we have suffered through some of the most awful national anthems at stars home games this year
slow
sluggish
dirgelike
sad
funeralesque

i prefer a rip roaring, lets take the night, kinda anthem performance

but few things could ever be worse than this thing from dallas on saturday night:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4BCN8JENAQ

I might storm the field and take the to the mic myself if we ever got this.

That poor girl was is so much pain. Just, please, end the suffering.

I agree 100%. The song is suppose to inspire and get you excited. I am sick and tired of this slow depressing crap. It is especially painful when you have a Hot Nut in your mouth and you need to drink beer.

BTW, did anyone catch the Liverpool/Tottenham match in Baltimore. It was a painful 90 minutes of soccer, but beyond cool to see two English teams stand and respect the US when they played the Star Spangled Banner from a stones throw from where the song was written.

I just wish the English announcers could have refrained from insulting all Marylanders by suggesting that the capital of Maryland was in Baltimore. Duh, it is Annapolis. (Having lived in Maryland for a short period of time, I was beyond offended.)

Ya, I watched that during the TV broadcast and talk about trying too hard.

She's just a kid so it wasn't her fault. But yikes! Just painful. I wonder who's kid she is that she was allowed to sing that. Can you imagine how that felt if you were a player standing out there and are supposed to look interested.

Then you have the TV people who are supposed to keep us interested while we all sit at home. Usually it's done by panning the camera through the audience which was clear after the first few shots of people laughing and cringing, (including the players) that you couldn't do.

Major anthem fail.

In response to SB's reference to the game in Balto, a few years ago I saw Chelsea and AS Roma here in Pittsburgh and I left feeling the same way. I would never again pay a dollar to see exhibition football.

In addition, the USLPro is not helping itself by scheduling back-to-back night games for anyone. It seems those in the suits and those outside the sport cannot appreciate the physical demands of players. No one, can put a full 90 on 2 consecutive nights (not to mention if one or both teams have any travel times in there). I am okay with a Friday and then Sunday if both teams have to deal with it, but this is still not preferential.

As long as potential football fans in US view moronic decisions like this and listless exhibition games by overseas powers, they will remain 'potential' because it won't win anyone over.

I am however, in favor of still seeing MLS/NASL/USL sides facing off against those teams, however.

I was surprised they got over 47K to attend the match. Someone made some money on that one...

Not sure how we got onto this, but I loved watching exhibition soccer in Seattle. It was a great way to watch big names in soccer at home with tens of thousands of fans, instead of D2 (Sounders) with 1,200 fans.
I saw Chelsea, Celtic and many other teams this way. Bonus for Seattle: they saw that the fans were out there, which I'm sure was part of bringing MLS to town. Give them top-level soccer, and they came to the games.
Smart stuff from the stadium people, imo.

My favorite national anthem was actually the Canadian one, when the mic went out so the Dark Clouds took over. It was a beautiful thing.

Just be happy they don't use the full 4 verse version anymore. With a little research, the story behind it really is interesting. While the first verse just makes me think of rednecks, nascar and fighter jets streaming red white and blue smoke, the third verse really is something of worth to me. Still if that little girl was singing all 4 verses, i would hope one of our players would have the sense to kick a ball at her...in the face

I've never heard all four verses sung... at the pace people tend to sing it, I'm eternally grateful for that.

You know, I have never heard all four verses either. I heard the French National Anthem has something like 100+ verses. Then again, they are French!