What's the deal with soccer?

[Zilverzmurfen]

Innebandyns namn på Engelska har vållat en hel del kontroverser för ett par år sedan, riv inte upp gamla ärr nu så är du snäll. :bedjande smilie:

Aaah...ok.

Fast jag tror jag kallar det 'floorhockey' i alla fall, jag. Det låter helt enkelt bäst i mina öron.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


MM - while your statements are true, they do not explain where USA differs from the rest of the world.

Soccer is an easy game for children to learn and play. It offers the basis for team work, coordination, running without any requirements for significant investment in equipment, time, training or ability.

Correct. It also goes for baskeball, volleyball, and to a lesser degree baseball.

As a kid, all you have to do to "play soccer" is to have a large ball and a place to run and kick. It's an easy game to coach, any mom or dad can handle the basic rules of: 1) You can't use your hands, 2) Don't push or kick any other players, and 3) share the ball by passing it to your other team mates. Children's soccer is a great place to introduce a kid to fair play, sportsmanship, outdoor activity, and coeducational ability. Boys and girls, smart and slow, skilled and unskilled can all play on the same team together.

Correct, and it also goes for several other ball team games also.

What happens after kid play is that the game does become more specialized. It splits up the boys and the girls. Teams begin to split and form based on ability and talent. The better player move off to play themselves, perhaps starting to travel to distant locations for games, and the other kids form local teams among themselves.

Correct, and goes for any other sport all over the world as well.

The other thing that happens is that soccer is often a launching pad to other sports. After a few years of kid soccer, you get the team basics and you are ready to break off into other sports - some with more equipment requirements, some with more rules, some that require faster more agile skills... so as the community kids get older, less play soccer as they start to diversify into the other sports that arent available when you're younger.

Over here, soccer sometimes is a launching pad for american football, but in another way. Big guys who can manage teamwork, but are not good enough to be soccer players, seem to be a significant part of the american football players over here. Another source of players to AF is big and fat guys who want to be able to tell themselves that they are in fact athletes, and since AF is so small they have to be less discerning in who they take on.

MM - what you say is correct, but it does not explain why soccer has not broken in big-time into USA, as it has in nearly every other country in the world. I suspect that a combination of Title IX, increased Hispanic proportion in the population, and maybe some other factors will start to change that.

One negative for soccer in USA is the timing: 2 45-minute halves, with no scheduled breaks. This makes the other big ball team sports more appetizing for advertisers. In countries where the major (or only) TV company is not at all funded by ads, this becomes a non-factor.

I once saw a baseball game in Coors Field, Denver. Took a loong time, and a lot of the time little of intrest happened. Most of the time, only a few of the players on the field were involved in the game, the rest were just standing far from the action. The fans - who filled the stadium - loved it though.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Aaah...ok.

Fast jag tror jag kallar det 'floorhockey' i alla fall, jag. Det låter helt enkelt bäst i mina öron.

Please please.... AARRGH! Must... take... calming... pills...


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[YankeeRebel]

Are you serious? Is there actually an activity called "floorball"? That's hilarious.

Floorball? How about "broomball?" Now that's a sport. My friends and I had a broomball team in an intramural league back in college. We were a bunch of uncoordinated guys, slipping and sliding across the ice, trying to knock this plastic ball around with brooms.

I hear it is wildly popular in Canada-- almost as big as five-pin bowling.

[latenight]

I always thought it was called 'floorhockey' (as opposed to 'fieldhockey' and 'icehockey') in english?

Nope, floorhockey is something different........it's just hockey without skates.

Floorball is just called floorball here.

[Goofy]

Nope, floorhockey is something different........it's just hockey without skates.

Floorball is just called floorball here.

Are these sites for what you're referring to?

http://www.floorball.org/

http://www.usafloorball.org/

Looks like fun.

[latenight]

Are these sites for what you're referring to?

http://www.floorball.org/

http://www.usafloorball.org/

Looks like fun.

Yup, that's it.

[glowstix]

so practice adding U's to words... such as honour, colour, neighbour....

oh gosh!! don't tell them that!!

[Epee_Pox]

Baseball is a throwback to a more rural past. Time is not kept, because minutes and seconds were relatively unimportant measures. The space used for the game is big, the pace is slow. Not a lot of strategy required, testing instead individual throwing, hitting, catching and running skills and some teamwork. The excitement comes not from the pace, but from the one-on-one showdown between the pitcher and batter, and from the highly coordinated teamwork of fielders. Easy to see how it could become a popular pastime in America's vast spaces.

Basketball found its home in the city, reflecting the very different way of life found there. The available space is tiny, the pace is fast, and the clock is ticking. Again, not a lot of strategy required, testing instead individual ball control, dexterity, accuracy and tactical decisionmaking, as well as highly coordinated teamwork. The excitement comes from the pace, from the displays of individual skill and trickery, and from the well-oiled machinery of the teamwork.

(American) Football grew from the university experience, of young men training to be the leaders of their generation. It reflects martial combat more than anything else. Football demands deep strategy, deft agility, brute strength, complex "troop movements," fine skills, and the ability to avoid physical injury. The excitement comes from the whole package. It is easy to see how this could become the most popular sport in America.

Soccer, on the other hand, just doesn't have enough to compete against these three primary sports. It has a ticking clock, but any excitement that might provide is hugely diminished by the enormous length of the periods. It requires deft agility, strategy and teamwork, but any excitement they might provide are diminished by the enormous amount of time spent jockeying for position rather than actually trying to score.

Soccer comes off as having the leisurely time-wasting aspects of baseball, but without the constant one-on-one showdown to justify it. It's easy to see why baseball would be more popular.

Soccer resembles a game of basketball in its back-and-forth action and team coordination, but played on an enormous court with enormous spaces between players, most of whom are not doing much at any given time. And it lacks the constant attempts to score and the pressure of the ticking clock. It's easy to see why basketball would be more popular.

Soccer resembles football slightly, in its general layout and goal, but lacks the more complex skills and abilities that football tests. It doesn't have the same urgency, and it doesn't have the full-on clash of combat and strategy. It's easy to see why football would be more popular.

It's easy to see why it's popular among children, because the skill set required isn't as challenging, and it's a good introduction to team sports. But for teens and adults, there are simply more entertaining, challenging and engaging sports to play.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

massive snips below by me.

Baseball is a throwback to a more rural past. .....

Basketball found its home in the city, reflecting the very different way of life found there. ......

(American) Football grew from the university experience, of young men training to be the leaders of their generation. .....

Soccer, on the other hand, just doesn't have enough to compete against these three primary sports. It has a ticking clock, but any excitement that might provide is hugely diminished by the enormous length of the periods. It requires deft agility, strategy and teamwork, but any excitement they might provide are diminished by the enormous amount of time spent jockeying for position rather than actually trying to score.

Soccer comes off as having the leisurely time-wasting aspects of baseball, but without the constant one-on-one showdown to justify it. .....

Soccer resembles a game of basketball in its back-and-forth action and team coordination, but played on an enormous court with enormous spaces between players, most of whom are not doing much at any given time. .....

Soccer resembles football slightly, in its general layout and goal, but lacks the more complex skills and abilities that football tests. ......

It's easy to see why it's popular among children, because the skill set required isn't as challenging, and it's a good introduction to team sports. But for teens and adults, there are simply more entertaining, challenging and engaging sports to play.

OK, your descriptions of the 4 ball games (if the thing used in american football can be called a ball) are mostly correct, even if I think that you sell real football a little short. Curving a free kick over a player wall and into a goal is spectacular, and migthy difficult.

However, real football is more popular than the other three in almost all countries outside USA, in many cases much more so. (Here in Sweden, baseball and american football have about as much media coverage as fencing.) In many countries, american football is either totally absent, or strictly minor sport. (Sweden, with 38 teams, is European Champion. Says a bit about american football in Europe.) There are 39 member associations to the international American Football Association http://www.ifaf.info/

Baseball has 112 members (incidentally, just like fencing) http://www.baseball.ch/2003/f/mc/mc.html and it is claimed on the Swedish federation homepage that it is national sport in 14 of those countries. Since 1952, only twice has the world championship gone to another country than Cuba and USA.

Basketball is bigger, but still an also-ran in considerable parts of Europe and elsewhere.

In short, real football is the largest of these 4 ball sports in most countries, and where it is not #1, it generally is #2. Apart from USA (and possibly Cuba), I can not offhand think of any country where it is #3-4 among these four.

Your explanation of why real football trails the other three ball games does not account for this peculiarity of USA. If your explanations were universally correct, real football would be much smaller worldwide than it is, so your explanations lack some details.

What real football lacks, but the other three do have, is something else: frequent breaks where all sport action stops. In a country where almost all TV is totally ad-funded, this is an important feature of a sport.

Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

BTW: Oh, yes, I really dislike the word "soccer". Almost as much as I dislike the misnomer "football" for a game played mostly with the hands, using an implement which does not look like a ball.

[Have At You]

Hi!

Oh, yes, I really dislike the word "soccer". Almost as much as I dislike the misnomer "football" for a game played mostly with the hands, using an implement which does not look like a ball.

"Soccer" is an English abbreviation of the longer formal term "Association Football" and has been in use almost since the beginning.

American Football actually evolved from soccer as well as from rugby. It originally involved a whole lot more kicking, so the name did make sense. As different schools' rules were consolidated, and the rules were amended to prevent injuries and such practices as controlling the ball without trying to score, it gradually evolved into the running and passing game, with kicking saved for kickoffs, punts and field goals.

So both are correct. "Football" for American Football is no more a misnomer than any other words which have remained the same while the thing they refer to has changed.