Pfft. I saw the headline for this post and got a little excited, thinking that you were about to mention something cool, like the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion reforming and playing in Portland.

Instead, all I got was a post about fucking soccer. Ugh. What a letdown.

good choice for timbers first manager.

John Spencer the actor... Jo(h)n Spencer of the Blues Explosion... John Spencer who lived around the corner from me when I was growing up... John Spencer the schizophrenic who hung out at the coffee shop I used to work at (he was "married" to Joan Jett)... And now John Spencer, coach of my local soccer team... Is it normal to run into one name this often in a single lifetime?

good signing, foreign coach who most likely hates hipster scum

Nice Job, Brian! Thanks for your posts. You are the Hristo Stoichkov of soccer bloggers (He's my favorite player, so meant very much as a compliment).

Soccer. Bleh.


http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/03…

@two_squatting_women, I thank you and am deeply humbled. Long live The Dagger!

s-puss,

I hope your attempt to dismiss soccer as merely something meh that white people like a few posts after championing the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was an exercise in blatant irony.

If so, barely funny. If not, pretty funny.

@Snagglepuss: JSBX has reformed, at least sorta... showing up at a couple of things this year (Pitchfork Music Fest and the Matador @ 21 show) shows a glimmer of hope.

tk - Let's hope that JSBX does manage to come around here sometime soon. I don't know about you, but I somehow managed to miss them throughout the entirety of the 90's, and would love a chance to catch them live.

TSW - Yeah, I did realize there was some irony involved in what I was typing, but I rather liked the 'Stuff White People Like' post, and went ahead with it, anyway. Having been one of those kids who spent a couple of summers playing those obligatory soccer games, and having witnessed both myself and those around me completely lose interest in the game after those aforementioned summers, well, leads me to think there might be a bit of merit to the post.

Anyhow, to each their own, I suppose... but if I really wanted to attempt to dismiss soccer, someone else's blog post likely would not serve as the primary premise in my argument. I might start just such a criticism by pointing out just how excruciatingly slow and boring soccer is compared to, say, basketball or hockey, and perhaps liken its pace to the constipation that is baseball (or American football... ugh!). Where would that get me, and why would I even bother to waste that much effort on something I'm ambivalent about?

Besides, any and all arguments you or I could conceivably construct to attack or defend soccer will be very easily reducible to subjective personal taste (like the above preference I stated for a faster-paced sport), which, frankly, is pretty fucking boring and pointless to argue about, don't you think?

Yes, it's fucking boring to argue about.

That being said, points with which I agree--baseball is beyond tedious. American football has its moments, but from an article last year in the NYT, a study showed the average game has around only 11 minutes of actual action for a 3 + hour broadcast. The rest is filler.

Basketball is where we depart views. With such a lengthy season, 90% of a season's games are insignificant, therefore not worth watching. Let's be honest, other than blazer games, the playoffs are the only time to really start watching hoops. The majority of games themselves aren't worth watching until the fourth quarter. Then there's the myriad disruptions to the flow--time outs, free throws, tv timeouts, more timeouts, fouls, intentional fouls. Most games grind to a finish puncuated by constant starts and stops.

I've played ice hockey since exiting the womb so we are in full agreement here-it's the greatest game on earth, the most fun to play and the most fun to see live. Soccer mirrors hockey in many ways-fluidity and perpetual motion (albeit slowed down), limited stops. The game is done in 90 minutes. That's it. To watch it is to get the most out of your viewership.