Manchesto wrote:
First of all people from the UK and alot of Europe seem to hate the US fullstop, also the MLS is hated by me and my friends due to what it does to the game, it is the typical butchering of something being introduced to american culture. Clubs in the premiership are 120 or so years old in some cases and football is the main sport here and for some a way of life.
The name MLS inclused the word Soccer, which annoys most people who would call it Football, we dont call American Football something like Padded Rugby... another reason MLS i hated is due to how americans dont see 'soccer' as a cool sport and alot of the players in the leauge would have wanted to play baseball or 'american Football' not 'soccer'. whereas in most european countries football is by far the dominant and coolest sport.
The standard of games in the MLS (by no fault of its own) is also very poor and sometimes looks very much like the bottom leagues in England, for example alot of the goals are rebounds and lucky chances.
I also personally get annoyed watching most american sports with commentary due to the way stats and phrases are constantly used in the game, "Steven Gerrard is about 6'1 and 160 pounds" which to anyone who isnt american is worthless rubbish. Also other thing the commentator says are annoying too, i watched a game once and they couldnt understand why play had been stopped for an offside. It is also annoying how recent events such as David Beckham going over to the MLS has put the MLS into more of a global light, and when he manages to barely roll the ball into the opposing net from his own half people seem to think he is jesus or some magician, when my grandma could have scored that goal...
Also going back to my point about the history of the premiership using American terms in commentary and the names of the teams being very untraditional (which is often the american way in other sports which i understand) for example LA Galaxy and Chicago Fire, the names are so annoying...
Well, you have to break the sport down into terms that people can understand FIRST.
It does no good if you're using words like derby and pitch instead of rivalry and field, because then people are just going to get confused, then irritated and then they're going to change the channel which is the last thing that the MLS wants.
And like it or not it is SOCCER here in the U.S not FOOTBALL, because we had "our football" first, so it does no good to call it the same damn thing, because AGAIN, people are just going to get confused, and if you're marketing something then you need to be as clear as possible. So you can argue the soccer thing into the ground, but you're wasting your time.
Another thing, soccer is NOT just a European sport; that comment shows your arrogance. The last time that I checked it was played pretty well in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Korea, Japan, China, Turkey etc.
Which brings me to my next point; the leagues best chance at improving comes from importing players from Mexico and South America which it has already done. There has been a pretty decent number of guys from Argentina into the league, just this year. This has brought guys like Juan Pablo-Angel, Schelotto, Gallardo, Blanco into the limelight of the league.
Beckham brought big publicity to the league but the better acquisition was probably Cuathemac Blanco from Mexico who was the MVP of the all-star game.
