Vuvuzelas vs. Qwest Field

Keep the horns, the complaining from the players is delicious.

and by taking away a cultural thing at the World Cup doesn’t work for me

With soccer hooligans, you never know what they’re carrying. If they’d ban the vuvuzelas and systematically seize them from the fans at the gates, the number of guns and knives that make it into the stadium would go up. Pretty tough to kill someone with a vuvuzela—much less tough with a gun or a knife…

not airhorns.

I’ve grown fond of the Vuvuzelas and may even move to South Africa … good atmosphere.

It’s like in basketball when the fans behind the basket make a huge racket trying to distract the free throw shooter, or in football when coaches try to “ice” the kicker.

It’s part of the game, deal with it.

I personally enjoy seeing something different in sports. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and to “like” or “dislike” something but that should not give anyone the right to take that “something” away. Some on here have said that it is not a home field advantage but I disagree. The south africans play futbol with the instrument playing, so therefore when the south africans are playing they are use to the sound and it has no effect on them.

You can not say that it is not part of someones culture simply because it wasn’t around 40 years ago. Cultures change and adapt new things so that argument does not exist. Young white americans have taken a huge liking to Hip hop music, in fact they represent more money in hip hop than young black americans, it is a part of their culture now and it has not always been that way.

As Smileyman mentioned…how does horns stop someone from playing a sport? Athletes are focused on the game at hand and should be able to function no matter the situation. I am for the horns and in fact…BLOW THEM HARDER!

I happen to know that. Sorry to sound high and mighty. I don’t often get the chance on this site to know more than most because everyone here knows more about football (football football, not soccer football) than me. But I do have some inside knowledge here. They won’t ban the vuvuzelas because they are an intrinsic part of the South African football culture. Quite right too I say – the World Cup was taken to Africa for a reason, which was to get African culture into the world’s biggest football tournament. To do that and then sanitize the experience locally for the sake of European TV audiences (for it is they that are making the most noise about this – pun intended) would be ridiculous.

What they might do is work with broadcasters to reduce the effects mics that are placed at pitchside – in fact they WILL do that. They are doing that now. I don’t mean to spoil the debate – the fact that they won’t ban the vuvuzelas doesn’t mean we can’t debate whether they SHOULD. I don’t think they should because I believe in respecting local cultures, but others might disagree.

…at first. Just tune it out, it’s not that hard.

I do understand why the players dislike it though. You’re used to crowd noises on the field/ice/whatever and usually you ignore it (or you’re too into the game to notice). The vuvuzelas have a distinct sound that not everyone is used to. That’s why the players are being thrown off.

But it’s exactly as LondonNiner said, they won’t be banned because it’s part of their culture in the sport (if that makes sense). As annoying as it is (at first), I agree with that.

So just tune it out and focus on the game.

And to those of you that don’t like the low scoring (or no scoring at all)…it means that the teams are playing well. We’re seeing some damn good soccer this year, that’s why you see so many ties. Soccer is just as much strategy as football. When you see back and forth play that a lot of us are used to from sports like hockey and basketball it means something’s wrong (as in, the defence/midfield is playing poorly or whatever).

I’m a soccer player so naturally I can tolerate the lower scoring…but I can totally understand why a lot of people are bored by it. It’s boring. Thing is, that means the teams are good, playing well and evenly matched. If you give it a chance and understand the sport more and more you might eventually see it better that you do now.

That’s just how I see it though…

But at the same time I don’t like them because they’re constant.

When fans chant or scream they do it within the flow of the game. Team does well, fans get louder. Team goes through a lull, fans get quieter. Team scores, stadium goes nuts. Vuvuzelas are just loud all the time, whether the game is exciting, boring, or somewhere in between. We can’t hear a stadium erupt anymore because it’s just bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I also don’t like the idea of artificial noise, but the boundaries for what you can deem artificial are always under debate (cowbells, thundersticks, even stomping)

But yes, it’s culture. South African league games have had these for years and as much as we argue that it takes away from the atmosphere, it really is what makes up the South African idea of match atmosphere. I suppose we let them have their fun now and we never deal with it again.