Most of these sports are continuing to play the game until you get a winner. That’s really significantly different than a PK shootout.
The thing is, because American spectators are so ADD that their sports tend to have an overabundance of meaningless scoring, it is sorta redundant to claim that they will continue to play sudden death until there is a winner. They will do this sure, but because it is nearly guaranteed that there will be a score along in about thirty seconds, it becomes disingenuous to trumpet that as opposed to what you so ignorantly call a “skills competition”. “Continuing to play the sport”. Ha. You make it sound like two old fist fighters going seventy two rounds right through the night, when in reality it is usually about five minutes max. (Playing time that is, no doubt you clowns will have four or five ad breaks in that time). Extra time in Soccer is thirty minutes minimum.
If it were harder to score in American football, or Basketball, you can be damn sure they would soon be devising some sort of “skills competition” to decide a few drawn games. You can throw your trolling “winning and losing” statements around all you want, but American football, Baseball, Basketball, any sport you want to name, they all want to come down to one winner in the end. The technicalities of each sport determine exactly how they reach that point, but having that winner was the whole point of the competition in the first place.
But you know all this, and we all know what you are like, so I wont waste any more time on you.
As I said to wee dee, the technicalities of each of those sports dictate how they are able to separate drawn teams. American football, Basketball and Baseball are heavier scoring games, so it is significantly easier to just let them continue playing sudden death, a score is very likely to be along soon.
Soccer is much harder to score in. Combine this with the fact that soccer players have to remain active for the entirety of the game, (instead of being substituted in and out constantly) and the nature of the game dictates you need to have a determined finishing point to prevent player burnout/injuries.
Penalty kicks after thirty minutes of extra time is the currently accepted method of doing this.
You mean like the NHL? Funny thing about that, they don’t go to a skills competition in the playoffs, but instead just keep playing until there is a winner.
But there are only 5 men on the ice at any given time (not counting the goalie, who doesn’t move around much), and 18 players total on the team. So less than a third of your team is on the ice at any given time.
Compare this to the World Cup: 11 men (10 and a goalkeeper) at a time, but more importantly, only 3 substitutions per match. Once a player is removed, they can’t return. So only 14 players are really eligible for a match, and 8 of them have to play the entire game.
You’re comparing a sport with frequent and limitless substitutions to one where the majority of your team plays the whole game, and substitutions are both limited and irreversible.
I was actually addressing a specific claim that American sports with less scoring would also go to a skills competition to declare a champion.
I do not dispute that soccer isn’t particularly well suited to guaranteeing a winner of any given contest.
I think that’s because even the NHL realizes how silly it is to have shootouts determining the winner of regular-season games. It’s an abomination, frankly. The losing team even gets a point!
I suppose you are correct, but to me a “tie” and a “draw” are two different things (and I don’t mean “tie” in the sense I mentioned upthread–where a “tie” is like an American "home-and-home).
Just my opinion, I guess, but I consider a game to be “tied” when the score is level during the match. When the score is level at the conclusion of the match, the game has ended in a “draw”. The terms are similar, yet different.
Oh absolutely! Spot on! I agree that the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Champions League, etc. should all have co-champions. Hell, make every team who qualifies a co-champion!
Everyone’s a winner!!! (Ironically, that sort of “feel-good egalitarianism” is so very American.)
MODERATING
This comment, as well as several other you have made, is well over the line of enthusiastic sports discussion and constitutes trolling, whcih is not permitted anywhere on this message board, and personal insult, which is permitted only in the Pit. You will refrain from such comments in the future.
You may take this as a formal warning.
The rest of you will also watch yourselves and refrain from nationalist insults and trolling.
RickJay
Moderator
I agree with your sarcastic point, that co-championships and getting an award just for participating is a bad thing. On an unrelated note, I agree that the feel-good egalitarianism is an American thing in practice, which is clearly at odds with the American ideal of capitalism. An unresolved conflict, there.
I think I spelled this out explicitly, but if not here is my main point: In many discussions on the forums, Europeans will defend ties by attacking the American need for resolution. Usually couched in terms of Americans can’t grasp the concept of ties.
My point is that those arguments are hypocritical given that tie-friendly European sports are shoehorned into winner-take-all tournaments. It wouldn’t be hypocritical if those events were exhibitions, or weren’t particularly high profile, but it’s the signature event of the sport.
I’m pointing out the hypocrisy. In a very real sense, Europeans may be more winner-obssessed than Americans given that instead of letting the championship be determined by the game itself, you either flip a coin or go to a shootout. That’s a crowbarred solution to prevent a tie, when I’ve seen it argued over and over and over that ties are perfectly fine. You can’t have it both ways.
So it’s a stamina competition?
For the most part, this isn’t a European thing, it is a “rest of the world” thing.
Regarding:
“In many discussions on the forums, Europeans will defend ties by attacking the American need for resolution. Usually couched in terms of Americans can’t grasp the concept of ties.”
Unfortunately for you, this is not true in this discussion that we are having right now. In this discussion spark240 repeatedly claimed that the game had not ended in a draw and ridiculed the idea that it possibly could have. It spiraled out of control from there onwards, prompting me to suggest that the reason why he/she couldn’t handle the idea of it being a draw was because he/she wasn’t used to draws.
I thought I did it quite politely too:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14056988&postcount=139
To which your oh so polite reply was:
And it was all downhill from there.
It is about time you took a look in the mirror, young lady.
I will admit that I brought in baggage from previous threads, though clearly I’m not the only one.
EDIT: Though I stand by that quoted post. Maybe a little aggressively worded, but it lays out my position with crystal clarity. (And no, you were not “quite polite,” you were condescending.)
Yeah, sure, I am the one trolling in this thread. Well done. :rolleyes:
Seriously, in what way was it? I made it clear that I have quite a decent amount of exposure to both Americans and American sports (hell - and bizarrely - despite living in suburban Stockholm I have both a baseball diamond, where I watch Stockholm play quite regularly, and an American Football pitch within five minutes walk from my apartment) and have to this conclusion by observation, through watching the sports live, watching television and discussing the sports with Americans. This is not something I have pulled out of my arse.
And let’s face it, the views put forward in this thread purely added weight to my argument.
If anyone’s interested, this is what Stockholm vs Leksand looks like:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2346328/IMG_0050.JPG
Which was taken here:
Perhaps my previous instruction regarding personal attacks and nationalist jabs was not sufficiently clear to either you or Ellis Dee. Since you seem to struggle with following moderator instructions, I will close the thread now, since it it no longer serving any useful purpose, and both amanset and **Ellis Dee **will tread lightly regarding the relative values of American and European sports fans in the future, or you can take it to the Pit.
bucketybuck, if you don’t like the board or the manner in which it is moderated, please post your concerns in the About This Message Board forum.
Thread closed.
RickJay
Moderator