What is the dumbest football opinion you've ever heard?

Yeah, I'm not taking this seriously at all so don't think I'm trying to sound ultra defensive. I think most Americans either support the U.S. or Mexico primarily. For me personally, I will always support the U.S. primarily no matter how bad we look (aside from the group stages in the WC we are pretty awful) and how painful it is to watch a team that can't string four fucking passes together.

But I think a lot of American's have their "second team". Of course, before a World Cup, I hear (mostly from the younger crowd of 18-22) ALL the time who their "3 teams are" (which are as you expect-- a "big" footballing nation-- Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Spain, etc.). For me, I fell in love with the Dutch in the 1998 WC when I was 10. I watched the game vs. Argentina and from then on I have this nostalgic attachment to watching Holland play even though I don't have a thread of relation to anyone in Holland or even a friend from Holland. But something about watching Bergkamp and Edgar Davids just captivated me as a 10 year old. After that, I couldn't stop talking about it and my mom literally ordered me some "Ajax training DVD's" (?? who knows why) but I still watched them.

So I think a lot of my friends that I have met have similar stories about how they fell in love with football, and there is something about a nostalgic attachment. In a lot of cases, though, it's just about winning (I'm in Texas and the baseball team here are the Houston Astros, which are on quite a good run. They've sucked for the past couple years but recently, so many "fans" have come out of hiding are now die hard Astro fans-- weird?). I have one friend who watched the 2005 Champions League Final (around 17 at the time) and fell in love with Liverpool that night based on pure emotion. Of course, he still supports them and hates his life, but neither here nor there.

Point is, it is just a different land scape over here. We don't have the history of football like in Europe. But the international thing isn't quite as polarizing as you make it out to be-- not a lot of Americans (older anyway) support "other countries". The "Germany are my team" thing is usually a younger generation thing that usually fades out. I was definitely guilty of it when I was 15-16 and had 4 teams going into the WC... my third team France lost in the final :(.

/r/soccer Thread Parent