Soccer: Can Someone Explain?

SLAINGE · June 27, 2010, 11:27am

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Why do people find this sport exciting? A majority of the time the games end in 0-0 or 1-1 ties. There are barely ever scoring chances. Luck plays a massive role in who gets the ball when.

Also, 50% of goals are scored on set pieces. Set pieces that players proceed to dive for every time they’re barely touched.

The field is huge. So huge, in fact, that it is impossible to bring the ball from one end to the other without it switching possession or without lots of luck.

They spend at least 3/4 of the game playing “passing triangle” in mid field.

Fucking WORLD CUP games look EXACTLY like 12 year olds playing. No different. They kick the ball across the field, it bounces around, and then it goes the other way. This continues until someone gets a lucky break and has a one on one with a goalie, or until someone falls on their butt to draw a yellow card.

Can someone explain this to me? How to people think this shit is exciting to watch?[/quote]

Pure fabrication in order to provoke ANOTHER football / soccer is shite thread!

When will this end? (sigh…)

To all the football fans posting here you have taken the bait hook line and sinker’ well done!

captaincalvert · June 27, 2010, 12:36pm

I think I first understood the magnitude of football, (yes I refuse to call it soccer), when I was on vacation with my parents in Terracina, a little town south of Rome in 1982. 1982 was a world cup year, and as luck would have it Italy won. I was witness to an escalation of ecstasy that bordered on the insane. People just completely lost it every time Italy scored a goal, and when they won the final, it was like someone had detonated a huge bomb of crazy all over town.

Personal safety was thrown to the wind as people stood on the hood of speeding cars waving flags, horns were blaring everywhere. The bar owner threw a huge bottle of champagne into the wall on the other side of the street, and twisted his ankle while running inside to get another one. It was the kind of joy you’d expect to see at the end of a long war. I’m not exaggerating.

Coming from a more restrained Norwegian culture it was a revelation that a game could mean that much to so many people. There probably is no other sport that incites emotions that strong in people.

I thought maybe the Italians were special. Surely most other Europeans would be more like Norwegians, happy with their win, but still among the sane, but in 2000 I was in Paris. This time France happened to win the European cup, and the same thing happened again, only on a grander scale.

About a million people were more or less dancing up the champs elysee. Luckily no-one died, I read in a paper the day after, but there were sirens everywhere because of accidents resulting from completely irrational behaviour. There wasn’t any fighting or violence, just a lot of completely nutty behaviour involving cars.

I’m a Liverpool-supporter. In 2005 my team won the Champions League after coming back from being three goals behind against Milan. In five minutes they had turned the match around, and eventually they won on penalties. That’s when I first lost it too, and I finally understood what all those people had felt back then.

I’d enjoyed Liverpool winning things before, but the sheer drama leading up to this victory took me over an emotional edge I didn’t know I had. I think I cried, but it’s all kind of blury.

So to all you people who spit on football and find it boring. First learn the tactics and finer strategic points, then learn to appreciate the amazing skills of the best players, and then finally travel somewhere where you would be in the minority, like Brazil for instance, and watch how the party explodes. You’ll never think of it as boring again.

ADvanced_TS · June 27, 2010, 11:45am

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:

[quote]ADvanced TS wrote:

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Why do people find this sport exciting? A majority of the time the games end in 0-0 or 1-1 ties. There are barely ever scoring chances. Luck plays a massive role in who gets the ball when.[/quote]

When there is a goal, that makes the excitment that more intense. Opposed to watching American football when theres many many points scored over the game.

Luck also does not play a massive role in who gets the ball, wtf? Maybe with really shitty non-professional teams. Have you ever watched the Champion’s League? Or brazil/portugal /argentina games? (Those teams are the only ones who are showing top professional quality in the entire world cup at the moment)

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
Also, 50% of goals are scored on set pieces. Set pieces that players proceed to dive for every time they’re barely touched.[/quote]

Thats a nice statistic that you totally pulled out of your ass. The players diving is a point, and it’s something I hate.

[quote]Beowulf wrote:
The field is huge. So huge, in fact, that it is impossible to bring the ball from one end to the other without it switching possession or without lots of luck.[/quote]

It’s 100 yards. It’s not that big. Also, thats why passing the ball is important (to keep possession), teams that just boot it down the other end and hope for the best are of shit quality… Very good teams can accurately pass it long distances to their team mates.

Again, your usage of luck shows you barely watch football and it only relates to crappy teams.

[quote]Beowulf wrote:
They spend at least 3/4 of the game playing “passing triangle” in mid field.[/quote]

It’s like a chess game, you keep passing it around making moves hoping for an opportunity to open up.

With professional teams, they spend hours and hours practicing their strategies, and that is why chances rarely open up against good sides. E.g. the portugal/brazil game was 0-0 because their movement/defense/passing was rock solid.

[quote]Beowulf wrote:
Fucking WORLD CUP games look EXACTLY like 12 year olds playing. No different. They kick the ball across the field, it bounces around, and then it goes the other way. This continues until someone gets a lucky break and has a one on one with a goalie, or until someone falls on their butt to draw a yellow card.[/quote]

This just shows you watch with a passing interest, have your own thoughts already made up and can’t look past goals being scored.

Some teams looked like non-professional nobodies off the street (i.e - algeria, england (against algeria), north korea), but again, the teams with top professional quality that I mentioned above, noticeably show their skill.

[quote]Beowulf wrote:
Can someone explain this to me? How to people think this shit is exciting to watch?[/quote]

When you watch a team that you truly want to win in a big game (all the world cup games are big, thats why everyone watches it), then you will find excitement, and when your team scores, then it really is a rush.

I’m sorry football doesn’t spoil you with a constant stream of activity/points scored like american football (which could be considered more boring, because you get so used to it).

[/quote]

Stop calling it football, its soccer. Hence the name of the thread. Football is : huge roided up American monsters trying to kill each other.

Oooooooooooh its like a chess match you say ? I’ll stick to watching real chess instead.
[/quote]

Most of THE WORLD (USA does not = world) knows it as football, since you know… you use your FOOT to kick a BALL.

Foot + ball = football.

Difficult I know.[/quote]

This is a soccer thread, does not compute.

ADvanced_TS · June 27, 2010, 11:46am