It appears that Bill Simmons may be back on the soccer bandwagon after his ill-fated attempt to start following Spurs after the 2006 World Cup. The Sports Guy attended the USA v. Mexico match last week at Estadio Azteca, witnessing El Tri defeat the USMNT 2-1. He paints a great picture of the atmosphere at the game and does a good job with his match analysis. (Note: If a soccer neophyte can diagnose the US problem at left back with ease, don’t you think Bob Bradley should do something about it?)
UF welcomes Bill Simmons back to the soccer fold. We just hope he means it this time.
Also note the pictures of gameday linked in the article. Here and here.
“Back”? Think I heard somewhere that he is already actively looking for another team to support after doing a whole column on the Prem and his choice of team (went with Spurs I believe).
Simmons was never Spurs. He didn’t suffer enough to be Spurs.
And this column is typical Simmons: never say in 750 words what you can say in 75000, name-check some douchily nicknamed crony, and casually mention various ESPN-related perks to which your regular fan will never have access.
It’s really too bad he’s such a football dilettante, because a passionate footy fan with his platform could really help in efforts to get quality football televised in the US. Unfortunately, he’ll get bored with football again in a couple months and stop writing about it, and we’ll be here, watching jerky feeds with Arabic commentary while he pens another column about walking his dog in his Wes Welker jersey.
You know, I try not to be negative about someone or something unless I can give you a specific reason why. So here goes.
As far as soccer is concerned, Simmons watched a few World Cup matches, had a few conversations with MLS lackey Rob Stone, and then wrote a few articles on soccer. The final one included his usual assortment of comments like “Team X is just like the Yankees!” and “Team Y is just like Karate Kid 2!”. At the end of the column, he picked Spurs, calling them “the Spurs” and went on and on about how he was gonna go to London and buy jerseys and blah blah blah.
3 minutes later, he realized that there was a 96 hour tv marathon of “The Simple Life” that was showing somewhere on Directv and forgot that soccer ever existed while he plotted his next book: Tom is like Paris, Bill is like Nicole.
Basically, he’s a f**king jackass. He doesn’t respect the f**king game, and I hope he chokes on the Wes Welkah pubic hair dolls that he surely purchased on ebay.
Cunt.
“and I hope he chokes on the Wes Welkah pubic hair dolls that he surely purchased on ebay.”
Do they offer a Fernando Torres version?
/no homo
We all know ‘nando has had electrolysis done, it’s like a turle shell down there.
F**k Simmons. He abandoned the NHL when it was struggling under the guise of ‘my team is incompetent’ and then suddenly has a change of heart when they get the top seed in their conference this year. Too bad the Bruins f**king suck though.
Shit, *turtle. I just woke up, cut me some slack.
/Threadjack
Fabregas (and Denilson, Sagna) doubtful for Celtic game
Crap!!!! on two levels… one, Cesc’s a huge hole to fill in the lineup and two, the Barca rumors now take on a life of their own.
Meaning… the “Fab left out so he’s not cup tied” speculation.
@PR: Yes, he has been back on the bandwagon since the beginning of this summer. He tried to get on it after/during the 2006 World Cup with selecting a team (yes, Spurs). Now he’s looking for another team.
Riddle me this: didn’t the first round of qualifying used to be the weekend before the EPL started? Instead of three days afterward?
Hey, the guy readily admits he’s a new fan, dipping his toe in the vast ocean of football… speaks to his vast audience about it with respect and a bit of awe… outwits Bob Bradley… and does his usual, clever description of the scene. Do I think his means of choosing a team to root for is ridiculous? Of course. But in all, he’s on the right side here.
Not everyone can be as knowledgable or steeped in the game as our inbred little crew.
s**t, i said “vast” twice in one oddly constructed parasentence. apologies.
/devil’s advocate
What’s with the smiley face up yonder?
You’re being very charitable towards a guy that quit on Spurs, TLL.
And I don’t think we’re down on Simmons because he doesn’t know the game. At least I’m not. I’m down on him because if it’s not A.) a Boston team, and/or B.) a team that wins championships, he wants nothing to do with it. He didn’t have much to say when USMNT got ass-whipped in Costa Rica, but hey they beat Spain, they have a huge match with Mexico, and all of sudden, he’s all up for it. Does the same with Spurs. Picks them in 2006 as they seem to be an up-and-coming team, and drops them like a hot rock when times get tough. He’ll do the same with USMNT, and whichever EPL side he “picks” next.
Georger – if memory serves, that’s correct. Last season, Arsenal played Twente the week before the season kicked off. I was going to say they pushed the season start up because of the world cup, but that doesn’t appear to be accurate either. Not sure what the reason is
Hockalees – I wouldn’t read too much into it. Arsene told the official site Cesc is more than 50% likely to lineup tomorrow and I’d be shocked if he wasn’t in the starting XI. It’d have to be serious to keep him out, given how much is on the line.
Funny though, as I was reading that report – good news, Diaby’s back! – I looked over and saw that the promo shot for the 3rd kit has Adebayor on it. Looks like the photo doesn’t get cycled through as you click:
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/diaby-returns-but-trio-face-fitness-tests
oh hey, finally I have an avatar! not what I chose, but c’est la vie
I’m always amazed at the vitriol towards Simmons. He will NEVER have the passion that most of us do, and that’s OK by me. He’s trying (and honestly, I think he gets it right regarding the US tactics — for someone new to the game, it says a lot about him and the US tactics). Yes, he tried to follow the EPL a few years ago — he called them “the Spurs” instead of Spurs. So what? For someone who had never followed before, it’s a very understandable mistake in an otherwise enjoyable article about picking a team in the EPL. And I also get trying to change the team choice. Seems to me you need to let a team find you, instead of picking one in the way he did.
Soccer doesn’t need Simmons’ validation (or anyone else’s, for that matter). Instead, I say that we just enjoy watching a mainstream columnist write an article that is honestly fairly well-educated about soccer and doesn’t treat the audience like soccer idiots. If you hate it, that’s fine — I get it. But I disagree with hating it just because he’s suddenly showing an interest due to the Confederations Cup and Rob Stone. There’s plenty of room on the bandwagon.
I’m with TLL on this one. New fans have to start somewhere, and at least someone with Simmons’ platform is talking about it at all. It may not be perfect, but if Simmons starts writing soccer articles because his ESPN bosses want the EPL to be successful on Saturday mornings, then I think that’s a positive thing. If that brings us closer to HD channels instead of shaky feeds, then fine with me. Will Simmons keep it up? Probably not. But the fact that ESPN even paid him to fly down there and write about the match says something. (and I do remember UF’s discussions about the pros and cons of ESPN coverage – hopefully this sort of stuff will lead to that improving as well).
I’ll just echo what Corky said.
Pop Culture and Footy are a lovely pairing.
The more the merrier, Senor Simmons.
Do you have any idea how many non-footie fans are reading about it right now (in the bogs at work, probably)? That can’t be all bad, right?
I think his man crush on the Haitian Sensation is pretty amusing. Maybe he’ll be a Hull fan? Him and Phil Brown together will make even more people hate him.
Well, Arsenal have Fat and Orange; he and Phil Brown together could be Twat and Orange.
@hadley: in simmons’ twitter feed he mentioned maybe just picking a player (he mentioned Jozy) and following that player rather than a team.
Bill Simmons deserves Phil Brown deserves Bill Simmons.
I don’t disagree with you guys about the exposure; all I’m saying is, it won’t last. Simmons will quit on it as soon as NFL season rolls around and he starts writing his pleonastic odes to the Patriots.
@Hadley
Funny you mention the man crush as it was Simmons’ man crush on Kevin Durant in Fall 2006 that diverted Simmons’ attention away from Spurs.
I had a run-in with Simmons in the fall of 2002 when I was writing a music column for my college paper. Some dbag emailed him a couple of my articles claiming I was plagiarizing him. For starters, the kid was a complete douche a friend of mine tried to beat up in a bar a couple weeks before over some not-that-attractive girl (two-and-two put together after the fact). Secondly, Simmons sent me this totally holier-than-thou email about journalistic ethics and creating my own voice, blah bulls**t blah.
I asked him if he read any of my articles. Of course he didn’t, he didn’t want to get into the specifics and HE wasn’t accusing me, but it wasn’t the first time someone had tried to copy him, blah blah blah. Told him to stick it in his ear unless he was willing to actually read my articles and respond to specific points where he felt I plagiarized him. He never did. Honestly, I never thought his s**t was that witty to begin with, but the episode made me realize how much of a self-important pompous ass he was. Ugh, f**k that guy.
Compared to the typical American sports columnist, who usually writes with some variation of “soccer will never catch on in America”, I think Simmons’ warming to game is a positive thing. He’s changing his mind, and sports journalists rarely, if ever, do that in print.
Here’s one thing that I would like to point out about Simmons’ column…his recounting of what the Mexican fans do only reinforces my belief (and several others around these parts) that Mexican soccer fans are really terrible people. Now they may be nice people away from the game, but those actions are reprehensible. They could challenge Croat fans for the title.
3 Arse players out against the ‘Tic?
This is excellent news for me. Means we may stand a chance of only losing by a small amount and not the cricket score I expect.
I really don’t mind Simmons’s attempts at becoming a soccer fan. As someone else said, people have to start somewhere. I’m much more ambivalent about Colin Cowherd, though. That guy’s almost as big a douche bag as Rome.
I had to google to find out who Colin Cowherd is
@whizalen
Under the images search were the results pictures of giant c**ts? If not, they screwed up.
Cowherd was our local sportsradio guy before ESPN picked him up to go national. Not a fan then, nor now.
@whiz: Consider yourself lucky you didn’t know who he was. I had to listen to him on the day of the Mexico-US game as I drove back to VA from my hometown in Ohio in an effort to make it back in time for the game. I understand that he’s getting more into soccer but I feel sick that Cowherd was my only source of info about the game up until Balboa laid his brilliance on me.
“laid his brilliance on me”
That sounds somewhat dirty.
In “FrontRunners” (a documentary about a high school election at Stuyvesant HS) the nerdy, overly ambitious, socially awkward candidate says “hold on, let me my brilliance soak in” or something to that effect. I have vowed to use that sometime and I will do the same with “laid his brilliance on me”. Although, I think I will say “laid my brilliance on _____.”
I find it interesting that someone who doesn’t even put on a jersey can inspire so much vitriol. I have perfectly unhealthy thoughts about most people that have played, play, or will play for Man U or Chelsea, so this is in no way meant to scold anyone’s irrational hatred (save Whizalen who may in fact have a genuine gripe).
But the guy is a sports writer. Nothing more. I used to enjoy his articles. Now I don’t, so I stopped reading them. Nice and easy. I don’t want to kick his dog (RIP) or wish ill upon his family.
He grew up with a dad who took him to Red Sox games and Celtics games. He’s a product of his environment. To take his analogy the other way, if he grew up in Newcastle he’d be writing 10,000 word articles about how unstoppable Alan Shearer was instead of Kevin McHale.
Yes, his Boston bandwagon is unbearable at times. Yes, he gets perks for working for ESPN. Yes, his interest in the sport we hold dear appears to be fleeting. So what? Don’t read him.
/second devil’s advocate in a week. Not trying to be the local contrarian
I think the big thing is that Simmons is that he’s avoidable. All he has is a podcast and a column on a website. Rick Reilly jumping on the bandwagon would be much more unbearable.
@TFA: That’s going to be the postscript to all of my comments on here: “Hold on, let my brilliance soak in.”
I didn’t read anything you guys wrote above.
I just wanted to say ‘F**k Bill Simmons.’
The reason he stopped watching the spurs in 06 was because the guy had a 2nd child. He said so on world soccer daily. I imagine it would be tough to throw yourself into a sport you know next to nothing about, while trying to maintain your knowledge of the other sports and trying to raise 2 kids. Yeah the guy has his faults but he ain’t the Antichrist.