Football is Pointless
Discussion
According to some random american writer
www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12384&R=ECD09FD1
www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12384&R=ECD09FD1
lazyitus said:
krusty said:
Sums up your average septic really, Oh and they play a game called 'Football' where 99% of the play is with your hands.... Bunch of arse
In the 'World Series'.
cocks
Strikes me that they're judging the sport loved by millions across the world (thats the other place outside the usa) on a match with the usa in because the usa are in it. In other words, 'we played a game that turned out to only have 2 goals in and we didn't even score ours therefore football is sh1t & its not fair as we're the greatest country on earth and we'll have to bomb you and eat more burgers etc..etc..'.
Their loss. I'm off to find read the guardians comedy commentary on the brazil ghana game....
http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldc
Their loss. I'm off to find read the guardians comedy commentary on the brazil ghana game....
http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldc
Are we really that surprised?
Typical low-brow Yank crap trying to pander to the millions who neither know nor care about football, written by someone with fundamentally no knowledge of the game (you can see that in his ability to use completely the wrong terminology throughout).
What I find ironic is that large portions of that article could equally be applied to America's own national game, baseball, a game where final scores of 2-0 or 3-0 are not at all uncommon and nothing happens for long periods of time - there's not even any action (unless you count scuffing the ground or interminably chewing gum)
American team sport is in a state of flux currently and their traditional global powerhouse position in many games is under attack, especially as they are demonstrably now not the best in the world in sports where they term their domestic championships as 'World' ones.
Let us consider this:
Basketball: At the last Olympics the US team (full of NBA pros deemed good enough to wipe the floor with everyone else) finished third I think. More and more of the best players in the NBA are now foreign. Yet they term their domestic club championship as the 'World Championship'.
Ice Hockey: This Olympics just gone, Team USA failed to get past the quarter-finals, getting knocked out by Sweden. Looking at the rosters of the pro teams in the NHL, they are dominated by foreign or heaven forbid Canadian players.
Baseball: They were knocked out of the World Baseball Classic by Cuba in the semis, in a tournament where many of the top American MBL players turned up. Yet they still call their own club championship the 'World Series'.
American 'football': Who the hell plays that outside the US anyway? The sport never has and never will catch on overseas, the UK franchises for NFL Europe have failed and I think the Italian one did as well, limiting it to Canada (they play a different version), Germany and one franchise in Amsterdam.
Four years ago, the US football team performed above expectations at the World Cup and since then the game has boomed (regardless of what these ill-informed correspondents write). The investment before this World Cup was massive both institutionally and commercially and now going out in the first round has left the US with egg on their faces.
Cue the quintessential reaction of 'we really didn't like it anyway, we've got our own sports and we're the best at them and everything else is crap, so there' childish huff. Oh, but sorry, you aren't the best anymore. There are hundreds of 'witty comment' articles written in this style every day - they are downright pathetic.
Typical low-brow Yank crap trying to pander to the millions who neither know nor care about football, written by someone with fundamentally no knowledge of the game (you can see that in his ability to use completely the wrong terminology throughout).
What I find ironic is that large portions of that article could equally be applied to America's own national game, baseball, a game where final scores of 2-0 or 3-0 are not at all uncommon and nothing happens for long periods of time - there's not even any action (unless you count scuffing the ground or interminably chewing gum)
American team sport is in a state of flux currently and their traditional global powerhouse position in many games is under attack, especially as they are demonstrably now not the best in the world in sports where they term their domestic championships as 'World' ones.
Let us consider this:
Basketball: At the last Olympics the US team (full of NBA pros deemed good enough to wipe the floor with everyone else) finished third I think. More and more of the best players in the NBA are now foreign. Yet they term their domestic club championship as the 'World Championship'.
Ice Hockey: This Olympics just gone, Team USA failed to get past the quarter-finals, getting knocked out by Sweden. Looking at the rosters of the pro teams in the NHL, they are dominated by foreign or heaven forbid Canadian players.
Baseball: They were knocked out of the World Baseball Classic by Cuba in the semis, in a tournament where many of the top American MBL players turned up. Yet they still call their own club championship the 'World Series'.
American 'football': Who the hell plays that outside the US anyway? The sport never has and never will catch on overseas, the UK franchises for NFL Europe have failed and I think the Italian one did as well, limiting it to Canada (they play a different version), Germany and one franchise in Amsterdam.
Four years ago, the US football team performed above expectations at the World Cup and since then the game has boomed (regardless of what these ill-informed correspondents write). The investment before this World Cup was massive both institutionally and commercially and now going out in the first round has left the US with egg on their faces.
Cue the quintessential reaction of 'we really didn't like it anyway, we've got our own sports and we're the best at them and everything else is crap, so there' childish huff. Oh, but sorry, you aren't the best anymore. There are hundreds of 'witty comment' articles written in this style every day - they are downright pathetic.
Although I'd be the first to admit tha I know little about sport (really not a fan) surely if it takes 90 minutes to score 1 goal in soccer/football then it's of more significance than the 100 odd goals scored in a Basketball/US-Football during the same length of time?
Anyway I'm sure all Americans would love the game if their national team won something.
Matthew
Anyway I'm sure all Americans would love the game if their national team won something.
Matthew
It's not much better in motorsport. Back in the mid 90s, the Yanks got the major hump when the grid of the Indy Car series became dominated by South American and European drivers, most notably Mansell and Fittapaldi, so they decided to start a new Indy Racing League series which had a 100% US grid and only ran on ovals. The original Indy Car series was rebadged as Champ Car and continued to have a strong multi-national participation.
During the course of the last few years, Champ Cars have started running a few oval races and has been dominated by a Frenchman (Sebastien Bourdais) and a Canadian (Paul Tracy), whilst IRL have now started running races on some road circuits and is increasing dominated by non US drivers, with the current champion being our own Dan Wheldon.
It is almost at the point where the two series will be re-united, which no doubt will prompt some Yanks to get the almighty hump and decide to create a new format for a US dominated World series of some description.
During the course of the last few years, Champ Cars have started running a few oval races and has been dominated by a Frenchman (Sebastien Bourdais) and a Canadian (Paul Tracy), whilst IRL have now started running races on some road circuits and is increasing dominated by non US drivers, with the current champion being our own Dan Wheldon.
It is almost at the point where the two series will be re-united, which no doubt will prompt some Yanks to get the almighty hump and decide to create a new format for a US dominated World series of some description.
killer2005 said:
According to some random american writer
www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12384&R=ECD09FD1
www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12384&R=ECD09FD1
That is genius, finally a person who understands football for the utterly pointless, mindnumbing drivel that it is.
All hail that writer, shame he's a Yank really, means most people will just brush off his comments.
k50 del said:
killer2005 said:
According to some random american writer
www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12384&R=ECD09FD1
www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=12384&R=ECD09FD1
That is genius, finally a person who understands football for the utterly pointless, mindnumbing drivel that it is.
All hail that writer, shame he's a Yank really, means most people will just brush off his comments.
Well, you could actually extend that to pretty much everything in life if you choose to!
article said:
No game in which actually scoring goals is of such little importance could possibly occupy the attention of average Americans. Our country has yet to succumb to the nihilism, existentialism, and anomie that have overtaken Europe
Notice how these two half wit citizens of the United States of America fail to comprehend that pretty much all Americans outside of the United States are obsessed with football, in fact the average American is probably more obsessed than the average European.... lots of Americans in South and Central America!
Edited by fozzi on Tuesday 27th June 19:19
Joe Letaxi said:
Typical low-brow Yank crap trying to pander to the millions who neither know nor care about football, written by someone with fundamentally no knowledge of the game (you can see that in his ability to use completely the wrong terminology throughout).
So you then go on to, rather hypocritically say:
Joe Letaxi said:
American 'football': Who the hell plays that outside the US anyway? The UK franchises for NFL Europe have failed and I think the Italian one did as well.
www.britballnow.co.uk/
www.gridironuk.co.uk/
www.americanfootballuk.com/
joe letaxi said:
More and more of the best players in the NBA are now foreign. '.
A bit like the FA cup teams being full of foreign players then?
joe letaxi said:
Baseball: They were knocked out of the World Baseball Classic by Cuba in the semis, in a tournament where many of the top American MBL players turned up. Yet they still call their own club championship the 'World Series'.
As has been correctly pointed out, this is named after the World newspaper.
joe letaxi said:
Cue the quintessential reaction of 'we really didn't like it anyway, we've got our own sports and we're the best at them and everything else is crap, so there' childish huff. Oh, but sorry, you aren't the best anymore.
Lets take this out of context and place it as a term used after England gets kicked out of World and Euro cups every few years, it fits in perfectly. "ah well, we blame Sven, lets all support cricket suddenly and ignore the international football until the next World Cup", even though this constantly happens, we keep crawling back time after time littering cars with England flags, only to throw them away when we get beaten. We'll see what happens to pride for the National team when the inevitable happens yet again.
If you really want to see poor attitude and lack of faith how about celebrating the fact that most of the Portuguese have yellow cards, and one of their best players has an injury just to scrape through another 1 goal win, where's the passion gone from the game?
Edited by petrol_noggin on Tuesday 27th June 19:23
petrol_noggin said:
Joe Letaxi said:
Typical low-brow Yank crap trying to pander to the millions who neither know nor care about football, written by someone with fundamentally no knowledge of the game (you can see that in his ability to use completely the wrong terminology throughout).
So you then go on to, rather hypocritically say:
Joe Letaxi said:
American 'football': Who the hell plays that outside the US anyway? The UK franchises for NFL Europe have failed and I think the Italian one did as well.
www.britballnow.co.uk/
www.gridironuk.co.uk/
www.americanfootballuk.com/
So there are a couple of American football websites around in the UK then. I think you can find pretty much anything on the web.
The fact remains that soccer in the US is getting on towards being a major sport and is growing exponentially from a reasonable base. American football in Europe is not. The NFL Europe was set up as a feeder league to spread the game across Europe, but I *think* that there are now only German franchises and Amsterdam left and though out there, the sport is much much smaller than soccer is in the States where it is routinely taught even in schools (for both boys and girls). Didn't London, Edinburgh and Barcelona American football teams all go by the wayside? I see far from soccer pitches here in the States than I do gridirons in the UK.
I was 'writing off' a minority sport that barely makes a ripple in Europe. The article was doing similar to the undisputedly largest sport in the world. What viewer figures will the final likely get? Around 3 billion IIRC?
petrol_noggin said:
A bit like the FA cup teams being full of foreign players then?
That was not my point and has no bearing on my arguement. I was referring to the state of American basketball, not comparing it to football in the UK.
petrol_noggin said:
As has been correctly pointed out, this is named after the World newspaper.
That again is not my point. Whoever wins the World Series is still termed 'World Champions' and they aren't being referred to as champions of the newspaper.
Edited by Joe Letaxi on Tuesday 27th June 21:30
big_treacle said:
Strikes me that they're judging the sport loved by millions across the world (thats the other place outside the usa) on a match with the usa in because the usa are in it. In other words, 'we played a game that turned out to only have 2 goals in and we didn't even score ours therefore football is sh1t & its not fair as we're the greatest country on earth and we'll have to bomb you and eat more burgers etc..etc..'.
Their loss. I'm off to find read the guardians comedy commentary on the brazil ghana game....
http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldc
Their loss. I'm off to find read the guardians comedy commentary on the brazil ghana game....
http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldc
Now that is a quality read -I'll have to look out for future articles.typical american drivel...
I had a conversation with an ex-pat living in california.. and we think we identified the problem...
you see, american sports are all about statistics...
In baseball - a hitter comes out and you hear about all his home runs, hits, points yada yada, and then compared against the pitchers 'strikes and outs'..
The same with 'football' - the number of times the team has run particular plays, and gained from it..etc etc..
American sports (with the exception of ice hockey, which is actually canadian to begin with) are sports for 'bores', allowing people to witter endlessly about pointless statistics making themselves feel intelligent..
They neither understand, or can talk about soccer in any depth - and with very few pauses to regale their friends with how many free kicks beckham has scored in his career, season, whatever - how many saves the Ukrainain goal keeper has made in his career, season verses goals, and goals from free kicks..
Its guaranteed if the papers and TV reported Soccer like an american sport in america, they'd be all over it, well, if they ever actually got any good at it, but then the action would be replaced with pop up stats, and inane banter, losing all the action, atmopshere and enjoyment from the game, reducing it to, well, an american sport... and who wants that?
I had a conversation with an ex-pat living in california.. and we think we identified the problem...
you see, american sports are all about statistics...
In baseball - a hitter comes out and you hear about all his home runs, hits, points yada yada, and then compared against the pitchers 'strikes and outs'..
The same with 'football' - the number of times the team has run particular plays, and gained from it..etc etc..
American sports (with the exception of ice hockey, which is actually canadian to begin with) are sports for 'bores', allowing people to witter endlessly about pointless statistics making themselves feel intelligent..
They neither understand, or can talk about soccer in any depth - and with very few pauses to regale their friends with how many free kicks beckham has scored in his career, season, whatever - how many saves the Ukrainain goal keeper has made in his career, season verses goals, and goals from free kicks..
Its guaranteed if the papers and TV reported Soccer like an american sport in america, they'd be all over it, well, if they ever actually got any good at it, but then the action would be replaced with pop up stats, and inane banter, losing all the action, atmopshere and enjoyment from the game, reducing it to, well, an american sport... and who wants that?
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