioned the other day that in America we have a hard time conceiving the importance of the World Cup tournament because in our American games when New England beats St. Louis, we dub them World Champions.

This is Ghana’s first World Cup and their not just playing for their nation but along with the Ivory Coast Africa. It’s the Czech Republic’s first since splitting with Slovakia. These nations don’t get a chance to enter the global conversation often. With six pure games and some cheeky goals they have a chance to beat us all. And believe that the party and the passion on the island of Tinidad and Tobago is spilling into the sea.

On the eve of the 1982 World Cup in Spain, Maria Vargas Llosa wrote “a goal is an orgasm by which a player, a team, a stadium, a country, all of humanity suddenly discharges its vital energy.”

I can’t wait to watch the orgy and listen to Open Source distill for us a thinking man’s version the world’s choice in sport.

I wish that I could get in on the love … but the game is just inheritly boring to me. Like I said, if they were playing a World Cup of Football or baseball, or basketball I could dig it. But not soccer. I really got into the World Baseball Classic (Japan won), and the 2004 Summer Games (Argentina won).

MARLIN: I am not threatened by soccer. I just find it credibly boring and I revel not in the series but in how the world is captivated by it.

You’d like to see comments like mine die out? don’t you think that’s just going a bit far? … sort of like some sort of socialist dictator demanding that everyone worship the state or one god. I thought this site is about “open” and not closed…

It’s laughable that you equate the U.S.A.’s overall lack of interest in soccer to the country’s standing in the world. Do you think our opinion of soccer had a hand in the Iraq invasion? (It actually did… as the stories of Saddam’s sons torturing the Iraqi soccer team was one of the ‘arguments’ circulated before the battles started).

We like different things. Is that why the world hates us? No, it’s because our imperial acting elected officials, constant black ops and toppling of dicators (that we used to support), and the constant double standard of who we help and who we don’t.

I am sorry that you were told that as a child. I too heard all about “Communist Kickball.” Parenrts should encourage our children to play whatever they feel like playing. Not corner them into this or that because of opinion or anything else.

>>

MR. DANA: Those comments reveal your simple-minded foolishness.

“American football player play 90 minutes without any subsitions…. impossible.”

That’s plain funny. Take any NFL reciever, tailback, running back, corner back, half back, safety or any other of the non-blocking positions and those guys could easily run around a field all day without substitution. That really is what soccer is all about anyhow, isn’t it?

How about David Beckham playing linebacker? That would be a funny one…

And your idea of pools of obese people just shows how very little you understand or comprehend about football.

You try to bash a game that is the an actual direct relative of soccer. It’s darwinianism at its greatest … soccer evolved into rugby… then rugby gave us football (in its separate Canadian and American forms).

Dont get me wrong, I enjoy the show, but the topics generally focus on american issues, and leave me with the overall impression that that the contributors (on this board) are generally left-leaning americans- I hope I have explained my comment

I missed your post while I was writing my last one.

It’s comments like yours that truly endear America with the rest of the world, and soccer lovers in America. Are you threatened by people who love soccer? What incites such strong language?

I grew up playing soccer in a place (America) where parents told me I was wasting my time playing “a communist sport.” Yet, most soccer lovers like myself don’t actively and evangelically try to hate other sports.

Like racist bigots in America, I’d like to think that these types of comments are slowly dying out.

jhd: Do you really think that soccer in America would ever involve fans throwing batteries at the players on the field? Does this happen in the NFL? I would argue that US soccer already has its fair share of prima donnas—Clint Mathis is a prime example. What sport doesn’t involve ego drama? It takes a lot of confidence to play a sport on an elite level and, naturally, some people in sport take their self-confidence too far. Regardless of what the effects of coolness are, US soccer could definately use a heavy shot of cool in the arm.

Also, what exactly do you mean when you relate that “there is a tremendous amount of sex wrapped up in the game” to women playing soccer? US women’s soccer is definately something to be proud of, but it’s a testament to Title IX and advancements in women’s rights in the 20th century.

If America as a whole began to truly appreciate soccer’s nuances, it might start to become a better global citizen.

I believe that soccer is the only truly global language. It is one thing that all of us can have in common. People everywhere can relate and communicate through the simple act of playing this game. And that, to me, is the most beautiful aspect of the joga bonita.

And now, I plug a great US soccer blog titled, Reckless Abandon (my own I confess).

Go anywhere else in the world and these numbers would be reversed!!