World Cup - "soccer is boring and stupid" thread

[gfd43tg]

It's hard to have national pride for a sport that the country absolutely sucks at.

I'm sure many more Americans would watch if Kate Upton was one of the members playing in the US's team. I know I would.

We don't really suck. We made it a lot further than most other countries. I think our team is quite good considering how little appreciated the sport is here.

 

[WWGD]

There is also too much competition for the people's attention with hockey, basketball, baseball, football , etc. Maybe this is countered by having a larger potential audience given a population of around 320 million.

 

[WannabeNewton]

We don't really suck.

Looks like you had a typo there. There's a "don't" that doesn't belong.

 

[davenn]

Looks like you had a typo there. There's a "don't" that doesn't belong.

hahaha that's a bit mean WBN


maybe the word "bit" could be removed as well


Dave

 

[Tobias Funke]

Or to Colombia, the country. I remember a campaign by Colombians to "disambiguate" the two: Columbia the university or city(es) in the U.S, vs. Colombia the country.

A small typo, just like when I mistyped "football/fútbol/¿fóüdbáílle" as "soccer" and "French fries" as "freedom fries."

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

... I'm sure many more Americans would watch if Kate Upton was one of the members playing in the US's team. I know I would.

You would obediently sit down and watch a day-long debate on the obscurest field of philosophy if Kate Upton were the moderator

Fun fact: I was trying to find a specific, obscure field of philosophy, but gave up. In the process, I found a wikipedia page blasphemously refer to Liebniz as a "philosopher," and nothing more. That's akin to psychologists trying to appellate Pavlov as nothing more than a psychologist.

 

[atyy]

This could make for an interesting thread, much more interesting than whether soccer is boring and stupid.

American football,
Kidnapping an adult,
Multi-valued function,
Dirac delta function,
Metric tensor (in general relativity),
Cartesian tensor,
Dwarf planet,

and

Red herring.


And that's what this latest sidetrack of this thread is, a red herring.

"American football" is like "soccer", ie. "soccer" is the more technically correct and less ambiguous term, but everyone knows what football is. So if we accept futbol as correct, metric tensor is also correct. Actually, what is the alternative - "metric tensor field"?

 

[micromass]

"American football" is like "soccer", ie. "soccer" is the more technically correct and less ambiguous term, but everyone knows what football is. So if we accept futbol as correct, metric tensor is also correct. Actually, what is the alternative - "metric tensor field"?

Pseudometric tensor

 

[atyy]

Wow, that is so proper!

 

[DennisN]

Tensor (soccer):
If one player in a team gets a red card, there will be ten sore players in that team left on the field.

 

[wukunlin]

you can add New Zealand and Australia to the list that term it soccer

perhaps there are more brits living around the parts of auckland I live in, people here look at you funny when you even say the word soccer.

 

[lisab]

perhaps there are more brits living around the parts of auckland I live in, people here look at you funny when you even say the word soccer.

Wouldn't surprise me - those Brits really get around !

 

[Travis_King]

The name football is not ambiguous for about 7 billion people. It only is for americans.

Blame the English...

1889, socca, later socker (1891), soccer (1895), originally university slang (with jocular formation -er (3)), from a shortened form of Assoc., abbreviation of association in Football Association (as opposed to Rugby football); compare rugger. An unusual method of formation, but those who did it perhaps shied away from making a name out of the first three letters of Assoc.

 

[Fredrik]

It's not exactly new, but I have always enjoyed this picture.

 

[jobyts]

It's called football (the Handegg one) because the ball is about a foot long.

 

[DennisN]

It's not exactly new, but I have always enjoyed this picture.

 

[WWGD]

A small typo, just like when I mistyped "football/fútbol/¿fóüdbáílle" as "soccer" and "French fries" as "freedom fries."

Sorry I over did it; I was trying to impress a hot Colombian lady , so I went along with her campaign and I started doing it without thinking about it.

 

[gfd43tg]

Nobody seems to have mentioned the obvious reason why the USA doesn't "get" soccer. Play doesn't stop every few seconds for the next TV advertising break.

Could be that we don't like sports where the players cry every game rolling on the ground when they get a little scratch.

 

[AlephZero]

Could be that we don't like sports where the players cry every game rolling on the ground when they get a little scratch.

Could be you daren't play contact sports if you can't wear body armor.

 

[HeLiXe]

Could be you daren't play contact sports if you can't wear body armor.

this thread is awesome

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

Could be you daren't play contact sports if you can't wear body armor.

Sports like soccer and basketball are contact sports. Football is a collision sport.

 

[gfd43tg]

Yes, you can volunteer to be 'contacted' by a linebacker without those wussy pads first :D

 

[Curious3141]

Sports like soccer and basketball are contact sports. Football is a collision sport.

The last I checked rugby was pretty similar to (American) football but the players don't insist on getting up like a medieval knight at the joust.

 

[Travis_King]

The last I checked rugby was pretty similar to (American) football but the players don't insist on getting up like a medieval knight at the joust.

While I agree to a certain extent, the big difference is that in rugby, most of the tackles and hits are from the side, or grabbing legs, etc. In American football, the two teams stop, line up facing one another and then (try to) run directly at each other. Most hits and tackles in American football involve two men running nearly head on at full speed. Given the reset after each play, the defense is able to set themselves up and read the play, giving them an opportunity to be in a prime position for making a hit.

I know that there are some brutal hits in rugby, for sure, and the scrum is a super rough place to be as well, but I would wager that the potential for serious injury is higher in American football, given that the contact is typically direct and head-on.

 

[Tobias Funke]

Seems like simple physics that playing American football without pads would be a disaster, for rugby players or anyone else. Therefore, rugby must not be too similar to American football in terms of collisions. Basically, what Travis_King said (probably...I've never watched rugby).

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

The last I checked rugby was pretty similar to (American) football but the players don't insist on getting up like a medieval knight at the joust.

There are more injuries in American football because of the padding. When no one is wearing a helmet, players will have a natural aversion to smashing skulls, seeing as it's counter-productive and will take both players out of play temporarily. When everyone is wearing a helmet, everyone has the confidence to start bashing heads together, but these helmets aren't omnipotent and can't prevent all sorts of gruesome concussions and spinal injuries.

Not to say that rugby players aren't badasses, because they are.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Not to say that rugby players aren't badasses, because they are.

Rugby is more of a gentlemans game. There are explicit rules for how/when to tackle (mostly shoulders and waist). In American football nearly anything goes.

 

[AnTiFreeze3]

Rugby is more of a gentlemans game. There are explicit rules for how/when to tackle (mostly shoulders and waist). In American football nearly anything goes.

I was thinking of this when I made that comment