halfspeed

You have difficulty with humor, don't you?

aggst1

Opinions like this mean nothing to a lot of us Americans too...

bikerjp

To be fair, American's aren't stupid - humans are.

Wheever

If you look at track and field sprinters--I mean 100m, 200m, etc--pretty much all those guys and girls are stocky and muscular as hell, lower and upper. Sprinting involves A LOT of upper movement and power; I posit that this is the reason footballers are built similarly: lots of sprinting.

aggst1

Actually this years WC had zero yellow/red cards for diving. In fact I can't say I saw one fake dive and I watched the majority of the games. People don't realize that players tackle each other constantly so they fall by design in order to go for the ball. Sometimes the timing is off and instead they clip the other player. Hits like that hurt like hell. I agree that sometimes the players exaggerate a bit, it is obvious. One reason is they try to get a favorable call and win the ball back. Another is simply they are out of breath and they stay on the ground 10 seconds extra to recover.

Bad calls by the refs is a reality. IMHO only technology can help reduce bad calls. For example, Mexico had two goals taken away as offside calls when they played Brazil but the replays showed they were true goals. I would like to see a limited number of play reviewing by the fourth ref. he should be empowered to do much more than holding the stupid sign during player substitutions. FIFA however does not want to change the game at all. Heck it took them 20 years of discussions to install goal line technology...

howellhandmade

To join with a couple of other questioners, are footballers really the same height as cyclists? A couple of times I've stayed in hotels where pro soccer teams were staying, and I was surprised. I'm 6'4" and not many seemed shorter than me.

WhyFi

Um, how to put this delicately? No.

It's a wee bit illogical to say that we don't like it because we don't understand it while arguing under the premise that the beauty of the game lies in the simplicity of the game. Further, stating that it's something that we just don't know is a little silly when you consider the sport has been popular with young kids for decades. In fact, "soccer is really going to take off in the US with this next generation of kids," has probably been said about each of the last 3 or so generations. Nope, hasn't happened yet.

Also, if you're going to take the "they don't like what they don't know" tack, the US is the LAST place where you would want to argue it. We've literally made sports out of watching sports - we're exposed to a *huge* variety of sports, yet the popularity of soccer still lags, comparatively. Who is more of a connoisseur - the person that's sampled a wide variety or the person that has access to relatively few choices? Your "they don't like what they don't know," argument works against your point, rather than for it, and demonstrates how silly it is to equate popularity with greatness.

lsberrios1 

To say Basketball is the hand version of soccer. That is why I don't like either sucker or basketball...

Mountain Mitch

Didja miss Robben admitting that he dove? Or the fact that magic spray or little rub made it all better as soon as the ref stopped paying attention to the boo-boo? The fact that there were no cards for it just highlights the problem. They HAVE to deal with it or the average fan is going to stop watching.

rousseau

You're drawing an ignorant caricature of the rest of the world outside of North America as being full of saps too poor to play anything other than football. Not every football player/fan lives in the favela or sub-Saharan Africa. The rest of the world participates in and is exposed to just as wide a variety of sports as North Americans (if not the same sports), and yet the majority still prefer football over all.

And you can flip your weak caricature on its head and claim that a lot of the African-American players in American sports leagues grow up without the opportunity to play very many sports, which is why they tend to be concentrated in the NFL, NBA and baseball.

In the end you can't argue against personal preference. But if you had to use one metric to define the greatness of a sport, popularity would probably be the best one to use. And that obviously points to football.

Which seems to bother a lot of Americans on this site who can't accept the merest mention of football/soccer without throwing a hissy fit. There's something weird going on with that. Seems like a sort of psychosis.

BoSoxYacht

McDonalds is the most popular restaurant in the world, so their food must be great.

lsberrios1 

Nobody here wishes america had more soccer. Our biggest hissy fit is seeing how it has become one of the lamest sports in the world only second to wrestling. Soccer players nowadays are better off going to acting school rather than training. The sport has lost it's dignity and it's players are nothing but modern sex symbols that represent a mass of people. The sport is pure and requires a great deal of skill but the players are far from tough with very little sportsmanship.

rousseau

Such breathtaking ignorance. It's amazing.

First of all, not all footballers dive. It's the Italians and the South Americans who are famous for diving. And certain other characters like Arjen Robben, whose own teammates have expressed displeasure with his histrionics. Did you see any diving by the Germans in the final? Or by most of the other teams? No.

There was even that famous commercial making fun of the Italians for diving, fer chrissakes.


Second of all, footballers not tough? That's just completely ridiculous. They run 10 km a game, and get smacked all over their legs by other footballers with powerful legs intent on getting to the ball first. That seriously bloody hurts. Every human being person who gets kicked anywhere in the legs is going to go down. Everyone. Watch some martial arts some time. That's what footballers are contending with all game, except that they have exponentially more power in their legs than martial arts practitioners.

Third of all, you have to be taking the piss about sportsmanship. My gawd, that is a breathtaking thing to say. I mean, where to begin? When a player goes down and looks like he's staying down, the player with the ball will kick it out of bounds, and then the opposing team will send the free throw back down to the team who originally had the ball when play resumes. It's not in the rule book, and the referee doesn't enforce it. It's just a part of the tradition of the game. How often in the NBA or NFL do players help players on the opposing team up off the floor, or go to them and apologize for a rough play? Never. In football the referee will force two players to shake hands after an altercation. The game must proceed with the spirit of sportsmanship intact. When do you see that in North American sports?

The ignorance in this thread is unbelievable. I mean, nobody cares if you don't like football, but at least get your facts straight.

BoSoxYacht

the ignorance in your post is quite believable.

It's obvious that you don't watch NFL games very often, because opponents helping each other up after tackles is common.

BTW forcing players to shake hands is not proof of good sportsmanship.

coasting 

my wife is no racist....

but she blames the italians for all the diving.

BoSoxYacht

last time I checked, Italian is a nationality, not a race of people.

coasting 

they still dive a lot.

WHOOOSSHHH...

I trained Marines at Parris Island..you are 100% correct! Never judge toughness using the eyeball test.

BoSoxYacht

It's part of the beautiful game

GhostSS

Americans already follow baseball, which is boring enough without having to keep up with soccer on top of that.

All kidding aside, yeah cyclist don't have the most attractive physique but they are certainly athletic. Look at some Lighter division boxers for example, they don't look ripped either but I bet neither a cyclist or soccer player could last 12 rounds punching much less having someone punch them in the face back.





Like said on the previous page, looks aren't an indicator of toughness or athleticism.

bruce19

The human spirit is an amazing thing isn't it? Sometimes people don't even know they have it until they are tested. Despite all my years of football, baseball,etc. it has been cycling that has taught me to suffer, overcome and be, in some sense, a "warrior." I wasn't expecting to discover that part of me in my 60's. Just one more thing you can learn through cycling.

WhyFi

I take it you missed the part where I didn't introduce those points and was using them against the guy that did? If you have a problem with the "ignorant caricature," take it up with your soccer bro.

No, actually you can't.

Then why have you spent much of the thread doing so?

Nonsense.

Hissy fit? Seems to me that most of the verbal flailing about is coming from those arguing the point of "soccer is the greatest sport in the world," where as the rest of the folks are expressing a rather non-emotional, "nah - you can keep it," stance. It's funny, though, that you're accusing us of going emotionally overboard about a sport that Americans can't find a reason to become emotionally invested in (despite decades of exposure from an early age).

rousseau

I'm not "accusing" you of going emotionally overboard. You are.

Every single time football is mentioned, every single time, no matter what the context, Americans line up to declare how much they don't like it. This thread was a question about the difference in body types between footballers and cyclists. And what is your response to the question?

"I don't like football. Stop trying to shove football down our throats."

Over and over again. Ad nauseum. You have a psychological problem about football. I have a suggestion: When someone talks about some aspect of football in a thread on a discussion forum on the internet? A game you hate?

Ignore it. This is obviously not a discussion forum dedicated to football, so the footie stuff will go away.

If that doesn't do the trick, watch some NASCAR with a Happy Meal and a bag of Doritos. If that still doesn't solve the problem, seek help.

Velo Vol 

wut

Just_Ride

Some cyclists stand at 6.3 and way just 10.9 st. Cyclists on average are very skinny, the all rounder riders anyway, they don't work on core strength because they don't need to, but footballers, like any athlete who plays in a contact sport has to develop their core strength.