I’m tired of the gripes about soccer.
Flopping is fabulous entertainment. And the suspense of not knowing how much time is left and when the ref will arbitrarily decide to end the game is riveting. 
Though it’s disappointing when your favorite team changes sponsors. I used to love rooting for the Columbus Barbasols.
Nearly half the planet will watch the current soccer World Cup.
“When it comes to TV audiences, the 2018 World Cup looks set to break many all-time records. Research company GlobalWebIndex is forecasting total viewership of 3.4 billion, or nearly half the total world population of 7.6 billion, for the entire tournament. That compares to 3.2 billion who tuned in for the 2014 event in Brazil.”
When Iceland play, about 99.5% of the population watch. 
Only the Olympics comes anywhere near this level of enthusiasm.
Hasn’t 65% of Iceland made the final 23? 
I just do not understand this. A soccer match can have just as much tension as any other sport; ten minutes from the end of a tie game, every sequence of plays that begins an offensive drive can be absolutely heart-wrenching. It’s like you’re watching a different sport than I am.
Of course some soccer games are boring. Some games in EVERY sport are boring. On Father’s Day I attended a truly thrilling Blue Jays game - and it was noteworthy in that it was the first of maybe ten Jays games in a row I’d been to that wasn’t really, really dull. I had been on an astounding streak of games where one side or the other just didn’t show up ready to play professional baseball. I have been to basketball sames so exciting I thought my heart would burst and games so boring I wanted to cut a hole in my head to let the boredom out. As for football, well, I give you the last Super Bowl as a good examples and - how exciting was Super Bowl XX? Chicago 46, New England 10. Yippee.
Of course soccer has a few rules that just aren’t ideal. I can’t think of a sport I care about that isn’t the same.
Soccer has no “building of tension”?, “Players can pass and pass without the other team trying to steal the ball”?, “Boring”?
It seems like these people are watching a completely different sport.
I think that is absolute nonsense. There is no way that figure is even remotely true unless you are watching 7 year olds in the playground or are using a definition of the word “fluke” that the rest of humanity does not recognise.
You clearly have no understanding of the game, you obviously have not comprehended what little you have seen and your impressions of it can be safely ignored.
It does, but in very short time intervals (how long one team can manage to possess the ball – one or two minutes, typically, I think), and in very long time intervals (typically, two or three across the course of a game, so like 30-40 minutes each, often longer – that is, the time between lead changes, when you can go from “who will score first?” to "will they tie it up?, " etc.). Not in the medium-length intervals (ten minutes or so) typical of baseball or American football (but not basketball, that’s true).
If you like the Ramones and Beethoven’s symphonies, go with soccer. If you prefer John Coltrane, go with baseball or football. 
Talk Show Host: “Soccer is SO boring!”
Audience: (in unison) “HOW BORING IS IT??!?!!?”
Talk Show Host: “It’s so boring that in a thread about soccer people start discussing* cricket *(for god’s sake) just to keep themselves awake.”
Audience: “HAHahahHAHaAhahahhhahhAHHHaha!!!”
Again, this shows an incredible ignorance of the nature of the game. Tension in (real) football occurs across all time scales and possession of the ball is only one aspect that may or may not contribute. A one or two minute period of possession means nothing in and of itself.
The low scoring, high goal-value, and capricious nature of the game is a feature not a bug. It is why there are occasional boring games when teams don’t want to take risks, it is why for any *individual *game you can get a shock result but it is also why, over the course of a season or tournament, you still get the best teams winning.
The way some people talk about the sport it is almost like they think everything is arbitrary and down to luck or incompetence. Nonsense. These players are working at a level unfathomable to mere mortals. They are the best of the best of the best and each working their nuts off to snuff out opposition opportunities and make their own.
I find jazz actively objectionable so I’m not sure how your analogy works, it isn’t objectively “better” or more worthy. Also, there can be a free-form and improvisational element to it that surely must be more in keeping with Football than American football.
In any case, The king of strategic sports is test-match cricket and I love that. The very antithesis of quick-fix, simplistic, mindless gratification.
NoveltyBubble, I hear you. I said in post #75 that, the more you learn about (and watch, and even better play) soccer/football, the more you start to notice other subtle changes in, say, defensive strategies, or in pacing…things like that, which CAN bridge that time gap between “a minute or two” and “half an hour.”
I am from the US, but I lived in Mexico for five years in the late 90s and early 2000s, and that’s when my gradual appreciation for watching it started to grow. Last night I was absolutely riveted by a REBROADCAST of the Iran-Portugal match, even though I knew how it would turn out!
I am along way from appreciating all the subtleties you and others notice, but I do enjoy watching it sometimes (certainly during World Cups). My observations (actually, just riffing on another poster’s) about different kinds of buildups of tension wasn’t meant to be a deep criticism of the sport.
As for the musical analogies – those were just the first three things I thought of with the right time intervals. I wasn’t implying that one was better than the other. Actually, I was trying to convey just the opposite – that all these types of music are great in their own way, just like sports. Sorry if it came off otherwise.
:rolleyes:
Its the situation not the gameplay which makes it exciting. At the 10:00 mimute mark is some of the most exciting cricket, sorry sports I have ever seen. Despite nothing happening.
I saw this match. It was edge of your seat stuff. For hours.
When someone says “xyz” is boring, they say mean “I don’t understand it”.
Apologies on my part, I think I misinterpreted your tone, The perils of a text-only conversation.
Absolutely, or you might say it’s the situation and not the scoring but the principle is valid either way. Cricket is absolutely laden with such examples. The Lara example you gave is one. One of my favourites was in Cardiff in 2009. Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar (two batsmen of very limited ability) shared a low-scoring, 40 minute, defensive stand of 19 runs to save the match. It wasn’t even to win!
I listened to it on the radio and was utterly gripped, unbearable tension.
Ramones and soccer? This commercial is playing at every opportunity.
No need to apologize; I found your post informative, and look forward to the day when I can appreciate these things more fully. All in good time.
Now the France - Denmark game was fairly boring, both teams too satisfied with a draw at this point in the tournament to really go for it.
Anyone saying soccer is boring isn’t watching Sweden v Mexico.
Or Germany v South Korea. For completely different reasons!
Baseball is always the go to i use. If you know whats going on and all the inherent drama, a 0-0 game can be fun.