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