Posted by andysith at gateway1.colt-telecom.com on June 05, 2002 at 10:30:58:
In Reply to: Question for the soccer fans... posted by Championship_Vinyl on June 05, 2002 at 10:19:08:
i'm sure i'd feel the was if i'd been brought on watching grown men in padding throw a ball around :O)
"soccer" is 'the beautiful game' - how do you explain it? i don't know - why do i like cricket and not baseball..
it's the feeling of togetherness you get when your stood together with 10000 other people (or more depending on who you support) - the atmosphere - from what i can gather, no sport really has the atmosphere of football, it's all quite sterile ..
it's the feeling when the ball hits the back of the onion bag..
i honestly can't explain why "soccer" is that good - like i said, if i'd been brought up in a different country i'd probably feel like this over a different sport.
and if you understood offside in less than 30 mins you're doing well - it takes women in england many many years... :O)
: And I apologize if I'm insulting you, but I simply must refer to it as "soccer." In my ethno-centric American mind, the name "football" is already taken.
: But my question is this -- what is it about soccer that appeals to you? Does American football count for anything at all over there? Seriously, I'm not trying to be an asshole here. I'm simply trying to understand my neighbors on the other side of the pond.
: Because to me - and this is only my opinion, mind you - soccer is just a group of ten people running back and forth across my television. I just don’t "get it." I’ve never played, but I certainly realize that it takes tons of skill to finesse other players aside and to keep that stinkin’ ball under control. I realize that it takes almost inhuman endurance to be able to do all that running and cutting for 45 minutes at a clip. I realize that it is indeed a tough game to excel in.
: At the same time, I see superior strategy and skill in American football. There are no two positions as demanding in all of professional sports as those of goalie in ice hockey and quarterback in American football.
: So, it’s not that the athleticism of soccer doesn’t appeal to us. It’s just that we Americans shun sports which we do not quite understand. A group of friends and I were at a bar yesterday evening, where they were showing soccer of some sort on their big screen. It took us an entire half just to figure out how offside worked.