This stuff never gets old - “I don’t like it and I’ll just make up some random shite to support my position!”
I have to admit that **Ellis **is coming off as badly as those that hate sports altogether and can’t wait to tell us how stoopid we all are for wasting our time watching it, but in comparing it to American Football, I think he does have a point.
Soccer has about the same level of strategy as Basketball or Hockey. It is very dissimilar to Baseball and Football as it is almost all real time strategy to use a gaming turn. Baseball is nearly all long-range strategy and even strategy that looks ahead several weeks. It is the slowest paced except for Cricket of the major team sports. It is also all about stats and exceptional hand-eye coordination. As far as the strategy goes it is closest to turn based.
Football is heavy-duty strategy, it is warfare in miniature and though it is not as rough as Rugby, I believe it is far to say it has evolved its strategy far above that of Rugby that it came from.
I hope that makes more sense.
Jim
Jim, I don’t really care that much to be honest. The sports that people like watching are likely much more a cultural and familiarity thing as opposed to any kind of rational calculus based on their relative merits. Posts like the ones Ellis Dee has deposited on this thread just amuse me in their “I must justify this!” fervour.
But there again, I like cricket - Test matches, please - so what do I know. 
Football isn’t as rough as rugby? Why, because they wear pads? The speed and strength of NFL football players far exceeds that of pro rugby players.
Because it raises another debate that I did not want to get into. Overall I think NFL football is more dangerous due to the huge size of the player involved, but Rugby is a tougher more physical sport with less breaks in action.
Less breaks in action = less rough. That’s why boxing has rounds. Without rounds it is far less brutal because they get too tired to do much damage.
You have to be kidding with this.
Again, I’m not saying there is no strategy in soccer. I’m saying there isn’t very much strategy in soccer compared to the popular American sports.
Gee, you really took my argument apart there.
I don’t see that. I think it has very similar strategy to B-Ball and Hockey. It is just very different from the style of strategy that American Football has and Baseball.
I think Football has the most strategy, but I don’t think you could make a good argument between the strategy of Basketball, Hockey and Soccer (Football outside North America).
I don’t want to watch soccer, but then I also stopped watching Hockey and I have mostly given up on Basketball.
Hockey is just soccer on ice, and it’s not popular in America. (Which was my quialification: “compared to the sports that are popular in America.”)
I’m no basketball expert, but I would argue there is a ton of strategy in basketball compared to soccer/hockey. I remember trying to figure out how to play some basketball video game and seeing a playbook feature with hundreds of different plays, defensive schemes, etc… Conversely, I’ve never seen a single “play” in a hockey videogame, much less a “playbook.”
Obviously, a videogame isn’t the best cite, but as I said I’m not a basketball expert. Hell, I’m not even a fan.
Speaking of which, I love how soccer fans will say that my argument that there is more strategy in football than soccer has no merit because I’m not a fan of soccer, and that there’s tons of strategy in soccer. Like they’re football fans, either. I would hazard a guess that I’ve watched way more soccer than they have football.
The only person on the boards I’m aware of who watches lots of both soccer and football is mhendo, who has agreed in the past that there is more strategy in football. I seem to recall him citing that as one of the more off-putting aspects of American sports.
This is an unnecessary qualification. “Soccer” is an English term, not American, and it is most certainly not confined to America. Nobody ever seems to give the Australians shit for using the term soccer, so I assume it is just a way to get in a free insult at Americans. As such, I freely and unapologetically use the term soccer.
Speaking of Australia, I thought of a truly pulled-outta-my-ass explanation for America’s love of strategy in its sports. I kinda like it, though: It’s because we are isolated from the rest of the world by a giant ocean, which means any kind of warfare will involve extensive planning and strategy. This fact seeps into the consciousness of a culture, is my hypothesis.
Australia and Canada have the same geographic situations, and both of those countries just happen to have their own football leagues. Maybe you could include Japan, where baseball is the sport of preference.
Conversely, the European countries are all on top of each other, leading to a more “in the shit with the grunts” concept of national security. (A blitzkreig never rolled through Minnesota.) As such, the favored pasttimes seem to involve just mixing it up without all the extensive (tedious?) preplanning and preparation for every conceivable situation. More of a “just flow with it” attitude.
Argument? If that’s what everyone is calling uninformed parochial drivel where you live, then sure.
I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but the only contribution you’ve made to this thread actually supports what I’ve said. My argument boils down to the fact that the reason America doesn’t like soccer is culturally based. Your contribution?
So while we seem to be in agreement, you appear offended by the notion that the cultural reasons you cited could ever possibly be examined in a way any more sophisticated than “that’s the way it is.”
But please, don’t let that stop the spittle from flying. Your vehement disgust is much more entertaining than your sports.
You’ll like this, I just saw that in the 1800s Football was actually designed to mirror America’s Manifest Destiny of the time. The QB position was created to have an on the field leader and that calling plays from the side line was not even allowed until they had a shortage of players in WWII around 1942. They actually designed the game to have a different and more complex planning style strategy compared to Rugby.
This was on Mike and Mike this morning. You might be able to get it from the ESPN Radio website. I caught it as I was heading out the door, so I might have some details off a bit. I think it was in this segment: 7 a.m.: Paolantonio/Gammons Warning it is an hour long.
It was from this book: “How Football Explains America” by Sal Paolantonio
I’d like NASCAR a lot better if they raced at Bristol every week. No, that may be too strong, but I do like a mix. The speedways are too influential these days, presumably because there is more room for seats.
If someone built Bristol today, they’d never get a race.
Anyway, I dislike NASCAR superspeedways.
Yeah, I’m just catching up on Friday’s Mike & Mike via DVR and just now saw that segment.
He says that back in the late 1800s the US had soccer and rugby, so he wanted to know what happened to make them fall out of favor. He goes on to say that in looking at the minutes of some meeting at Harvard, they consciously decided to abandon soccer because it didn’t reflect the American society, which was defined by systematic conquering, holding and defending of territory. ie: Manifest Destiny.
EDIT: And I can definitely see how a more chaotic game like soccer would reflect European society, where everyone (speaking on the scale of countries) is right on top of each other. You don’t get any reprieve of a whistle, just like you don’t get any reprieve from the enemies at your border.
To each his own, Frank, but I love Talladega and have ever since I started following the sport. My problem with Bristol and most short tracks is the yellow flag comes out too often. I may have to give up my Red-Neck card, but I don’t like the caution laps. I love to see me some green flag gas and go’s. It also seems that with the newer cars there are fewer crashes until the final laps. It is in the last 50 or so laps that I want to see only green flag racing.
SSG Schwartz
In order:
1.) Soccer - I can’t stand watching it. Five minutes of a team passing back and forth behind the midfield line, only to finally take a chance at passing it into opposing territory for a score… except that it gets stolen 95% of the time. Just. Fucking. Shoot. Already.
2.) Hockey - Similar to soccer in that there aren’t nearly enough shots on goal, but at least hockey is much faster and more exciting. Unfortunately, this sport is impossible to watch on television with any sort of idea of what’s actually going on. Substitutions happen without any camera attention and shots and passes are impossible to follow. And not only that, but hockey is even worse than soccer for the defensive clearing of the ball/puck. Power plays are supposed to be exciting, but they are excruciating. Pass. Pass. Steal. Clear. Maybe a shot every other time? Terrible.
3.) NASCAR - I just don’t get it. This is the least exciting “sport” to watch, bar none. Hours of the same exact motion, with little to no deviation. That most people watch for the crashes makes me wonder about NASCAR to begin with.
4.) MMA - All the brutality of boxing with none of the grace or elegance or discipline. I have never, in all the dozens of “fights” I have accidentally seen, watched a “fight” where the two “fighters” (are you getting this yet?) weren’t rolling on the ground within fifteen seconds of each round. (I actually time this every time someone tries to force me to watch a fight. I have won some good money betting that this will happen, because it has happened every single time.) This is a ridiculous fad. Completely unwatchable. MMA matches always end up like two inexperienced thugs trying to throw down in a parking lot. A couple of undisciplined, swing-for-the-fences punches, then some grabbing and rolling around on the ground. With the simultaneous spikes in popularity of both NASCAR and MMA, I’m betting the same sadistic people are double dipping.
5.) College Football - Too many teams, too much turnover of players, and the single worst winner resolution of any sport currently popular. College football’s method of determining a “champion” (yeah, I went there again) is a travesty, and it undermines the entire sport. I can’t watch this nonsense knowing how unfair and stupid the system is, what’s the point?
Almost all of them. I didn’t really watch sports until about the age of 17ish. That was the age I found I had absolutely nothing in common with my father. So I decided to learn about American Football so we could share something in common.
And today that is really all I can bare to watch.
But Baseball annoys me most for some reason.
God yes. Any sport where idiot sports journalists play a hugely prominent role in SELECTING the winner has automatically lost my interest.
I love baseball, football, and football/soccer equally. There is no real argument. Football is far more strategic than any other sport I can think of.