Broadway is a joke!

[Tavenier]

The US has one gigantic advantage -- we have a @!#$@# of people We're bound to find a few people can play soccer...

That's right. A host on another sport-show said that too. "280 million people, it isn't hard to have 11 good footballplayers among them!"

The co-host commented good too: "Then why aren't China and India in the top 10 football-countries?"


Same goes for Brazilia by the way. They have the best football-team in the world, but also have about half the population of all of South America. I doubt they would win against a team made up of players from all other South American countries, like Argentina, Paraquay and Uruquay!

 

[mjs0]

First, on football/soccer and sports in the US...
In the US there is also a sizeable minority of recent immigrants especially from Mexico and the rest of Central America where football (soccer) really is followed with a passion and they bring that passion with them.
The result is that a lot of football is shown on spanish language TV channels here and strangely the newest addition to the MLS is a team called Chivas USA that is actually an offshoot of Club Deportivo Guadalajara in the Mexican soccer league who are nicknamed Chivas.
Oh, and by the way, the Fox Soccer Channel shows 2 or 3 live games from the English Premier League every weekend as well as FA Cup games and a host of games from other leagues around the globe.
The game is far from mainstream and it will be difficult to catch the imagination of hardcore US sports fans who are simply used to games with a different tempo and rhythm with more frequent breaks, analysis and statistics (oh boy do they love their stats) to obsess over. However, there is a constantly growing fan base, which was helped tremendously by the creditable showing of the US national team at the last World Cup, and the MLS is definitely here to stay.
So, for many reasons, football in the US is no longer quite the joke it was 15 years ago.

Speaking of the US National Soccer Team, another interesting facet of US sports is that other than the Olympics and minor sports such as soccer and the Ryder Cup in golf, there is very little awareness of major international competition. Unlike in other countries where Football, Rugby, Cricket and other sports treat International competition as major events the opportunities for the US as a whole to get behind a national sports team are surprisingly rare.



Edit: Whoops I just realised I pasted and posted half of this into completely the wrong thread...sorry. I moved it where it should have been.

 

[Jonny211]

Gaaargh! It's not called soccer.... it's called football in the rest of the world!

 

[Nilrim]

Speaking of the US National Soccer Team, another interesting facet of US sports is that other than the Olympics and minor sports such as soccer and the Ryder Cup in golf, there is very little awareness of major international competition. Unlike in other countries where Football, Rugby, Cricket and other sports treat International competition as major events the opportunities for the US as a whole to get behind a national sports team are surprisingly rare.

Keep in mind that you could fit all of Western Eruope inside the state of Texas so 'international' play to a Euro is simialar to play between say a NY team and a Calforina team. Much differant scale here.

 

[mjs0]

Keep in mind that you could fit all of Western Eruope inside the state of Texas so 'international' play to a Euro is simialar to play between say a NY team and a Calforina team. Much differant scale here.

Actually, the EU is just under 4 million sq km and Texas is under 700,000.
and the distance from Manchester to say Athens is comparable to Dallas-New York.
California is admittedly further out there!

My point really isn't affected by land area anyway I was just observing the lack of significant international sports event for US fans to get behind a national team. These competitions span the rest of the world, not just Europe; some of the most intense rivalries are between countries in Europe and those in the southern hemisphere

 

[Nilrim]

Actually, the EU is just under 4 million sq km and Texas is under 700,000.
and the distance from Manchester to say Athens is comparable to Dallas-New York.
California is admittedly further out there!

That maybe but it doesn't change the point of my post. How many countries does that make up? If NY teams only played NY teams it would get old fast thus they play teams from all over the STATES. Whereas in Europe the same can be said about German teams playing only German teams, the best Germans want to play the best of say England or France. The point that the Eruos are more 'international' some how holds them in higher regard then Americans to me is absurd, you have to look at the scale. If Germany wants to play France it's is a train ride away, if the US wants to play France it is one heck of a long trip.

 

[mjs0]

My point really isn't affected by land area anyway I was just observing the lack of significant international sports event for US fans to get behind a national team. These competitions span the rest of the world, not just Europe; some of the most intense rivalries are between countries in Europe and those in the southern hemisphere

 

[mike p]

just a little point to clarify some important thing about soccer:

soccer is only called "soccer" in USA
american is only called "football" in... USA!

let's0 call a cat a cat: football is "football" and not "soccer"!
football is a game with a ball that is played with feet
whereas american football is a game that is played with hands (90% of the time) and it is more an handball game in fact

Ever seen a CFL game (Canadian Football League)? Soccer is called soccer in Canada too. Compare 300,000,000 Americans and 30,000,000 Canadians (a majority of which speak English as a first language) calling soccer soccer to a much lesser number of Brits, Irish, Aussies, Kiwis, etc who, in their quaint regional dialects call soccer 'football.' It's clear that soccer is rightly called soccer in the English language. The fact that the French and Spanish words for soccer sound a lot like "football" doesn't change standard English.

 

[mjs0]

Ah but (/humor=on)
- British English is of course the official language of the European Union (joint with French) and India. So another 1.5 billion there.
- British English is also the primary version taught as a second language around the world (Adds up to several hundred million at least)
- Who says you count heads rather than countries, the US does it both ways internally, in the Senate (2 votes per state) and in the House (by pop). So counting countries that's 1.5 (Canada is half French after all!) to at least 4 (more depending on how small you go!)

So as with most things the numbers can be made to add up in many ways!

 

[Barney's Soul]

So you build Broadway and get 5 hit musicals. Will somebody please tell me, politely, what to do with them ? Similarly for the other 'hits', of course. My only encounter with these wonders has been that once I was offered one hit in exchange for one gold resource, a deal which I felt was not to my advantage.

You only get +1 happieness off this wonder, because you only use one of your five hit musicels, this also applies to the other wonders that get you +5 of a resource, like rock and roll and holloywood. The beauty part is you can trade the other 4 hit musicels with other nations and get 4 different resources out of it. Thats how I do it, but usually at this point of the game I don't need any extra resources...

 

[Tavenier]

And isn't Great Britain the source of the English language? Haven't the British invented the language? So if the English say football, then it must be football. Any American can still call it soccer (where does that word come from anyway?) but cannot say that that should be the English word for it.

 

[gunkulator]

Actually, Tavenier, the first people to speak English were immigrants to Britain from your country. The original British language had almost zero influence on the English language.

Unlike French, English does not have any equivalent to the Académie Française. The language grows and changes hap-hazardly.

 

[Reignking]

Unlike French, English does not have any equivalent to the Académie Française. The language grows and changes hap-hazardly.

Thank God. They wanted to outlaw the word "e-mail"...

 

[Thalassicus]

The language grows and changes hap-hazardly.

Thus the reason for it's prominance

That, and England controlled like half the world...

(where does that word come from anyway?)

My guess:

Football => play with feet => wear socks on feet => sock things around => soccer!

 

[jar2574]

Differences in British and American English are common. That is why there are language students who pay to learn either British English or American English. There is not one "correct" way to speak English.

Soccer/football is merely one of these differences. When in the UK I say football. When in the USA I say soccer. When online, I use usually use soccer, because I use American English.

 

[mjs0]

From the MSN Encarta Encyclopaedia (rather than quoting Wikipedia for a change)

"Only in the United States and Canada is the game referred to as soccer. Outside these countries the sport is commonly called football, or fútbol in Spanish-speaking countries, where the game is particularly popular. The official name of the sport is association football. The word soccer is a slang corruption of the abbreviation assoc."

 

[Tavenier]

Actually, Tavenier, the first people to speak English were immigrants to Britain from your country. The original British language had almost zero influence on the English language.

I know, I am a historian!
The first immigrants spoke a language similar to Frisian in those days. Then it went a different path, of course, and after the Norman invasion it was unrecognizable as a Frisian language.

 

[biratets]

From Wikipedia:
In the United States, the sport's governing body is the United States Soccer Federation. This body was originally called the U.S. Football Association, and was formed in 1913 by the merger of the American Football Association and the American Amateur Football Association. The word "soccer" was added to the name in 1945, making it the U.S. Soccer Football Association, and it did not drop the word "football" until 1974, when it assumed its current name. Today, "soccer" is the standard name for the sport in the United States, with "football" referring instead to American football.

A few Australian authorities, such as the sports department at the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), have always used the name "football". In 2004, the Australian Soccer Association changed its name to Football Federation Australia, and announced that the official name of the sport in Australia will now be "football". This has been met with controversy and/or bemusement by followers of Australian rules football and rugby league, the most popular forms of "football" in Australia. Nevertheless some media outlets in some areas have accepted the usage.

In Canada, "football" (or le football) refers only to Canadian football or the closely related American football, in both of its national languages. The usage of "soccer" is so uniform that even in French-speaking Quebec, the game is known as le soccer and the provincial governing body is the Fédération de Soccer du Québec.

So:
Football = English
Soccer = American English and some other English derived dialects.

The word soccer seems to have it's origins in the words Associated Football and was made up to make a difference with American Football. Simple as that. Anyhow, it does not matter what you call it, as long as everyone knows what you're talking about. It's a part of languages nature to change as time passes by.

The other thing I've been wondering is why American Football is not called American Rugby or something like that, because the game seems to be rugby with protective gear (i don't know the rules so correct me if I'm wrong). And like Rugby, is not played by foot with exception of kicking the ball into that fork looking goal.

And I do think the Broadway wonder is a bit weird. I understand the impact of Rock n Roll and Hollywood, but Broadway's significance is overrated. Maybe there was a friend of Broadway shows in the game development team who decided to do Broadway a favor Anyhow, it (Broadway) does not mess up the game mechanics so I don't have any problems with it.

 

[Tavenier]

From the MSN Encarta Encyclopaedia (rather than quoting Wikipedia for a change)

"Only in the United States and Canada is the game referred to as soccer. Outside these countries the sport is commonly called football, or fútbol in Spanish-speaking countries, where the game is particularly popular. The official name of the sport is association football. The word soccer is a slang corruption of the abbreviation assoc."

Aha, that's explanes the name, thanks. So the Americans are insoccorect!

 

[Jimbo30]

It is pretty bizarre that a game where the foot is used less than 0.0001% of the game is called 'football'. I of course refer to American Football.

The actual 'ball' isn't even designed to be kicked. I truly hope the US never really takes proper football to heart, as I'd hate everyone calling it 'soccer'