We have had many threads where Europeans (and others) tout the superiority of soccer. In these, we have seen where and how Americans (and others) retort with the superiority of the games they call “football.” That is, American football, Canadian football, Australian football, Rugby in various forms, and so on.
Problem is, while many of us North Americans had to learn to play soccer at some point, it doesn’t seem as if Europeans (etc.) had to learn how to play our games. What I’m interested in finding out is how many Europeans (etc.) learned and played a North American/Australian form of football, in addition to soccer; and how many North Americans/Australians learned soccer in addition to the local football.
So my question to Canadians and Americans and Australians is this: at school, did you have to learn how to play soccer? And to Europeans etc.: did you have to learn how to play American/Canadian/Australian football?
Speaking for myself, we had to learn soccer at school, in addition to playing Canadian football.
Not me, although when I was at school in the UK in the 80s US football was very popular - it was shown on TV and had quite a following. There was a local team of sorts if you were interested I think.
As an aside, and to turn your question on its head - I’m generally not interested in American v association football pissing contests, but it seems clear that the one unassailable superiority ‘soccer’ has is that adults actually play it. There will be a sizable number of posters on this board who play amateur football - I played for years and it’s the reason I love the game, even if it’s sometimes not very exciting to watch. How many posters do you think play American football as adults? Some might play a bowdlerised, non-contact version in their back yards, but I bet few if any play the real thing.
European here and it wasn’t a case of having to learn but wanting to (and it was after my school years).
After Channel4 started showing NFL games, there was quite surge in grassroots american football teams (which over time built to the level of the World League setting up a franchise here as well as other Euro countries).
I trained for a while and learned a fair bit of how the game is played to enjoy watching it more and more. A friend of mine took his interest a great deal further and, because his work takes him to the USA quite a lot) he gets to enjoy it all the more.
For any game, I think if it’s compulsory, if you didn’t like it before, you are not gonna like it much after…
We didn’t play American Football at school. We played soccer and rugby league. We did play basketball, however, so one American sport did make it all the way over here.
I’ve never heard of any school in the UK (I stand to be corrected) that has routinely taught US/Canadian/Australian football, perhaps because rugby is the default ‘handled ball’ field sport.
The traditional team sports that schools generally teach:
For boys (and some girls, depending on the school)
football (soccer) (winter)
rugby (winter)
cricket (summer)
For girls
Hockey (Field hockey to you)(winter)
Netball (basically a strangulated version of basketball played outdoors on a hard court)
Rounders (summer - very like baseball)
My Phys Ed classes included the requirement to dedicate a WHOLE day to learning soccer and a WHOLE day to learning rugby, with very little actual explanations.
I also played soccer once, due to a general lack of female students in my class (we barely had enough for a class team, it was for the in-school league). Scored the only goal, got yelled at for leaving my designated spot, told the rest of the class to KMA and walked away.
No, I’m not much into sports, why do you ask?
What I know about soccer comes from endless Sunday afternoons hearing commentary on the car radio and from soccer-loving relatives including my grandfather (the most veteran referee in Spain, and most likely in the world), my father and a brother who’s one of those “sports trivia” dudes. The brother used to claim that he didn’t remember anything before age 10, but one day he mentioned remembering several things about the '82 World Cup: gotcha! He was only 5. (The things he remembered weren’t the kind of things you can pick up from seeing reruns)
What I know about football-involving-grabbing-the-ball comes from watching a couple games on TV and from an American friend. Don’t ask me the differences between varieties, I know American Football involves armor and Rugby doesn’t but that’s about the extent of my subtlety. I think that’s one reason European schools are more likely to teach Rugby than other hand-football varieties, it doesn’t need special equipment.
At the risk of being contentious, why would we? It sounds like you’ve set a dichotomy that doesn’t really exist - the US versus “everywhere else”.
Generally (of course with exceptions) people at school learn sport/s that are completely international (at my school: football, tennis) and sports that are semi-international or local (at my school: cricket, rugby, [field] hockey).
Few people learn sports that are specific to only one country/region. 80s trends aside, if one were to learn a regional sport, why would people learn American Football over, say Gaelic Football or Australian Rules (particularly because American Football is so expensive to run and play)?
SanVito your list is accurate for my English schooling. As yojimbo points out, there are plenty of games that are only really played in their country of origin and no one else has a clue about the rules.
I think you’ll find the very reason for this is the contact aspect of the sport. I have and do play Touch Football (i.e. no tackle version of Rugby League) as an adult.
Why does a non-contact verison of a football code not ‘count’ as playing the sport as an adult?
Of course American adults play football. For many folks, an amateur football game out in the mud and snow is an indispensable Thanksgiving tradition. It may not be exactly the same as regulation, but it’s as close as possible without having an actual football field (most fields don’t have goalposts nor marked yard lines, so houserules have to be invented to replace them).
Yes, but that’s the difference Chronos. Amateur soccer is played by a lot of people on full size pitches and with identical rules to the professional game.
In my experience, not that many state schools teach rugby or cricket - they seem to be considered more the “posh” sports that they do at public school (that is, private school, for American readers!).
My state comprehensive did football (boys), netball (girls), field hockey (mixed) and rounders (mixed - actually it was generally some weird variant like softball, Danish longball (WTF?) etc). No rugby or cricket.
Rugby league without the tackling Is that like an 800m race without the running?
Obviously you are right that the heavy contact of American football is going to diminish interest in playing / establising the game at the amateur level. It’s equally clear that having a few brews and running round the back yard with your mates on thanksgiving is a million miles away from playing a real game of American football. This is no great insight, it’s just an observation that the nature of the game differs from football, basketball etc where the real thing is widely accessible for amateurs.
Agreed completely. It would be like getting a rugby team going in American instead of American football. It just doesn’t make sense.
I don’t see how that’s superior (or inferior) in any way. What is the relevance in regards to superiority?
As an analogy, McDonald’s is accessible to far more people than fine dining, but I’d be hard pressed to make an argument that that accessibility is a mark of superiority.
Talking about superiority of one team sport above others doesn’t make sense anyway, imo. We’ll find plenty of reasons to praise the particular intricacies of strategy and tactics and can argue about the prevalence of one over the other, we can discuss the role of improvisation and planning, the involved skills in a sport and the methods of building up winning teams – and we will find some congruities and even areas where the experiences in one sport can help the further development of another quite a bit, but when it comes to “what’s the best?”, it’s apples and oranges.
Is that like an 800m race without the running?