And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

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Dave62
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And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Dave62 »

Due to a recent thread about soccer, I thought I would yank the discussion here. I don't like soccer. I appreciate that many people do. It is often low scoring and tedious. But the thing that really turns me off the sport is how some of the players will act as if they are seriously injured when an opposing player touches them. They do this to earn a penalty. This type of behaviour is unthinkable in the two rugby codes of rugby league and rugby union. So, for your edification, here is the recent showdown between Samoa and Australia in the rugby league world cup final. In spite of being Australian, I was secretly going for Samoa... And if someone could please put the link up properly for me, I would be happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y91jA-i ... topherLowe

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Cruiserdude
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Cruiserdude »

Dave62 wrote: November 27th, 2022, 5:05 am Due to a recent thread about soccer, I thought I would yank the discussion here. I don't like soccer. I appreciate that many people do. It is often low scoring and tedious. But the thing that really turns me off the sport is how some of the players will act as if they are seriously injured when an opposing player touches them. They do this to earn a penalty. This type of behaviour is unthinkable in the two rugby codes of rugby league and rugby union. So, for your edification, here is the recent showdown between Samoa and Australia in the rugby league world cup final. In spite of being Australian, I was secretly going for Samoa... And if someone could please put the link up properly for me, I would be happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y91jA-i ... topherLowe
If that doesn't get you fired up....

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Luke
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Luke »

You mean football

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Robin Hood
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Robin Hood »

Dave62 wrote: November 27th, 2022, 5:05 am Due to a recent thread about soccer, I thought I would yank the discussion here. I don't like soccer. I appreciate that many people do. It is often low scoring and tedious. But the thing that really turns me off the sport is how some of the players will act as if they are seriously injured when an opposing player touches them. They do this to earn a penalty. This type of behaviour is unthinkable in the two rugby codes of rugby league and rugby union. So, for your edification, here is the recent showdown between Samoa and Australia in the rugby league world cup final. In spite of being Australian, I was secretly going for Samoa... And if someone could please put the link up properly for me, I would be happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y91jA-i ... topherLowe
Have you heard of "bloodgate".

Dave62
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Dave62 »

Luke wrote: November 27th, 2022, 6:01 am You mean football
Oh, is that what it is?

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nightlight
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by nightlight »

Luke wrote: November 27th, 2022, 6:01 am You mean football
No ..... I'm pretty sure he said soccer ⚽

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creator
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by creator »

None of these posts make me care about soccer or rugby, especially not that weird theatrical performance posted above, what was that, a rugby musical 😏

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largerthanlife2
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by largerthanlife2 »

Soccer could be good if they got rid of offsides penalties, removed 2 players from each side, and shortened the field.

Letfreedumbring
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Letfreedumbring »

I am sorry I need reasonable arguments from each side as to why they will utterly decimate their opponent.
Until then, having a little trouble getting into it.

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ransomme
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by ransomme »

largerthanlife2 wrote: November 27th, 2022, 10:49 pm Soccer could be good if they got rid of offsides penalties, removed 2 players from each side, and shortened the field.
Ice hockey is a better version of basically the same game as soccer. Only 6 vs 11 players.

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Niemand
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Niemand »

I've always been a rugby man (union not league) and have the scars to prove it. I last played back in the nineties though.

The soccer world cup is, however, by far one of the biggest sports tournaments out there. The only thing which really rivals it for global reach is the Olympics. I know soccer doesn't register much in the USA (or one or two other places such as Australia, Canada India and the Republic of Ireland) but it is pretty much unavoidable anywhere else.

My joke has always been that in Scotland we have three sports – soccer, football and association football. It often feels like everything else gets left out, although we have produced decent rugby players, boxers and racing drivers, invented golf, the sevens version of rugby and curling etc.

Then there's shinty. Shinty is the Scottish national team sport except it gets almost no real promotion off mass media or government bodies and is barely played in the cities. This is where ice hockey really comes from, not field hockey. A lot of the players don't even wear helmets, although I believe they should.
No, my post wasn't about how exciting soccer is. I don't find it very exciting most of the time to be honest, although I'm always aware of it. The weird things going on around this world cup are interesting though — the LGBT signalling, press clampdown, aircon being switched off in stadiums etc.

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Niemand
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Niemand »

creator wrote: November 27th, 2022, 5:31 pm None of these posts make me care about soccer or rugby, especially not that weird theatrical performance posted above, what was that, a rugby musical 😏
It's rugby league which tends to commercialise everything and steal it from rugby union.

The New Zealand rugby union team started with a Maori war chant, which then other South Sea teams started doing. Then rugby league decided to incorporate it into their scene and turned it into vaudeville.

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Niemand
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Niemand »

Luke wrote: November 27th, 2022, 6:01 am You mean football
People used the word "football" for centuries in England but it referred to the carrying game.

Association football is actually the gentrified version – no carrying (like rugby or gridiron), no passing by hand (like nearly every other form of football) or punching the ball (like Gaelic). It was designed to be more gentle than the other forms. In fact, it's one of the few forms of football you could play an entire game without ending up in the mud.

It always makes me laugh when people talk about it as the people's game and rugby as the snobby one. It may be that way now, but it wasn't at the beginning. Association football is as much a product of English private schools (Uppingham, Westminster, Charterhouse) as rugby though it doesn't bear the name of one, and Oxbridge colleges.

Believe it or not, soccer not rugby used to be the main sport at Eton (along with a couple of weird games of their own.)

This is English football described in 1823 in East Anglia (pre-RFU and pre-FA)
Each party has two goals, ten or fifteen yards apart. The parties, ten or fifteen on a side, stand in line, facing each other at about ten yards' distance midway between their goals and that of their adversaries. An indifferent spectator throws up a ball the size of a cricket ball midway between the confronted players and makes his escape. The rush is to catch the falling ball. He who first can catch or seize it speeds home, making his way through his opponents and aided by his own sidesmen. If caught and held or rather in danger of being held, for if caught with the ball in possession he loses a snotch, he throws the ball (he must in no case give it) to some less beleaguered friend more free and more in breath than himself, who if it be not arrested in its course or be jostled away by the eager and watchful adversaries, catches it; and he in like manner hastens homeward, in like manner pursued, annoyed and aided, winning the notch or snotch if he contrive to carry or throw it within the goals. At a loss and gain of a snotch a recommencement takes place.
This is a picture of the old English football, still played in a couple of places. Doesn't look much like soccer, does it? Whenever the FA talk about English football pre-1800s, they're actually referring to a different game. This is the football English colonists took to the USA with them, not the version which was codified long after their independence.
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Robin Hood
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Robin Hood »

Niemand wrote: November 28th, 2022, 4:25 am I've always been a rugby man (union not league) and have the scars to prove it. I last played back in the nineties though.

The soccer world cup is, however, by far one of the biggest sports tournaments out there. The only thing which really rivals it for global reach is the Olympics. I know soccer doesn't register much in the USA (or one or two other places such as Australia, Canada India and the Republic of Ireland) but it is pretty much unavoidable anywhere else.

My joke has always been that in Scotland we have three sports – soccer, football and association football. It often feels like everything else gets left out, although we have produced decent rugby players, boxers and racing drivers, invented golf, the sevens version of rugby and curling etc.

Then there's shinty. Shinty is the Scottish national team sport except it gets almost no real promotion off mass media or government bodies and is barely played in the cities. This is where ice hockey really comes from, not field hockey. A lot of the players don't even wear helmets, although I believe they should.
No, my post wasn't about how exciting soccer is. I don't find it very exciting most of the time to be honest, although I'm always aware of it. The weird things going on around this world cup are interesting though — the LGBT signalling, press clampdown, aircon being switched off in stadiums etc.
Incidently, the famous Nottingham Forest Football Club started life as a Shinty club.

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Niemand
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Niemand »

Robin Hood wrote: November 28th, 2022, 5:12 am Incidently, the famous Nottingham Forest Football Club started life as a Shinty club.
I can well believe it! St. Johnstone was originally a cricket club and Kilmarnock FC a rugby club!

My big issue is with football monoculture. My game was always rugby, because I was crap at kicking a ball round but it would sometimes take three people to tackle me properly 😆; one of my cousins is a basketball player, he's a big lanky man; another is an amateur cricketer, and his dad used to play for one of the smaller Scottish football clubs (which I see have been relegated twice since he stopped playing for them. 😁) I even went through a phase at ten or eleven at which I was doing okay at tennis of all things, yet I can't play it at all now. My father liked horse racing, one of my childhood friends played shinty and so on and so on.

I prefer the situation in the USA, Ireland or Australia where it's okay to be into multiple sports. Here, there's always someone trying to either ram football down your throat or moan if you try and watch some other sport on the TV in the pub. (One of my locals has about a dozen screens in it and some twenty something started complaining when a few of us said we wanted to watch the Six Nations (rugby) on just one of the screens instead of Scunthorpe vs Cumbernauld or whatever football game was on.)

It's like I have to put up with football whenever it's on but they piss and moan if some other sport's being shown. I admit I'm a union man but I'll watch rugby league if it's on, Gaelic games, Aussie rules etc. I find cricket a bit boring, but cricket fans aren't nasty about it.

I steer clear of club football in Scotland because the culture's so toxic. My background's Protestant through and through but I don't agree with a lot of the baggage so called Protestant teams come with here. I don't agree with Catholic theology at all but I am good friends with a number of Catholics. That's put me off... as has folk trying to force me into liking it. I've played it occasionally and watch internationals but I don't find it as exciting as other sports.

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nightlight
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by nightlight »

Cruiserdude wrote: November 27th, 2022, 5:59 am
Dave62 wrote: November 27th, 2022, 5:05 am Due to a recent thread about soccer, I thought I would yank the discussion here. I don't like soccer. I appreciate that many people do. It is often low scoring and tedious. But the thing that really turns me off the sport is how some of the players will act as if they are seriously injured when an opposing player touches them. They do this to earn a penalty. This type of behaviour is unthinkable in the two rugby codes of rugby league and rugby union. So, for your edification, here is the recent showdown between Samoa and Australia in the rugby league world cup final. In spite of being Australian, I was secretly going for Samoa... And if someone could please put the link up properly for me, I would be happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y91jA-i ... topherLowe
If that doesn't get you fired up....
And they lost....lol

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Robin Hood
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Robin Hood »

Niemand wrote: November 28th, 2022, 5:41 am
Robin Hood wrote: November 28th, 2022, 5:12 am Incidently, the famous Nottingham Forest Football Club started life as a Shinty club.
I can well believe it! St. Johnstone was originally a cricket club and Kilmarnock FC a rugby club!

My big issue is with football monoculture. My game was always rugby, because I was crap at kicking a ball round but it would sometimes take three people to tackle me properly 😆; one of my cousins is a basketball player, he's a big lanky man; another is an amateur cricketer, and his dad used to play for one of the smaller Scottish football clubs (which I see have been relegated twice since he stopped playing for them. 😁) I even went through a phase at ten or eleven at which I was doing okay at tennis of all things, yet I can't play it at all now. My father liked horse racing, one of my childhood friends played shinty and so on and so on.

I prefer the situation in the USA, Ireland or Australia where it's okay to be into multiple sports. Here, there's always someone trying to either ram football down your throat or moan if you try and watch some other sport on the TV in the pub. (One of my locals has about a dozen screens in it and some twenty something started complaining when a few of us said we wanted to watch the Six Nations (rugby) on just one of the screens instead of Scunthorpe vs Cumbernauld or whatever football game was on.)

It's like I have to put up with football whenever it's on but they piss and moan if some other sport's being shown. I admit I'm a union man but I'll watch rugby league if it's on, Gaelic games, Aussie rules etc. I find cricket a bit boring, but cricket fans aren't nasty about it.

I steer clear of club football in Scotland because the culture's so toxic. My background's Protestant through and through but I don't agree with a lot of the baggage so called Protestant teams come with here. I don't agree with Catholic theology at all but I am good friends with a number of Catholics. That's put me off... as has folk trying to force me into liking it. I've played it occasionally and watch internationals but I don't find it as exciting as other sports.
Let's face it, you're clearly some kind of Philistine ;)
I have it on good authority that God prefers football.
Support Notts County and it's instant exaltation in the CK... no questions asked.

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BigT
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by BigT »

We lived in New Zealand for 4 years while my dad taught at the Church College there, in the late 50s-early 60s. He was in athletics and so learned rugby. We moved back to the States and he tried teaching it to kids in junior high (6-8 grade). I think it just confused them.

Growing up in the 60s & 70s, we played baseball and American football. Period. The only time I ever played soccer was once in my senior year, between baseball and basketball. I had 1st period PE. Played soccer once. The fog was so thick you couldn't see where the ball went after you kicked it. It was actually good fun.

Baseball was slowly replaced by soccer in Central California. Before we moved to Utah 10 years ago, you could barely drive by a patch of grass that didn't have kids playing or practicing soccer. I think it's a good sport for growing kids because everyone gets to play and when you play, you're generally running. Or least moving. Lots of standing around in baseball. American football is a bit rough, rugby is brutal.

Refraction75
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Refraction75 »

I do love watching the Brazil national team play. I also found a new love watching Japan play. I find it exciting and way less predictable than basketball.

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Niemand
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by Niemand »

BigT wrote: November 28th, 2022, 8:13 am I think it's a good sport for growing kids because everyone gets to play and when you play, you're generally running. Or least moving. Lots of standing around in baseball. American football is a bit rough, rugby is brutal.
Soccer is a simple sport for simple people. :D


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Cruiserdude
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Niemand
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Niemand
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Check this out as well.

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MikeMaillet
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Re: And you expect me to get excited about soccer?

Post by MikeMaillet »

ransomme wrote: November 27th, 2022, 11:44 pm
largerthanlife2 wrote: November 27th, 2022, 10:49 pm Soccer could be good if they got rid of offsides penalties, removed 2 players from each side, and shortened the field.
Ice hockey is a better version of basically the same game as soccer. Only 6 vs 11 players.
Except for the fake pain. Hockey players don’t look to kindly on players who fake injuries and the fakers only do it once or twice before the other players take care of the problem player.

Mike

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