I like soccer (and respect ice hockey) because of the technical skill involved in every moment.
When I’m watching a game of soccer I am constantly putting myself in the shoes of the player who potentially has the ball if even for a moment.
What would I do in his/her situation? Do I have the technique to control that difficult pass? Should I run with the ball if I control it, or should I pass it immediately? Which of my team mates will I pass to?
IMHO, the QB in American football is the only player on an NFL team who has to have any legitimate technique or make those kind of decisions. The rest of the players are just guys who can
1/push each other over
2/run really fast
3/catch a ball
None of those things really impress me. I can see that stuff in Rugby League and Rugby Union.
And sorry, but to me baseball is just a severely dumbed-down version of cricket. It’s like pool as compared to snooker, or checkers as compared to chess.
Hockey - If you can, go to a game in the arena. The sight of those little bugs flitting about the television screen is nothing at all as exciting as watching a 6’6", 220 lb bruiser rip from one end of the ice to the other. 200 feet by 85 feet is the standard measurement for an NHL rink. How fast could you run it? Now imagine skating it in a controlled fashion, such that you could turn or stop in an instant.
Once a player has the puck, he is a legitimate target for an opposing player. Given that pressure, imagine being able to shoot into the net past the goalie, or see an open player (who is undoubtedly also moving) and pass safely to him without the puck being intercepted.
I highly advise seeing it live in order to get it.
This is exactly as true as “soccer is a bunch of skinny guys running around trying to kick a ball into a net.” You might not understand the techniques or decision-making that goes into the other 21 positions on the field, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
You should be able to find some deals early in the season. With NFL and college football games played almost every night of the year from September-January, it is easier to find NHL deals during the early part of the season.
Imagine a guy with average, or even less than average, hand eye co-ordination.
Now imagine that he’s 8 feet tall and 400 pounds of pure muscle.
In soccer that human behemoth would be a liability, because he’d lack the exceptional hand eye co-ordination and endurance necessary to be an elite soccer player.
In American Football he’d be a future Hall of Famer, so long as he didn’t try to play as a QB, which is the only position in American Football that actually requires any technical ability.
If you have to resort to made-up supermen to support your point, it might be weaker than you thought it was. Anway…
Any position that guy plays will require more than just size and strength. Again, just because you don’t know the details doesn’t mean the details don’t exist. I don’t see any of that vaunted precision when I watch soccer, but that’'s not the game’s fault. I’m not so arrogant as to think that it’s not there.
And you have an impressive lack of understanding of soccer.
Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders could run really fast. The fact that they could actually gasps in awe catch a ball while they were doing so isn’t that impressive. It’s like walking and chewing gum at the same time. You go, girl!
John Terry has more technical skill than 99% of NFL players.
I used to follow your quaint little sport around 20 years ago, until I realised that it doesn’t involve any kind of skill.
Some sports require more skill to play than others, soccer is at the high end of this, American football is at the lower end of this. For example Lawrence Okoye, who is by all accounts an exceptional athlete, managed to get a contract with an NFL team despite never playing any American football of note. Menelik Watson similairly was a 2nd round draft pick this season despite only playing the game for two years. This just doesn’t happen in soccer,
I’ve watched all 4 sports on a regular basis, but I grew up watching baseball and football. I used to really like watching them. I learned hockey a little later (teens) and soccer much later (30s).
I’m a bit of a runner. One day I needed to run on a treadmill which is even more boring than watching cricket. I found a baseball game and thought, “Great! This will keep me distracted.” It was so boring I couldn’t stand it. 30 or more seconds between pitches. Time outs. Time between innings. There was very, very little action. Even a base hit only took 10 seconds to resolve and then it was a minute until the next pitch. The next time I had to run on a treadmill I found an American football game. Same thing. 30 seconds between plays. Commercials lasting minutes at a time every few minutes. The next time I found a soccer game. It wasn’t World Cup or even a big match. Just a game. It did keep me distracted. My run was MUCH better and went by much faster. I’ve not tried the treadmill experiment with hockey. It wasn’t available in Singapore.
In short, I’ve found that if you are just sitting around your living room or a bar, baseball and American Football can be fun to watch. But there are other distractions to keep you from realizing there just isn’t a lot of action. Soccer is continuous, and as others have said anything can happen at any time. But I never would have thought that without having learned a little about the game.
A strange and fascinating thing about soccer*, though, is just how much of it is bad. Even world class teams can sometimes go for long stretches or even whole games without accomplishing much of anything that makes any sense. If you go into a bar and watch a random game of soccer, the chance is much greater that it’ll be a snooze fest than anything exiting.
However, I don’t that detracts from the game at all. In a way it’s just the opposite. The thing is, soccer is a really, really hard game to play well. When a team of soccer players enter the field, they are not just out there to beat the opposition. They are also up against themselves and the very nature of the game itself. They are there to carve order out of chaos.
That’s what makes it so amazing to watch a team like, say, Barcelona in recent years. It’s not just that they beat the pants off Man Utd or whomever. It’s that they can turn the random noise that is the game’s natural state into a wonderfully choreographed dance, a thing of order and beauty.
(*as you yanks insist on calling it. That’s “football” in the civilized parts of the world. ;))
I’d be interested to hear how you determined that, given that my posts here thus far contain exactly nothing related to soccer.
FTR, I’m a fairly casual soccer fan who increasingly prefers it to American football. But that preference doesn’t include the delusion that football players are unskilled.
It’s kind of refreshing to come into one of these threads and see that the retarded posts are coming from footy fans. Also, embarrassing. What the fuck are you talking about? John Terry is a centre back. His “skill” is getting in the way of strikers.
As a fan of both sports who actually understands both sports, I can tell you with authority that you clearly don’t understand American Football. Try catching a rugby ball thrown from behind you sometime and you’ll have a better idea what I’m talking about.
And an American football fan would say that NFL teams don’t sign 5 year olds, unlike Manchester United. Just because development programs vary between the sports doesn’t necessarily make one objectively more skilled than the other. The skills required are different, but that doesn’t mean that American football is lacking in the need for skills.
Watson and Okoye were drafted/signed based entirely on potential. Since Okoye wasn’t drafted, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he never saw game action. Watson will probably see playing time because of where he was drafted, but he’s viewed as an enormous risk as well. Most of the teams that he was projected to go to would have had the opportunity to slowly develop him - not so Oakland. Even then, their apparent plans are to slot him in on the right side of the offensive line. That’s notable, since the left side positions are considered to be more important.
And pure athleticism has never been enough by itself to make it in the NFL. Thirty years ago, the 49ers decided to sign Renaldo Nehemiah based off of his track skills. It turned out that he wasn’t capable of developing the skills necessary to make a splash in the NFL.
I know you have the smiley there, but this is a big pet peeve. Different countries sometimes have different names for things…even if they have a common language. Pretending that one is “right” only makes someone look kind of douche-y. Even if it’s only jokingly. Especially since we got the word “soccer” from the Brits. It’s not even our own invention.
Molesworth 2, your comments on the alleged deficiencies of American football are bordering on trolling and are threadshitting. You will cease that line of commentary at once.
Really Not All That Bright, that was a personal insult and you will utter no more of them.
The thread shall return to its topic or it will be closed. No warnings formally issued yet.
If this is your assessment of the role of an international centre-back then I seriously doubt you have any knowledge of football at all.
I really don’t like the man but know enough to realise that his technical skills, passing, control, shooting ability etc. etc. are stratospheric compared to mere mortals and are obviously of a high enough standard for him to hold his own at the highest level.
He is no Ronaldo, but then nor is he like anyone you have ever played with.
As for the relative skill of US football vs football it is meaningless.
The nature of the game dictates that the vast majority of US football players are drilled to hone a very narrow set of skills to insane levels. Hence the freakish body shapes and specialised talents. It is possible to get away with being very good in one respect (explosive speed or hitting ability) and terrible in others (ball control, speed over 80 yards, manoeuvrability)
Football requires a much wider range of skills, you can’t carry any passengers. All must possess a wide enough range of skills and athletic ability if the team is to prosper.
It is unthinkable that a 20+ year old man, with no previous knowledge, no matter how physically gifted, would ever…*ever *…get past a cursory glance at a premier league club.
It seems clear then that american football has room to to accommodate narrow skill sets in a way that football doesn’t (and couldn’t). In that sense it is true to say that the average footballer is “more skilled” but also true to say that what skills and traits an american footballer does have are pushed to a higher level.
Otherwise I’d be there in a heartbeat.