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.