# Do Europeans get mad about Canadians not playing soccer (futball) either? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 20, 2020, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570 "2020-08-20T10:22:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/21 "2020-08-20T19:54:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Basketball and baseball are homegrown animals so there’s no European equivalents, True for basketball, but baseball likely evolved from the English game of [rounders](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders). ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/22 "2020-08-20T20:00:48Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > rolling his eyes at those watching the NFL and drinking Bud Light. Well Hell, I do that 😉 . Mostly for the Bud Light though - and besides the college game is far more interesting that the NFL. Although I am a soccer fan… I will say that most non-fans of American football (not just European or Latin American soccer fans) find the whole too many breaks and commercials to be very dull. So ironically ultra fans of both sports have the same complaint about the other sport. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/23 "2020-08-20T20:25:34Z")
We very rarely hear much about Canadian sports, while stuff like the superbowl just gets everywhere online. I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve tried to tell me how great the game is (and then they often turn round and tell you that people only watch the superbowl for the ads anyway, what’s that all about)… I’ve tried watching it, it’s dull. People have told me that it’s all about the tactics, but I don’t watch chess matches either. Add that to the comedy of the name ‘World Series’, and the constant insulting of what everyone else calls football, and we very much get the impression that the USA seems to think everyone else should care a lot more about their sports than they do- with a side of just playing sports that no-one else cares about, then declaring themselves the best at them. Hard not to laugh, really. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/24 "2020-08-20T20:42:20Z")
Well I would say that baseball is not really “homegrown” but an extremely simplified version of cricket, and American football is a somewhat simplified version of rugby. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/25 "2020-08-20T21:21:31Z")
That means you don’t know American Football. It is an extremely complex game. Each part of each offense an defense are extremely planned and each player has to be in the exact right place at each point in time. You need layers of coaches and coordinators, even at the college level. If soccer is checkers, American football is chess. I can’t say I’m a rugby expert, so I could be missing something there. And baseball is just as complex as cricket. If you follow each sport, you recognize many similarities. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/26 "2020-08-20T21:31:25Z")
I did not write that the game is not played in a complex way, I stated that the game itself, its rules, are simpler. In both games. The moves are simpler, the way the score is counted is simpler. The events developing on the pitch may be complex (rather: complicated, but never mind). The mindset is not. My opinion. Based on _some_ knowledge of the game. This may be a case of Dunning-Kruger, but I refute the claim that I don’t know American Foorball: I know enough. Enough to have an opinion. An baseball is sure not as complex as cricket. I understand baseball, I do not understand cricket. But I respect it. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/27 "2020-08-20T21:35:41Z")
No, I call BS on all of this. I know all of these games very well, and you are way off base (no pun intended). ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/28 "2020-08-20T21:41:12Z")
Well, then we must agree to disagree, because I have my mind made up on that subject. It is not the first time I think about it, so my statements are not made on a whim. I truly believe what I wrote. Your games (I say _your_ because I deduce from the way you argue that you are US-American), specially baseball and American Football, are simplified versions of cricket (or rounders, as **kenobi\_65** pointed out) and rugby, respectively. But as this is not a matter of life or death, I will leave it at that. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/29 "2020-08-20T22:23:29Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Not to start a flamewar, but how does that work? With the exception of soccer, what exactly do Europeans play that are more complex or harder to play than their American equivalents? Rugby is more complex than American Football in the sense that you have to throw it backwards, you have to touch the ball down with downward pressure rather than just step inside the endzone, you have to convert from in line from where you scored (not absurdly easily in front of the posts), and there aren’t endless substitutions and breaks that help the players to specialise or recover their fitness. Of course it’s equally difficult to win because it’s the same for all the players. American football though is a really good game and tactically it’s very sophisticated. I think I actually prefer to watch it to rugby but it’s not as complex a game in my opinion. That doesn’t make it worse, just different. I would compare baseball to cricket from which is surely it’s ancestor. In cricket - especially Test cricket - the batsman is examined in every way over the course of hours and sometimes days. It’s the ultimate test of technique. I’ve seen batsmen get worked out by opponent bowlers over the course of their careers - they start off brilliant and then someone finds some tiny hole in their technique and over the course of the next couple of years bowlers from around the world pick and pick at it until the batsman falls apart. Most good batsmen change their approach to batting and their technique to combat this. The bad ones just get found out and drop away from the top of the game. The great ones are in control right from the start and never lose their greatness. The fielders don’t get a massive glove that even a 6 year old could catch with. The throwing in baseball is impressive and the double plays are quite brilliant. But it amuses me when a morning news show shows a great baseball catch from the night before - every cricket fan I know laughs at these when they go to the US and see these. Pool is almost literally a kids game compared to snooker. The different in skill level between those two games is utterly insane. Pool is much more fun to play (although if I was great at snooker I might feel differently) but as a sport forget it. Snooker is utterly brilliant to watch - pool… nah. The most famous American motorsport race is literally going around in a circle. I’m not saying that makes it easier to win - but it hardly tests the different abilities of the driver as much as a proper race track does. Compare an oval to racing on the street circuit in Monaco - possibly the ultimate test of a drivers ability. This is a bit unfair because there are some great tracks in the US - but it’s defined in European minds as being a championship around a fucking circle. Basketball is a much better game than the equivalent over in Britain which is netball and played almost exclusively by women. Basketball is one million percent cooler and takes an enormous amount of skill. I know which I’d rather watch. I saw the Michal Jorden documentary on Netflix recently and wow what a player. It was inspirational. But even here netball ups the difficulty stakes: there is no backboard and you as soon as you receive the ball you have to stop. You can only take one step. The net is lot lower but it is a woman’s game and they are shorter than men. I’m not trying to put down American sports as entertainment or in competitiveness, but to this foreign mind they just look like simplified or handicapped versions of other sports. ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/30 "2020-08-20T22:34:18Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > And baseball is just as complex as cricket. And you really believe that don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/31 "2020-08-20T22:40:17Z")
Yes, 100%. Are you disputing this? ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/32 "2020-08-20T23:11:21Z")
I am sorry if I steered this thread away from Canada southwards. But it shows what the OP asked for: no, we don’t get mad about Canadians. We don’t care and change the subject. I hope that does not hurt. I rest my case and I’m gone. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/33 "2020-08-20T23:38:40Z")
Canada is a country of immigrants. These have changed over the years. Long story short, in Canada soccer is becoming more popular. We’d like to be better at it than we are, only sometimes qualifying for big events. Canadian football is also somewhat popular. More of a running game than the American version since there is one fewer down. Europeans have a vague good feeling about Canada in some cases. In practice, they rarely think about Canada or know much about it (though I’ve been surprised by many exceptions, some Swedes and Russians know everything about hockey). Few people in the world, regrettably, care much about what Canadians think. ---
**Author:** ![Yookeroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yookeroo/32/323_2.png) [@Yookeroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yookeroo)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/34 "2020-08-20T23:41:24Z")
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that many Europeans are just as ignorant about baseball and football as many Americans are about soccer and cricket. I read the OP and thought to myself that I never see Euros complaining about U.S. sports, especially not the knee jerk way Americans complain about soccer. But this thread proved me wrong. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/35 "2020-08-21T00:12:54Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > Canadian football is also somewhat popular. More of a running game than the American version since there is one fewer down. I grew up on American football, but I really enjoy watching the CFL (and I hope it survives, as they’ve had to cancel the 2020 season). I’d say that, at least at the pro level, it’s actually more pass-oriented than American football, due to the fewer downs. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/36 "2020-08-21T01:44:22Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Well I would say that baseball is not really “homegrown” but an extremely simplified version of cricket, and American football is a somewhat simplified version of rugby. And you’d be wrong. Baseball and cricket are both developments of earlier bat-and-ball games; gridiron, association, Australian Rules, and rugby football are all derived from earlier ball-and-goal games played on foot as opposed to horseback (which is why I find arguments about which code deserves the name “football” tiresome and silly; they’re all “football” for exactly the same reason gorillas, chimps, humans, and bonobos are all “apes”). As far as the complexity, at least as far as baseball vs cricket, they’re both fundamentally simple: score points by running around bases while the defense attempts to get you out with the ball. The strategies to accomplish these tasks are hugely complex, but the games are similar enough that I really don’t think you can say one is simpler than the other. Athletically, cricket fielders have to, and do, make some amazing catches with no more than their bare hands. But on the other side, baseball hitters are using a round bat to hit a round ball. So I’d call it a wash. Frankly I find American whining about “flopping” soccer players, and European pissily insisting that American football should be be called “handegg” equally annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/37 "2020-08-21T02:24:55Z")
I don’t get European complaints about the “World Series” either. It literally is a world series albeit with players from all around the world not teams. And do they really think there’s some hidden team of Indonesian players who can beat the Yankees? ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/38 "2020-08-21T04:07:37Z")
I don’t watch soccer that often but came across a game the other day flipping channels. I wasn’t watching for more than 5 minutes when, from my estimation, one of the players apparently got shot. This seemed to have happened when a player from the other team brushed past him. I don’t know if the bullet came from the opposing team or from the stands but the player immediately crumpled to the ground clenching the wound. Now I didn’t see any blood per se but the agony on the players face told me he was quite certainly near death. I couldn’t take the disturbing scene and quickly turned the channel. ---
**Author:** ![Acierocolotl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acierocolotl/32/6241_2.png) [@Acierocolotl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acierocolotl)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/39 "2020-08-21T07:22:30Z")
I have never once had any European suggesting Canadians should take up a different sport. Ice hockey has significant European penetration and I can’t name a major European country that doesn’t at least field a team in the Winter Olympics. A number of European countries have professional ice hockey leagues as well. The “Canadian sport” is truly international. I do often have a heated-but-friendly rivalry with a couple close Finnish friends whenever a Canada vs. Finland match is on, as it were. So no, if anything, I get pretty much the opposite of what you’re suggesting. Ice hockey has been a bit of a binding element, a commonality, with some Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570/40 "2020-08-21T12:29:08Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > I’d say that, at least at the pro level, it’s actually more pass-oriented than American football, due to the fewer downs. Yeah, I think that is correct. I have said for a long time that I would love to see NFL talent play by CFL rules - it would be so entertaining. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-europeans-get-mad-about-canadians-not-playing-soccer-futball-either/918570.md?page=3)