Alessandro Biello

[shermanator]

Ozzie is a disease that has infected this place for at least the decade plus I've been here. Unfortunately it appears to be incurable.

[InglewoodJack]

On 4/1/2024 at 8:25 PM, SoccMan said:

I was at the TFC game and these two women who were walking by one of the entrances where a mass crowd had gathered waiting to get in said wow I didn’t know soccer was so popular lol.

I genuinely believe that The Simpsons episode from the 90s where soccer comes to Springfield truly caused mass psychological damage to North Americans with how they perceive soccer- fake sport for foreigners that no one living at the centre of the sports world truly cares about.

23 hours ago, shermanator said:

I've actually found that it's easier to convert hockey fans into soccer fans than it is to convert people who support other soccer into fans of local soccer.

The best way to convert them into soccer fans is to give them a way to see the game live in their city. If they have a good time, they'll be back and will bring their wallets with them. But the key is that they have to have fun; none of this gatekeeping crap.

This is absolutely my experience too. I mostly grew up playing in bands and most of my friends are more in the music world than the sports one, so the notion of "going to a game" for most of my friends means shelling out over a hundred bucks on a habs ticket to watch them get smacked by any relatively competitive team, on a weeknight, sitting 75 rows up from the ice. You take them to a game at Saputo, the ticket is $30, it's outdoors, a lot of weekend games, and most of the people I've brought go nuts when they see people in the stadium with flags, drums, smoke, flares, etc.- you grow up hearing about how the habs have the best and most passionate fans in the world, and you go to a single soccer game, and it's on a completely different level. One of my good friends who probably couldn't name 5 athletes in all sports combined came to a game last summer with me, Montreal scores, immediately the supporters section starts moshing, my friend gets knocked down two rows of seats, beers all over him, bangs his elbow pretty hard. Guy climbs back up looking incredibly pumped up, and you can tell right then and there that he became a fan.

In fact, I think a lot of people rationalize MLS games as "it's like a concert, except the band is a soccer team".

I find these non-soccer fans have a much more open mind than fans of other clubs. These people go to a game, love the environment, get sucked into the passion of the fans and have a great time. These people aren't spending half the game talking about how the supporters are pathetic compared to [insert serie a team here] or that the level of play is embarrassing to the sport because they only watch top 6 prem clubs. It's easier for these new fans to rationalize a game as just a place to hang out with friends and get together with a ton of people supporting a team rather than spending your time comparing this league to that.

Question for people who have multiple divisions in their home town- are you actually going to League1 games too? We obviously don't have CPL in Quebec (though want to go to an Otleti game this summer), and the next best thing would be PLSQ. On one hand, I think their games are BYOB which sounds fun, but on the other hand, whenever a local team posts pictures, it looks like there are zero fans there. Would imagine bigger clubs like TSS Rovers and Vaughan have actual supporters, but I've always wanted to check out a PLSQ game, though don't want to be the only guy there.

[InglewoodJack]

On 4/2/2024 at 12:14 PM, maplebanana said:

I get this from nearly every Canadian I know, including some that are soccer fans and cheer for the nation of their grandparents only. It is frustrating as hell when I'm trying to drum up support for Canada games. 

This is at least starting to change though, I think, depending on the countries their families are from. Countries like Italy, Morocco, Croatia, Portugal, their families still root for those teams, but I feel like a lot of people who would don the england jersey in high school, casually root for Ireland, or even other countries like Russia or Brazil or even some of the African countries are starting to come home to Canada. I've even seen some people with french accents wearing the Canada jersey out and about.

Though it is funny to see the casual "only watches the world cup" fan start following Canada, just because their notion of who our stars are and how good those players actually are is so crazy. Last year my dad asked me "who is this Lauren guy who always scores goals for Canada?" and when I told him that Larin plays in Belgium and isn't even out best striker, he was shocked, because he thought that for sure Larin played for Chelsea or Manchester United or something. Didn't even know who Jonathan David was. "the serb with the sweatpants is pretty good, where he play?" was another quote.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

49 minutes ago, InglewoodJack said:

I genuinely believe that The Simpsons episode from the 90s where soccer comes to Springfield truly caused mass psychological damage to North Americans with how they perceive soccer- fake sport for foreigners that no one living at the centre of the sports world truly cares about....

Think the othering of soccer as something foreign to be ridiculed and/or shunned (even though its history actually stretches back to the late 1800s in North America) started way before that and that episode from The Simpsons just reflected prevailing attitudes in many of the small cities in the American flyover states that the show was depicting. In a Canadian context, Don Cherry's Grapevine TV show had to be seen to be believed back in the 1980s for the scale of the soccer bashing that was going on sometimes. 

Edited April 3 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[SoccMan]

2 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Think the othering of soccer as something foreign to be ridiculed and/or shunned (even though its history actually stretches back to the late 1800s in North America) started way before that and that episode from The Simpsons just reflected prevailing attitudes in many of the small cities in the American flyover states that the show was depicting. In a Canadian context, Don Cherry's Grapevine TV show had to be seen to be believed back in the 1980s for the scale of the soccer bashing that was going on sometimes. 

However, I do remember an episode where Don Cherry had Brian Bud on the Grapevine and Don Cherry making a comment about how he went to a game in Scotland and was impressed at how physical and tough the players were and he commented that it gave him a different perspective on the game after that .

[SoccMan]

3 hours ago, InglewoodJack said:

I genuinely believe that The Simpsons episode from the 90s where soccer comes to Springfield truly caused mass psychological damage to North Americans with how they perceive soccer- fake sport for foreigners that no one living at the centre of the sports world truly cares about.

This is absolutely my experience too. I mostly grew up playing in bands and most of my friends are more in the music world than the sports one, so the notion of "going to a game" for most of my friends means shelling out over a hundred bucks on a habs ticket to watch them get smacked by any relatively competitive team, on a weeknight, sitting 75 rows up from the ice. You take them to a game at Saputo, the ticket is $30, it's outdoors, a lot of weekend games, and most of the people I've brought go nuts when they see people in the stadium with flags, drums, smoke, flares, etc.- you grow up hearing about how the habs have the best and most passionate fans in the world, and you go to a single soccer game, and it's on a completely different level. One of my good friends who probably couldn't name 5 athletes in all sports combined came to a game last summer with me, Montreal scores, immediately the supporters section starts moshing, my friend gets knocked down two rows of seats, beers all over him, bangs his elbow pretty hard. Guy climbs back up looking incredibly pumped up, and you can tell right then and there that he became a fan.

In fact, I think a lot of people rationalize MLS games as "it's like a concert, except the band is a soccer team".

I find these non-soccer fans have a much more open mind than fans of other clubs. These people go to a game, love the environment, get sucked into the passion of the fans and have a great time. These people aren't spending half the game talking about how the supporters are pathetic compared to [insert serie a team here] or that the level of play is embarrassing to the sport because they only watch top 6 prem clubs. It's easier for these new fans to rationalize a game as just a place to hang out with friends and get together with a ton of people supporting a team rather than spending your time comparing this league to that.

Question for people who have multiple divisions in their home town- are you actually going to League1 games too? We obviously don't have CPL in Quebec (though want to go to an Otleti game this summer), and the next best thing would be PLSQ. On one hand, I think their games are BYOB which sounds fun, but on the other hand, whenever a local team posts pictures, it looks like there are zero fans there. Would imagine bigger clubs like TSS Rovers and Vaughan have actual supporters, but I've always wanted to check out a PLSQ game, though don't want to be the only guy there.

Someone who has attended League  One Ontario games more than I can comment better than I . However, from a few games I’ve attended it seems to be basically family and friends at these games. Even Vaughan doesn’t get much , moreover, a lot of this League 1 parks you can basically stand outside the park and watch the game for free. But saying all that we need this level of soccer right across the country because it is a pathway for players to try and get to higher levels. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

14 hours ago, SoccMan said:

However, I do remember an episode where Don Cherry had Brian Bud on the Grapevine and Don Cherry making a comment about how he went to a game in Scotland and was impressed at how physical and tough the players were and he commented that it gave him a different perspective on the game after that .

Brian Budd was a sales rep for one of the leading brewery companies along with Robert Iarusci AFAIR. Suspect that a sponsor and/or the broadcaster had a word in his ear and told him to ease up a bit because they were receiving a bit of a backlash over it. Think the Kingston blowhard sometimes claims to be Scottish in some way so that maybe explains the game being in Scotland angle, but if an Italian player like Claudio Gentile had taken umbrage over what he had to say about soccer back then along with some of his guests I know who my money would be on to still be standing afterwards and it's definitely not Don.

On how things have changed in the modern era it was interesting that he actually did try to start the soccer bashing again briefly on Coach's Corner after TFC launched and even worked in a brief appearance by Maurice Edu:

Suspect MLSE soon told him to cease and desist from bashing one of their other teams on a Leafs telecast and using that as a platform to promote the idea that soccer should be shunned because its culture isn't the Canadian way or whatever.

That clip ends with what could be construed as a very thinly disguised invitation for some braindead thug on skates to seriously injure Ovechkin all because Don didn't like him celebrating scoring a goal. I have always found it bizarre how hockey players seem to have a blank cheque from the various legal systems in North America to carry out what can be very serious premeditated acts of violence that sometimes cause very serious injury to the player on the receiving end. Always compare that to one of my cousins (long since deceased unfortunately) almost getting deported after introducing the concept of rock 'em sock 'em soccer to an amateur cup final in London, Ont after one of the opposition players spat on one of his teammates. Somebody winding up in intensive care definitely had legal consequences in that context.

13 hours ago, SoccMan said:

Someone who has attended League  One Ontario games more than I can comment better than I . However, from a few games I’ve attended it seems to be basically family and friends at these games. Even Vaughan doesn’t get much , moreover, a lot of this League 1 parks you can basically stand outside the park and watch the game for free. But saying all that we need this level of soccer right across the country because it is a pathway for players to try and get to higher levels. 

Let's be honest L1O is amateur soccer with very few exceptions. Take away the NCAA scholarship angle that leads to the short season "Pro-Am" approach and would guys like Alistair Johnston be hanging around at that level into their early 20s? There always seems to be a mentality on here that soccer in Canada is on a slow inexorable rise compared to how things used to be but compare and contrast Vaughan Azzurri with clubs like Toronto Italia 50 years ago or so. One of my cousin's other rock em' sock 'em soccer exploits was breaking the leg of a star player from Italy who he thought was showboating (to put it in hockey terms) during an NSL game in Toronto. You can take the boy out of the Scottish council scheme but you can't take the Scottish council scheme out of the boy basically.

He told me the guy was being paid $100,000 for the summer to play pro soccer in Canada at that point. Adjust for inflation and compare how large a chunk that would take out of the CanPL salary cap nowadays let alone to what Vaughan Azzurri are doing as the top Italian club in the GTA in the present day. Some of the crowds back then in the GTA were more like the Halifax Wanderers than York United but it's something that recent immigrants were doing by themselves with only token coverage at best from the mainstream media so it has basically disappeared into a black hole in terms of the discourse on Canadian soccer.

Guys like Paul Beirne came along later and acted like they invented pro soccer in southern Ontario and a lot of people appear to have genuinely thought 20,000 crowds for TFC suddenly came out of nowhere but the latent interest was always there waiting for a soccer entertainment product that people would take seriously again. Occasional visits by big European clubs or national teams were as good as it got for a decade or two but those games often drew very large crowds. That all kind of begs the question why York United and Vaughan Azzurri are not taken seriously but that's a topic the powers that be in Canadian soccer never want to explore because it would involve a long hard look in the mirror...

Edited April 4 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[CanadaFan123]

@Ozzie_the_parrot you think coach’s corner was a leafs telecast and MLSE sent a cease and desist for protected speech?  And you’re saying others have 2 digit IQs?

Edited April 4 by CanadaFan123