Association Football

I am not a sports fan.  I played soccer as a youngster, and for a while watched some professional football and baseball (don't even know if soccer was available on American TV at the time!), but none of it as an adult.  That being said, I've never understood the American disdain for soccer.

I passed a couple of co-workers discussing sports and "boring soccer" came up as a topic.  I asked one why he felt this to be the case, and why did he like hockey but not soccer, when (I said) "they are essentially the same game".  (No idea how true this is, but that's my layman's perspective.)  He said that the goals are too far apart and it takes too long to get from one side to the other!  He thought it would be much more exciting if the field was half the size.

Huh!  Are Americans so obsessed with "goals" that we cannot appreciate the skill it takes to get there?  I just found it quite an odd opinion (though I am guessing he's correct in his assessment about why American's find soccer boring).

I enjoy watching hockey and football, baseball less so, but now and then I will.  Soccer and NBA, no thanks. 
NBA is hilarious.  They could save a whole lotta time by just making every game 90-90 as a start point and playing for only 60 seconds. 

All sports are more fun to play than watch, played them all as a youth.   Playing hockey was an absolute gas, both on ice or floor hockey.  God I miss that.  The only sport I was good at. 

Well, Football (Soccer) is my favorite sport (I played it even in the street and for a couple years in the semi pro league), but I enjoy almost every sport except Golf and NBA.

infocat wrote: He thought it would be much more exciting if the field was half the size.

Maybe he should watch futsal instead 

Hockey and soccer are nothing alike.  Hockey is a contact sport of constant motion played on a small playing surface.  Soccer is a sport in which any contact is met with a complete and pathetic flop with little to no action played on a cushy field about the size of Central Park.

The T wrote: I have watched football ("soccer") ever since I was a child and it's the only sport I 100% love. I watch almost every game of the Spanish league (my team FC Barcelona plays there), I watch most of the Champions League, always the Euro, Copa America, and World Cups, spme WC qualifiers, friendlies, and the Ecuadorian league where my other team plays (Barcelona SC).  If people in the US criticize football for lack of scoring, I want to do similar for American sports: all non-stop scoring (where's the tension?), stupid time outs that kill momentum, commercial interests above everything (most interruptions are only for commercials), sports where an offense and a defense are two separate parts of a team and rarely one can act like the other (American football specifically), sports arenas which are mostly commercial circuses, teams that move from city to city and have zero actual connection to a city and its people, etc etc etc.  Oh don't get me started..

timothy leary wrote: The T wrote: I have watched football ("soccer") ever since I was a child and it's the only sport I 100% love. I watch almost every game of the Spanish league (my team FC Barcelona plays there), I watch most of the Champions League, always the Euro, Copa America, and World Cups, spme WC qualifiers, friendlies, and the Ecuadorian league where my other team plays (Barcelona SC).  If people in the US criticize football for lack of scoring, I want to do similar for American sports: all non-stop scoring (where's the tension?), stupid time outs that kill momentum, commercial interests above everything (most interruptions are only for commercials), sports where an offense and a defense are two separate parts of a team and rarely one can act like the other (American football specifically), sports arenas which are mostly commercial circuses, teams that move from city to city and have zero actual connection to a city and its people, etc etc etc.  Oh don't get me started..  Here this will get you started............http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/chc/ballpark/information/

Baseball teams appear to have some connection to their cities, but NFL teams move freely from one to the other in what would amaze anyone looking from outside 

And the ball was over the line anyway

Edited by Nogbad_The_Bad - July 05 2016 at 13:09

Dean wrote: The T wrote: Dean wrote: It must be great living in a country where you not only invent a sport, your fellow countrymen are actually good at it too. And you have to thank a Soviet referee (of all people) for your only glory...  Oh Teo, I am disappointed in you... I thought every footie fan knew the ref was Swiss

Wat. 

I have seven reasons to not talk about association football.