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Headache in a Suitcase said:
Speaking of the women's team, I'd love to see US Soccer's arguments for not paying them the same as the men's team now
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:up::up::up: that's the upside to this story, right? Let's talk about how fucking good women are at soccer. Our women's team is so much better than our men's team, it's ridiculous.

iron yuppie said:
Not denying it exists - my point is the people this thread targets (presumably people invested enough in soccer to be watching a qualifying match) are not the ones who would go around waving an American flag or telling people of color to go home.

Cobbler, you have been through the US. Have you encountered this type of nationalism - like someone lecturing you about how the US is awesome - in people you met here? Genuinely curious.
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After more than a decade on this forum, I'm still astonished that I'm taken so seriously. I made the thread because it’s hilarious that the USA lost and won’t be in the World Cup. “The people that this thread targets” what the hell are you on about.

Have I had people lecture about how great the US is? Sure, a couple of times. But the exceptionalism is innate. It's in the flags. It's in the pride at anything being bigger, better. It's in the lack of an outside worldview. And it’s fine, I love the US, been three times and will doubtless go again, but the reason for this thread is that it’s hilarious that a country as big and proud and well-resourced as the US lost to Trinidad & Tobago and won’t be contesting the World Cup. But now we’re in FYM territory :lol:
 
LuckyNumber7 said:
And you're alienating. I come from a country where I've never been welcome by the same people you're meaning to target. I say that as a half middle eastern half British first generation gay male who received his fair share of flak in the family and in society just for being who I am, and a fair amount of flak for being of olive descent in post 9/11 America.

And then I go abroad. I live in the UK. Took a week for someone from my university to tell me to "go home" because they messed up my loans. I'm a passport carrying citizen of that country. Think things got any better when I lived in Italy, France?? No, of course not. I'm a homophobic racist gun carrying Trump supporter to every person abroad until I *clarify*. People aren't nice just because of how I sound. And no, that's not a pity party for myself. That's just reality. But you know what I've learned from being in so many places and seeing so many different people? It's not so different. Especially in Australia. It's the exact. Same. Thing. It's western culture. It's global by now.

But it's a real fucking pain in the ass when folks like you just do that whole "lump them all together" bullshit. "We" are smug. "We" are exceptionalists. Who the fuck are "we?" I have one identity abroad that'll always be me. I'm American. There are plenty of people just like me who don't see eye to eye with the scum in our country, and the same scum exists in your country and every other western country under different circumstance. Except you're taking a big fucking brush and saying "this is what it means to be what you are."

You might not notice it, but point-and-laugh at sports as a proxy to air your grievances with America is you exceptionalizing America. You can instead choose to hate people for who they are, instead of being lazy and taking away what little identity some of us have and shitting on it.
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while everyone else seems content to turn this into a "let's shit on LN7" thread, i would like to say that i appreciate the thoughtfulness in this post, and that I absolutely agree with you that this place has a tendency to assume we're all white and middle class and is often quite dismissive to those of us who aren't from that background.

i get that this is a jokey thread that took a weird turn, but this was a very personal and well written post and the handwaving of LN7's experience along with a series of replies like "don't be so sensitive" and "lol he's triggered" is pretty callous.
 
I did mean to reply to it but I forgot. Certainly don’t mean to downplay your experiences LN7, you’ve surely had it a lot tougher than me :) still think you’re taking it way too seriously (I’m sure you’d get it if we met in real life) but yeah, don’t mean anything personal. I am just taking great joy from US losing.
 
DaveC said:
while everyone else seems content to turn this into a "let's shit on LN7" thread, i would like to say that i appreciate the thoughtfulness in this post, and that I absolutely agree with you that this place has a tendency to assume we're all white and middle class and is often quite dismissive to those of us who aren't from that background.

i get that this is a jokey thread that took a weird turn, but this was a very personal and well written post and the handwaving of LN7's experience along with a series of replies like "don't be so sensitive" and "lol he's triggered" is pretty callous.
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I can understand his position and also think he's being ridiculous.
 
deep said:
America always has the women's World Cup, which they seem to dominate.
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Except we really don't anymore. 2015 was awesome, but we got knocked out in the quarters of the Olympics in 2016.

The rest of the world has caught up very quickly in women's soccer by developing technically skilled and tactically intelligent players while our women (like the men) rely too much on speed, strength and raw athleticism -- habits that are built up and reinforced in our youth programs that largely prioritize short-term winning over long-term development (Headache, this surely has to sound familiar).
 
speedracer said:
rely too much on speed, strength and raw athleticism -- habits that are built up and reinforced in our youth programs that largely prioritize short-term winning over long-term development (Headache, this surely has to sound familiar).
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Does it ever... although that landscape is finally starting to change a bit in my world, albeit very slowly.
 
It's a strange thing, the way most of us respond to sports. I'm 38 white New Zealander so have been brought up in an era and area of incredible peace. So booing and laughing etc at your sports opponents was always harmless.

As I get older I'm seeing a combination of the Western World getting a bit darker, and myself getting a bit wiser. And I can't really understand why I was brought up to have and expect zero grace or dignity towards opposition sports teams. I was never allowed to act like that in any other context.

And of course I get cobbler was having a laugh. Like Axver I roared when Japan beat the Springboks.

But I wonder if shit gets real in the next few years, with old alliances deteriorating and norms of peace looking less secure, if we may start treating sports a bit different.
 
I wasn't personally even acknowledging the sports of this. Though, I really don't understand heckling or barking at other sports teams fans. I hardly understand manufacturing noise at a sports event for your own team, though. I mean, I understand the thrills and the disappointments - I'm a huge sports fan. But I don't understand the us v them off the field/pitch/ice/court mentality.
 
No you weren't, that's just my own reaction to this thread.
And fyi, I appreciated your earlier post and am disgusted people react differently to me than to you, based on such arbitrary bullshit like pigmentation, accent etc.
 
cobl04 said:
I did mean to reply to it but I forgot. Certainly don’t mean to downplay your experiences LN7, you’ve surely had it a lot tougher than me :) still think you’re taking it way too seriously (I’m sure you’d get it if we met in real life) but yeah, don’t mean anything personal. I am just taking great joy from US losing.
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I'm sure I'd get along with all of you in real life. There's a tendency to develop your own imagination of what people are like when all you have to work with is a silly avatar and some text.
 
kiwilad said:
It's a strange thing, the way most of us respond to sports. I'm 38 white New Zealander so have been brought up in an era and area of incredible peace. So booing and laughing etc at your sports opponents was always harmless.

As I get older I'm seeing a combination of the Western World getting a bit darker, and myself getting a bit wiser. And I can't really understand why I was brought up to have and expect zero grace or dignity towards opposition sports teams. I was never allowed to act like that in any other context.

And of course I get cobbler was having a laugh. Like Axver I roared when Japan beat the Springboks.

But I wonder if shit gets real in the next few years, with old alliances deteriorating and norms of peace looking less secure, if we may start treating sports a bit different.
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Sport is war by another means and Australia must be crushed at all costs.

I mean, uh, I have a perfectly relaxed attitude towards sport and wish no harm upon anybody. I'm eight years younger than you, but we're both of the generation who only know about "The Tour" by legend, but whose early sporting memories would be shaped by the fallout. The return of rugby as something fun and casual after the 1987 World Cup was a pretty big deal, I think for all sport in New Zealand. (For the internationals, New Zealand's greatest civil disturbance of the last fifty years was over a rugby tour.) Sport's about nebulous local, regional, or national pride, which is why I struggle to feel any affinity with franchise-based competitions. There's a line you don't want to cross - soccer riots being a prime example - but in general I think it's fairly healthy and harmless to have a bit of a boo and a laugh at opponents.
 
Baaaaahahahahahaha

I'll laugh even harder if New Zealand makes it and Australia does not.
 
Love seeing some of the staple qualifiers miss out. I do love American soccer though and am somewhat disappointed in them. That said, it is Panama's golden age. They have been so competitive in the Gold Cups and their failure to qualify was heartbreaking four years ago. Fully deserve to be there.

Was hoping that Argentina would have missed out to.


Nervous as fuck ahead of tomorrow [emoji47] wish the media could get over this "will he, won't he leave" hysteria over Postecoglou.


I'd be happy for NZ to go through - they were such a dream in 2010. And Marco Rojas is one of my all time favourite Melbourne players. But I have a soft spot for Peru, after enjoying being in Cusco and watching their excitement over one of their wins in qualifying last year, and it would be the end of a 30-odd year drought. So I'm kind of neutral on that one.
 
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