Damn, that thread was just getting interesting. I finally get Gav talking football and someone locks the bugger.

I never thought about that, but you're right. I hate the NFL with a passion that's almost holy. Despite what the news coverage shows, those millionaire attitudes are NOT the pinnacle of football. Give me a group of high school kids playing the game to play the game any say over those folk. I can only imagine how frustrating it has to be to see, like you said, talent flying to the NFL.

I'm not a big hockey fan. Honestly, I don't understand the game. I respect it (more than soccer at any rate), though. I learned a new respect when I was considering the World Cup. America had five shots on goal in the entire tourney. It's not uncommon for a hockey goalie to see five shots on goal in the first three minutes of the game, and blocking that puck is a hell of a lot harder than a ball bigger than your head.

Did you ever play?

~D.
"Nigel"

Nigel: I think the reason it's more common for a goalie to see five shots in the first three minutes because of three key differences between hockey and football (yes I'm American, YES I use the proper name for "soccer"):

1) A hockey rink is slightly smaller than a "soccer" field.
2) Hockey players move faster; they're on skates, and they're on ice.
3) A hockey puck moves a HELL of a lot faster than a ball the size of your head.

I helped a local television station broadcast high school hockey and basketball games. Usually I was in the truck dealing with the scores and stats, but sometimes I was on camera for the hockey games, and let me tell you it is DAMN hard to keep track of that little black object.

I can only imagine. Think of the job description ad:

"Wanted: Utter nutcase to stand wearing limited padding while hard rubber object is thrown at your face at speeds approaching 112 mph. Ability to do the splits a plus. Must have own teeth (in baggie)."

Soccer is boring as a very boring thing. (So boring, in fact, that I can't even think of a word to describe how boring it is.) Hockey, on the other hand, while I don't understand a damn thing about it, seems to offer a lot more action, not including the occasional full-service brawl that starts out.

~D.
"Nigel"

Hockey's alright, Soccer IS boring

Football is awesome though, and I totally disagree about the NFL

Yes people let it get to their heads sometime, but attitude is part of professional football. To me, it's worth it to see big name players making big name plays. Plus, perhaps you'd like to tell me what exactly is wrong with CJ giving out gifts at Christmas? Yeah he's just going for attention, but his touchdown antics are much more creative than a traditional spike (and I'm not dissing the spike. Giants invented it as a celebration! Woo!). Unless you ban emotions from the game, people are gonna keep celebrating, and if you're gonna celebrate it you might as well make it entertaining!

smittens;

The problem is that the current antics in the NFL have crossed the line from celebration, which is a normal and acceptable part of athletic success, to taunting, which is simply poor sportsmanship.

We have devolved in the NFL to the point where a defensive lineman making a routine tackle for a one yard loss immediately jumps up and starts beating his chest. Why? My nosetackle did that 53 times in eight games this year without once taunting the opponent. (That's tackles for loss. He had a lot more overall.) We've completely lost in the in case of the wide receiver, most of whom act like scumbags on and off the field. These guys are role models. They earn a salary that is only dreamed about for most of us, they drive vehicles most of us would love to have, they move in a society most of us have only read about, and kids look to them for inspiration.

So when Chad Johnson taunts an opponent, the peewee players out there see that and think that's football. Then they take that to the field, and, sadly, in some cases when they have enough talent, some coaches let them get away with it because they don't want to drive that talent off the field. When Randy Moss pretends to moon the crowd, some kid somewhere is going to see that and think it's cool. (While somewhere Randy's old high school coach is crying himself to sleep at night when he thinks of all the things he didn't teach that prick.)

Believe it or not, football is a macrocosm of life. I hate what the NFL has done with it. Plus, it's nearly as boring as soccer to see the ball thrown incomplete so often. I prefer the chess match of the running game, not the I-formation crap we see on Sundays, but the mystery of the high speed deception in the Veer Triple Option, the power of the toss out of the Double Wing, the timing of the Wing-T's inside trap... these are aspects of play that the NFL has completely forgotten about.

For a really great time, follow a good local high school team. For less than you'll pay to get NFL Sunday ticket you'll see better football, and some class.

~D.
"Nigel"

Klabbath, have you tried playing football (henceforth, I shall refer with the term 'football' to the game known in the US as 'soccer' and with the term 'american foorball' to the game known in the US as 'football')? It's not really that boring, since you have to think a lot about the placement and the abilities (of yourself and your teammates', as well as your adversaries'), and it requires quite a bit of skill and stamina to actually execute the tactics you think up. Skill to get the ball to do what you want and stamina to keep on running for quite a long time, always ready to dash.

Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly like football. I prefer hockey much more, for the reasons that it's faster, looks more elegant and doesn't require you to touch the thing to be driven with your own hands (not even the goalie does that).

However, since I know a few people how play football semi-professionally, I know that it isn't that easy to just ditch it as a 'slow, boring game'.

I won't comment on american football, since I know next to nothing about it.

Tosh;

Actually, I have played soccer. PE in high school gives kids a change to sample all kinds of sports. I found it neither particularly challenging nor interesting. What tactical interest it holds is dwarfed by American football, and, as a football player, competition martial artist, and wrestler, my stamina was greater than that of any of the actual soccer players I faced off against, most of whom spend a majority of the game standing in one area and waiting for the ball to be kicked to them.

I also played pickleball and baseball, which I consider at least as boring as soccer. Baseball might be America's pastime, but I consider it a complete snoozer.

You have to consider the mental challenge of American football versus soccer. In American football, there are three aspects to the game: Offense, defense, and special teams. Each of these three sides of the game uses all eleven players (no goalies standing there bored all evening). Each of the eleven players has between 130-250 individual skill sets that have to be learned PER PLAY, and at the Div-1 college level and above, there may be as many as 150 plays in a playbook, as well as adjustments to individual plays depending on the opponent.

There IS a cooling off period in the physical action, while the ball is respotted and the next plays are called, but rather than demote the intensity of the game, it tends to intensify it by adding to the strategy. No two football plays are the same. Football comprises many things that are completely invisible to the average fan. Something as simple as a light rain can eliminate 30% of your playbook because it makes the grass to slippery for your receivers and running backs to make sharp cuts. No other game offers this level of complexity. Just to compare with soccer, only four players can move the entire length of a soccer field, as opposed to twenty-two football players with few restrictions on their alignment and movement once the ball is snapped.

Worse for soccer, here in America (I'm not sure where you are.) it's viewed with disfavor thanks to the soccer mom. These are the folks that dress their little ones up in oversize shorts and send them out to run around and kick a ball pretty much at random (how much strategy can there be in a game that is played by four year olds?). They've perverted soccer from the game it was twenty years ago, which actually required some toughness, into a touchiee-feelie "everyone gets a trophy" game. For tots this is okay, but they generally try to force this veiw onto ALL of soccer in America, and from there onto ALL sports.

Soccer is second in per capita injuries to children behind gymnastics as a sport, largely because it offers no protective equipment, and the average coach has no clue what he's doing, so the kids kick each other pretty much at random. By contrast, youth football in America ranks tenth because most youth leagues require some sort of training and certification process, and the kids are wearing plastic armor to protect themselves.

I understand that soccer has a lot of individual skills that have to be learned, but the strategy pales in comparison to the small-unit tactics of football, and I can't see the excitement in a game in which teams can go for half a season without even TRYING to score, and yet still be considered "good" by either winning with penalty kicks or by playing for a tie. (It also really rumples my foreskin to see the "best" soccer has to offer falling down and screaming for a referee any time an opponent comes near them.)

The American World Cup team went four games without even trying to score, since they had no shots on goal. By contrast, in football EVERY PLAY is an attempt to score. Although I prefer the running game, it's possible for a team to win in seconds with a long pass, and something worth seeing happens on every snap of the ball.

Don't get me wrong. If YOU like soccer, that's cool, but I don't.

~D.
"Nigel"

Aaaah... football... *reminisces about lunch breaks in schoolyards*

Soccer, for me, falls into the same category as Baseball, tedious to watch during the regular season (but fun during the World Series/World Cup simply because something is actually on the line), and tons of fun to play. I play both regularly during the summer (nothing, absolutely nothing has anything on beach soccer). Actually, we're about to get a 30,000 seat soccer stadium right downtown. I might have to get into going to games.

Football for me falls into the same sort of category, simply because its usually too bloody slow to watch. Huddle, break, big fat guy tries to stop the little wiry guy from making it ten yards, dog pile, huddle. Yeah yeah I know, strategy, 70 yard touch down punt returns, etc etc.

But nothing has got the combination of constant speed, skill, and downright bruising energy that Hockey offers. Combine that with the on the fly strategy (none of this take a break every down to chat things over) involved in a game of 5 on 5, including powerplays, penalty kills, etc, put it on ice (which goes well with our other national sport, drinking), and make the playoffs take 3 months and kill off half the participating players during the process, and you'll know why it's the best sport in the world.

Oh and in hockey you get a penalty for diving. Soccer could learn a thing or two right there.

[Snort] I heard THAT, man.

Did you ever play hockey, or does your interest stem solely from being a fan? I always wanted to play. Probably would have done better at that than football, but bad knees kept me off skates. (Plus, I can't swim. If that ice melts, I'm screwed.)

~D.
"Nigel"

Hmm. Well, I played American Football for 6 years. I'm not going to weigh in on too much here because I recognize everyone has their own opinions. But the main difference that has been described as the break between plays in American football also contributes to the excitement.

In sports such as Hockey and Soccer, the ball is in constant play and therefor, players try to conserve their energy for when they need it understandably. Soccer and hockey are more comparable to a long distance race where American football is more like a sprint. Both can be appealing to watch.

In American Football, you have 24 seconds to prepare (go through your massive playbook and try to find a play to exploit the other team's defense) then you have roughly 3-10 seconds to give everything you have in order to score while keeping in mind the psychological aspect (the play that was called, the defense being run against you, tight/loose coverage, blitzing linebackers or corners, zone or man coverage, field conditions, etc). There's no holding anything back for that short period of time, or the play fails. That's what makes it exciting for me. Unless you look at statistical anomolies such as Randy Moss who's an ass hole and takes plays off when he's not getting the ball... but we won't go into him.

European: Football
American: Soccer
Would be ALOT more fun if there weren't so many people on the field!
I mean its impossible to get any goals in!
There's what 5 ppl in hockey.....
American: Football is just different, they need alot of people on the field for blockers and what not.

Kix, well, yeah, but I think you have to actually SHOOT at the goal before you can score. If it's not one of the requirements, then it oughta be.

Whoever came up with the idea of playing for a draw and then doing a penalty kick shootout to win needs a good thumping.

~D.
"Nigel"

Hockey's great to watch, but takes too much equipment to play and such. Same as "american" football, really. More stuff neeed to play = more complex and intriguing games that require higher levels of teamwork and strategy.

Now, basketball and soccer ("football") - you just neeed the BALL (well, and a hoop or a goal). Less stuff needed to play = simpler and more reliant on individual athletic prowess.

I think baseball is somewhere between these two.

However, I'll state that soccer and baseball are far more boring to WATCH than to PLAY. I love soccer ("football").

If you don't do complete body checks, hockey is very well playable with good gloves, skates, and a stick. Trusst, me, I've done so. The tactics remain the same.

As for football, if you stand around and wait for the ball to come towards you, you're not playing football, you're playing dodgeball.

And just look at Zidane... he grew up playing football in the banlieues of Paris, and you can't say he ain't tough. I can even understand why he head-butted that italian crybaby :P

Tosh;

I hate to argue with you, but headbutting a guy with a cheap shot isn't tough. Men use their fists if something calls for a fight. Not that fighting is acceptable in those circumstances at all, but if you're going to launch an attack, show some sack and throw a punch.

Hell, even Richard Simmons had the guts to take a swing at someone, even if it was a slap instead of a punch.

~D.
"Nigel"

I'm sorry, but you're wrong about this. If he had thrown a punch, the penalty might have been even more severe. This way, there was no blood (this is crucial), and he still got back at the guy. Also, Zidane is most likely not a guy who fights 'fair' in such a fight. And why should he? The insult was pretty low, too, I imagine.

This is not at all to say that he should have done it (although I sympathize with him). But if he had thrown a punch, it'd have been much worse.

From what I remember, the Italian dude insulted the French dude's mother and sister, according to said French dude. The Italian dude denies that he insulted the French dude's mother...

See the problem here? >_>

Tosh;

That kind of proves my point for me. If the insult was so dire as to result in the apparent disregard of potential penalties, then shouldn't it have sparked a genuine response? If he was thinking about how much trouble he'd get in with a punch, then he was cool-headed enough to not throw an attack at all.

Besides, this guy is supposed to be a professional athlete. Why is he even listening to an opposing player's comments? In all my years in sports I never paid attention to anything an opponent said. They're either trying to intimidate or anger you. The more you keep your cool, the more effective you are against them. It's part of the psychology of sports. Sadly, no one has offered me millions of bucks to play a sport yet.

~D.
"Nigel"