Originally Posted By dagobert Are here any Soccer fans? Today Austria is playing against the USA here in Vienna. Although it's just a freindly game, is anyone going to watch the game?
Originally Posted By dagobert Although Austria won, it wasn't a great game and the refree overlooked two penalties for the US.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>Soccer isn't that big over here.<<< I know, but since LP is a bigger community, I thought that there might be some soccer fans. However recently I met some New York Red Bulls Fans. They came to see some soccer games over here in Europe and one of those games was a Red Bull game here in Salzburg. So I guess soccer is becoming more and more popular. By the way, I read somewhere that Orlande is getting a MLS team that will play at ESPN's Wide World of Sports Complex.
Originally Posted By fkurucz Soccer is growing in the USA, as the ever expanding growth of the MLS is demonstrating, but it still has a long way to go. The local media doesn't give the men's national team much coverage. If the USA-Austria friendly was covered at all by the local paper, it was most likely just a paragraph or two in the last page of the sports' section. Girl's high school volleyball gets better newspaper coverage and soccer fans in this country have come to accept that. Also, there is tremendous hostility from American Football fans to the sport, which means that they see it as a threat, especially since young boys are more likely to play organized soccer than American Football. Perhaps soccer's greatest weakness in the USA is that it is perceived as an upper middle class sport and doesn't appeal to the working class. Until that changes the USA will never be a contender on the international scene.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Girl's high school volleyball is not on trial here! And I agree that the soccer/American football dynamic is interesting here. People are more likely to play organized soccer, but far more likely to watch a football game on TV or in person. To a certain extent, it's because there are far more football games going on, but there's definitely a lack of interest in watching it, despite the popularity of playing it As for the upper middle class/working class status, I'm not sure I agree. It seems like a lot of the biggest soccer fans in the country are immigrants (from all around the world), who grew up with it in their own country. They may not have much loyalty to the American national team, but they've shown up in pretty good numbers at the MLS games I've been to. That said, there didn't seem to be many American-born working class fans at the games I've seen
Originally Posted By dagobert I'm a big fan of Home Improvement and Brad Taylor plays soccer in the TV series. I found that very interesting, because the show originates in the 90s and I guess back then no one cared about soccer in the US. A US friend of mine is a huge soccer fan, He visited the World Cup in South Africa and is following the US Team to Brazil next year.
Originally Posted By Yookeroo "I'm a big fan of Home Improvement and Brad Taylor plays soccer in the TV series. I found that very interesting, because the show originates in the 90s and I guess back then no one cared about soccer in the US." The actor that played him was quite an elite youth player. "A US friend of mine is a huge soccer fan, He visited the World Cup in South Africa and is following the US Team to Brazil next year." There will probably be more US fans in Brazil than any other.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>I'm a big fan of Home Improvement and Brad Taylor plays soccer in the TV series. I found that very interesting, because the show originates in the 90s and I guess back then no one cared about soccer in the US.<< That show was made right around the time that recreational youth soccer leagues really started to become popular. Families watching the show would have been very familiar with the sport, and events associated with it. As that generation of children has grown up, they still haven't really taken to watching professional soccer, but playing it remains popular with kids. It's a really strange dynamic, almost as if people get burned out on it by the time they reach adulthood
Originally Posted By Yookeroo "As that generation of children has grown up, they still haven't really taken to watching professional soccer," This is mostly true for the MLS, but the World Cup gets great ratings. And important qualifiers do well too. Shoot, aren't EPL games showing up on NBC? Viewership is growing. The MLS has solid attendance and continues to add teams. "It's a really strange dynamic, almost as if people get burned out on it by the time they reach adulthood" I believe viewership skews pretty young. Many are watching. But it's a slow (and steady) growth.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>As for the upper middle class/working class status<< I was talking about participation, as opposed to watching. My college aged son played on a youth team and it isn't cheap. His club was at the low end and it cost us $1000 a year. My niece plays for an elite youth club in the Raleigh area. Club fees alone are $3000 a year plus they do a lot of traveling to tournaments. My brother estimates that they spend about $6-7000 a year on her team.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>I was talking about participation, as opposed to watching. My college aged son played on a youth team and it isn't cheap. His club was at the low end and it cost us $1000 a year. My niece plays for an elite youth club in the Raleigh area. Club fees alone are $3000 a year plus they do a lot of traveling to tournaments. My brother estimates that they spend about $6-7000 a year on her team.<<< Wow, that's pretty expensive. At my local soccer club I paid around 200 Euros per year. But I guess the clubs over here are different to then ones in the US. Usually there are sponsors who cover some expenses and the jerseys. We had a year round championship with the possibility to ascent and descent to the lower or upper leagues, like in the professional leagues.
Originally Posted By fkurucz American Youth Soccer also has promotion and relegation. In our neck of the woods the leagues are classified as: Elite, Premier 1, Premier 2, Classic, Challenge 1 and Challenge. The total cost can vary, depending on how many non-league tournaments the team plays in. My son's team would play in 2 tournaments per year and we stuck to local tournaments to keep costs down. My niece's team played about 10 tournaments a year, and a few would be sufficiently far away to require air travel. Son on top of the $3000 dollar in club fees there would be another $1000 in tournament fees (usually $100 per tournament per player). Then there were travel costs as there would be at most one or two local tournaments worth attending. Anyway, this is why I characterize youth soccer as an upper middle class thing. That said, there are cheaper options. You could play recreational or high school soccer, but the level of play in both is considered inferior. If you want a University athletic scholarship you have to play club and at an elite club.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros There are crazy expensive options available, but there are also much cheaper ones too. My brother played in a league that was organized by the local Optimists club, and games were all local against local teams. They played once a week (usually on Saturday mornings), and had one practice a week (though that only seemed to happen for about half the teams he played on through the years). I don't know what it cost to join, but I can't imagine it was more than $50-100. The league provided T-shirt "uniforms", equipment, fields, and referees (usually slightly older kids). It was pretty bare-bones, but it got a lot of people involved Yes, if you want a scholarship, you probably need to play in one of the better leagues. But much like basketball, football, or any number of other sports, most kids know they really don't have a chance at ever getting a scholarship, and are just out there to compete while they can
Originally Posted By dagobert Luckily we don't need scholarships for the university, because college is free in Austria. We don't have college sport and university ife is also completely different to what I've experienced in the US. So over here sports, especially soccer, is just for fun. Nearly every village has a soccer club and the bigger cities have many soccer clubs. The leagues are set up in a way that the teams don't have to travel that far. Maxium is an hour by car. If you want to become a professional player, you have to try to get into the youth programms of the professional clubs.
