On the Popularity of Football

In response to a lame comment that goes something like "You kick a ball around a field. Wow."

NOW, finally someone is starting to understand it!

The root of the game is its seeming simplicity. You think, "hey, this ball is round, all I need to do is kick it right?"

Here's the thing - try controlling a round object without using your hands. Sure you could pick it up and throw to your teammate and said teammate could catch it - that's what these prehensile thumbs are for - but hell, anyone can grab a damn ball and throw it...where's the challenge in that?! Try sending a ball 60 yards to a 2'x2' spot on the field. Now try it without using your hands. See where I'm going here?

Just when you think you've mastered the ability to control the ball with no hands, add 11 opposing players whose job it is to take the ball away from you.

Now, we'll give you 10 players to coordinate with as well and we'll give you 90 minutes to score - no timeouts by the way - and that's it.

There is no "direction" on the field other than the location of your goal and your opponent's goal, so be prepared to run about 5-6 miles in all directions in your attempts to get open for the ball, defend, make runs at goal, and so on.

By the way, with the sole exception of your goalkeeper (and even that is arguable) every player on the field is simultaneously on offense and defense - meaning you have to always be thinking, reading the game, understanding your leverage, testing, committing, etc.

Now imagine every nation on the planet Earth plays this game and understands these basic concepts. Billions of people. From the smallest, podunk, dictatorships to the largest democracies and everything in between on every continent save Antarctica.

So basically, aside from basic functions, such as eating bread and drinking water, football is the only connection humanity has! More than religion, language, music, cuisine - football is the language that humans speak. A Thai can explain the rules as well as a Peruvian.

So yeah, you kick a ball around a field. And it's really quite amazing.

/just my opinion of course

Great Goals Compilation Video (with groovy techno music)

Great new Nike Commerical

When is Football really Football?

The global game of football is called soccer in the U.S. based on the old English nickname for association football, soccer. England also nicknamed rugby, rugger - named for a variation of football developed at Rugby Prep school in England.

There are other variations, such as rugby union and rugby league, an Australian version of football called Aussie Rules.

By the way, I’m American and I call football “football” and American football, boring.

On the Globalization of Football - Linked Article

http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/q-a-soccer-globalization/

On Football vs. American Football (gridiron) - Part 2

On some highly popular US based internet threads, it is almost a pastime for gridiron fans and football fans to square off toe to toe. I have seen the argument used that essentially, the two sports are not mutually exclusive. The fact this debate rages on, has led me to gather up some thoughts.

It's just funny that of all the sports out there, pure gridiron football fans seem to have an almost pathological aversion to the world game. There is something there, some animosity, I can't put my finger on. It's not like the two sports competed against each other for time in high school - at least not mine - gridiron was in the Fall and high school soccer was in Spring. In fact, we had a couple of guys that played both (besides the kickers). As a side note, I am happy to admit the hot chickies in school consistently went for the soccer team over all others - hmmm, in fact, that might make for an interesting survey...there could be something there. Some high school related Freudian slap in the face that builds in to this anti soccer mentality as an adult?

Beyond that, I think it may also be just a generic sports ego thing. Clearly NFL and NCAA gridiron are the biggest "per event" spectator sports in the US and yet, once every four years, we see how the entire world unites to not only watch, but live, a single month long sporting event. It may be a bit humbling for our gridiron brethren. A knee jerk reaction, albeit mostly exhibited in primary grades, may be to lash out. That being said, it is a rather bizarre response.

Oh well, no apologies, on Sunday's this Fall while a lot of Americans will be sitting on the couch watching NFL, I'll be out on the pitch playing the world's game. To each his own I reckon.

On Football vs. American Football (gridiron) - Part 1

I’ve just come across a news story on Yahoo titled, “Grads in pads: First U.S. national football team prepares for trip to Japan”. I’ve linked to the article for your reading pleasure – I for one, did not even begin to devote my time to it. Good on 'em for trying to export gridiron to different parts of the world, but for crying out loud, we’ve had a men's national football team since 1885 and played our first sanctioned match against Sweden in 1916. The US placed 3rd in the 1930 World Cup (albeit a sparsely attended tournament at the time). There is an international game of football already and the US is heavily involved – sheesh. My thoughts on the exportation of gridiron to the rest of the world is summed up as follows: it will not happen. By way of anecdote, the NFL tried an exhibition game with the Dallas Cowboys and someone else in Sydney, Australia and most of the audience left at half time. The people I talked to were bored to tears.

I think the stop/start nature of the game kills it. The rest of the world is quite used to the flow of football and rugby - whereas gridiron has so many rules, roles, special teams within teams, coaches, assistant coaches, special teams coaches, stops, breaks, huddles, conferences, warnings, 2 minute breaks, quarters, half time spectaculars, etc. All of which equals a big "huh?" for most people.

On Soccer in America - Part 1

What the people who suggest “soccer will never be popular in the US” are trying to say is, “soccer as a professional spectator sport will never be popular in the US”. Near term - probably, long term - maybe, never - unlikely. What most conscious people have known for about a decade or so now is that football is the most popular participation team sport (approx. 18 million) in the US and the numbers are trending upward.

You may not find a statistical correlation between participation and spectatorship in the US; but overall the game makes more sense to more Americans than ever.
The popular spectator US sports benefit from a long and storied social and cultural history that football in the states just does not have – i.e., peanuts at the ballpark, tailgate and Superbowl parties, binge drinking at your NCAA game, saturated television coverage and the commercials to prop it up, etc.

As those of us who grew up playing in the States in the 70s and 80s (and continue in adult leagues all over the US) become the coaches of our own children that play, the first challenge, the generational understanding gap, gets more and more narrow. We can all sit at the pub and enjoy a match, confident we understand exactly what to look for. Add to that unprecedented access via cable and internet to great leagues and great players all over the world and decent leagues in the US, and the sport that my father (and mother) didn’t even have the chance to play, may grow in cultural significance, albeit slowly. Finally, factor in the influence of immigration on US culture and you begin to see some serious handwriting on the wall.

If marketing revenue is a predictor of success, then the nature of the game itself may keep it from ever realizing the commercial success of the traditional US spectator sport. Because soccer is two 45 minute uninterrupted halves with a short half time break – there is very little time for traditional commercial advertising to have an influence. There will never be a two minute warning or a time out so downtime is kept at a minimum. However, the same tools that bring international sport in to the American living room are at least partially responsible for the demise of traditional commercial advertising in US sport – with the obvious exception of the Superbowl and the NCAA tournament. Soccer revenue for merchants is in sponsorships not commercials – the fan experience is the game itself, which lends itself nicely to the new media model that cuts commercials out altogether (e.g., Tivo).

So if sporting “success” in the States is defined by dollars, then I wouldn’t hold out for soccer being able to compete with the other sports – not yet – it’s not built for unlimited beer and pretzel breaks. But most football fans don’t use the event as an excuse to socialize anyway – take your eye off the pitch for a second and you may miss the play of the match (which may or may not result in a goal by the way.) With that in mind however; tournaments, teams, and leagues all over the world are not only spectacularly popular, but fiscally lucrative.

In conclusion, for all the naysayers who insist the game will never arrive in the States, look at the numbers and not the dollars. You will discover that the beautiful game has been here for quite a while. 18,000,000 players and growing, can’t be wrong.

On Diving - Part 2

To those who say diving is a world wide problem:

Anecdotal Evidence but...I was a part of Tuggeranong Football Club last year and saw no evidence of diving week after week - nor did I see it in the A League matches I caught on television.

Now, being back in the US and playing every weekend and watching a great many EPL matches and a few MLS matches, I rarely see diving and when you do see it (refernce Nani's actual headbutt and then faked retaliation against Lucas Neil on the weekend) - the divers are lambasted by the fans and the press. (not only did he get a red card for that stunt - but he also got a 3 match ban)

So I'm not sure what football people are tuning in to...maybe it still happens a lot in Serie A or BWINLIGA; but from my actual experience - I hear a lot bandwagon haters who can't back up rampant diving claims with real data.

It should be noted that casual observers should not mistake players going to ground on contact as diving - as any athlete knows, it takes very little contact to bring someone down when they are running at full speed concentrating on a ball at their feet.

So maybe some people quit on the game too easily...if they truly loved football, they should play it to their own standard, hold others to that standard, and let the unscrupulous wallow in their own shiat and be properly hated by lovers of the game.

On Diving - Part 1

To those who say "diving" is rampant in football:

Look, diving in football is a sub culture that is respected by almost no one. If you were to flick on FSC or Setanta to watch Newcastle vs. Chelsea on 5 May- you would notice that every time Drogba gets the ball, he is booed enormously - a legacy of his diving history.

The point is, the beauty and excitement of the game far out way the subculture of theatrics which I believe you'll find in a great many sports. Off the top of my head I'd say that list might include:

• charges, dives, intentional fouls in basketball,
• offensive/defensive interference, intentional grounding, etc. in American football (although the inordinate amount of rules, referees, and video surveillance used to police the rules have also paralyzed the game in the process),
• baseball catchers moving his glove in to the strike zone to trick umpires in baseball,
• tennis players known for arguing with judges,
• fighting in ice hockey, etc.