Any of you Americans interested in soccer?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Its also tremendous fun in videogame form.

[BX 0]

Ultimate Frisbee is better.

[Guest Vitamin X]

So everyone who is un-American is pathetic? Wow, you better thank those Brits who moved to that swamp of yours and killed Native Americans.

Assuming you're British, you ought to thank those Romans who decided to cross the channel and even bother setting up a country on a little island. Not to mention oppress the people living there as well.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, you're Norweigan. Barbarian~!

[The Decemberists 0]

Stupid thread....

 

Like KKK said, calling US Football crap didn't exactly help.

 

Anyway, I'm a soccer man myself, but I'll more than happilly watch NFL on Sky, and I've spent hours on Madden 2004.

 

What I've found, and I'm not saying this is for everyone or anything, the more I looked into American football the more I liked it. To start with I thought it was crap for all the reasons at the start of the thread, but having investigated, thinking there must be something in it to be as popular in the US as it is I really began to "get it", so to speak. It's not just fat guy running at people while not fat guys throw a ball. The whole plays thing about each individual guy running to a certain area to create space etc is great.

 

But with soccer I think, and again I'm not saying this is a *fact*, its just what I think, its the freedom the players have, and the fact that anything can happen at any time which can lead to a goal. And I know the same is true for US football in it's own way, but it is very, erm, rigid I guess you could say with the downs system etc.

 

 

 

But rugby is just *awful*

[Guest The Rising Star]

I can mention a lot of exciting soccer matches, but I don't think people will recognize the names Borussia Dortmund-Juventus in North America as they recognize England-Argentina.

 

And no, I'm not an idiot, like that Oaoast mod said, but I shouldn't have badmouthed Am. football in my first post.

[Kahran Ramsus 0]

Assuming you're British, you ought to thank those Romans who decided to cross the channel and even bother setting up a country on a little island. Not to mention oppress the people living there as well.

 

The Romans had little lasting impact in Britain. The Anglo-Saxon and Danish invasions were far more important.

[iggymcfly 0]

To be honest, where soccer loses all credibility with me is the shootouts. At least in the NHL, when it really matters (in the playoffs), they'll keep playing hockey until someone scores a goal and wins the game.

 

But in soccer, it's more like, hey we know it's completely possible that no one will ever be able to score and win the game in the manner in which it was designed to be played. We'll have to just make up a way for them to score.

 

I can't wait until this starts translating into other sports. Pretty soon, in the Eastern Conference finals, the Pistons and Pacers will have to give up on scoring and have a free throw shooting contest. It will be great.

[razazteca 0]

Playing for the tie is no fun to watch at all.

[Anorak 0]

Soccer is hockey without ice, weapons, violence, and organ music.

Or scoring.

Or entertainment value...

-=Mike

...But they do have more riots...

Proper football riots are extremely rare and have largely confined to the past, at least in Europe anyway. I bet there's been more riots in America over the past couple of decades when some random city uses a superbowl victory as an excuse to run amok. If I attended sporting events where I had to sit on my backside for 4 hours next to people behaving like they were in a cinema i'd have some energy to burn off as well.