Convince me that it's a "beautiful" game

Exactly its better that way, if football suddently went like basketball and you had teams scoring 30 goals a match it wouldnt be know where near as popular.

I would think knocking a golf ball in a tiny hole from somtimes 30ft+ would make golfers the greatest athletes. Or netball (the womens basketball) is just the same as basketball but with different rules. To me the greatest athletes are people like Lance Armstrong and long distance runners. Most people can pick up a basketball and make some shots without any actual practice, aiming with your hands like that is alot easier then with your feet. Footballers also dont aim for the whole goal otherwise they wouldnt score much, they pick a point and thats what they aim for and its usually a very small target which they are going for.

 

I would disagree and I twice ran sub 3:00 marathons. That was about the time I moved to California and a Mexican immigrant tried to tell me soccer required greater endurance, too funny.

I am not suggesting 30 goals per game, Argentina's 6 was almost good enough today. It should have been 7 but an overzealous goal hating flag bearer called an offisdes (replay showed he wasn't) and the ref jump in because the forward took two strides and booted the ball into the goal, yellow card! When you know you're onside and 40,000 people are screaming, stop and listen for my whistle!

I still marvel at how many shots go a couple meters above the net. I saw three in the ten minutes of the Mexico-Angola game today. I would err low rather than high.

 

Hockey goals are earned, ask any Canadian dentist.

 

What distance marathons?

 

Aren't all marathons over 26.whatever it is miles, otherwise it wouldn't be a marathon.

 

Maybe. So to tbarr viera who used to play for arsenal some games ran over 12 miles thats in 90 minutes with alot of sprinting whilst controlling, tackling making passes having to keep sharp etc and players dont have a bottle of water whenever they want so its definately up there. I dont think you ran in under 3 hours though the world record is only 2 hours 4 minutes.

 

No I agree, footballers by definition are at the peak of fitness in order to play at the highest level. They also have great natural ability at accelleration and balance as well as being extremely skillfull. There's a reason the top guys are paid £120,000 per week.

 

soccer sells, that's for sure. Looking at the amounts of people watching world wide, the advertising ING, Mac Donalds and such do must be extremely high. Sure, the players deserve a cut. (even if all they do is kick a ball )

 

It's 26 miles, 385 yards (it was set so that the finish would be right in front of the Queen of England in the first London games). My best times were 2:57 and 2:51 but that was when New Wave music was new.

How was this 12 miles calculated? I often take a mental snapshot when one player is sprinting the other 10 are walking/trotting.

Good point about the water bottles. I always went on my long runs (20 miles or more) without water (though I might stop if I saw a water fountain in a park), once on a 30 mile run I took money and got orange juice.

How about those three red cards in the US Italy game. What happened to "no blood, no foul."

I just watched the last ten minutes of the first half of Japan Croatia, and three balls went sailing 5 meters over the goal. I teach my girls to shoot it on the ground, what were these guys taught?

 

You know why its a beautiful game? Because anything can happen.

Ghana beat the Czechs 2-0. They are an "underdog" and beat the 2nd ranked team in the world.

That's why its beautiful.

Skinny

 

That happens in most any sport. In the Western Conference Stanely Cup playoffs the top four teams went out and the eighth (last) place team, Edmonton, is in the finals.

 

What I don't understand though is some people who are glued to the screen every Saturday watching their local team play, or their national league. That's one boring way to spend the weekend if you ask me.

 

At any games you have stats being recorded and at some games you will have people recording stats such as the distance run i dont know how they calculate it but im sure its accurate. You would struggle to find any sport similiar to football with players running that distance. I didnt say every player is running 12 miles, it would be stupid for every player to sprinting as they have their positions to stick in and why sprint into that if they can walk into it? How about post a shot of your marathon time and the rest of the stuff you get given at the end?
3 red cards because of the stupid tackles. Really what is your problem anyway if you dont like football dont watch it i dont understand how someone who criticizes every game they watch and analyzes the game for everything bad why do you bother to watch it you obviously dont enjoy it.

 

Those times were from 1984 and 1987. I would have to dig out the photo and scan..maybe later.

The 3 red cards were a bad elbow by the Italian and two slides at the ball by the US players that on a frame by frame replay shows the first one having the US player contacting the ball first and the second one being contact by both players at the same time. It's OK they evened out the send offs that Ghana received. Maybe a few Lira changed hands.

I never implied that I don't like the game, I only asked how it can be called beautiful. My favorite sport is hockey and there are moments of beauty it is an ugly game of many failed rushes but there's no crying, they have revised offsides and other offense restricting rules, and the don't shoot open shots to the second balcony.

It's a great game and is available to the strongest, richest, freest nations as well as the impoverished, oppressed, and warring countries. A great game but "beautiful?" was my question.

 

Hey don't get me wrong.

I love hockey too. And I hope Edmonton wins (being in Canada). I'm actually a little suprised you like hockey, because in America I think it's the 5th sport.

Skinny

 

I grew up in a suburb of Windsor, Ontario called Detroit and grew up watching Detroit hockey and Hockey Night in Canada. Of the four major sports the Pistons and Red Wings are the biggies, the Tigers come around about every 20 years (let's see 1968, 1984, I guess we are about do and they have the best record in the league, hmmm) and the the Lions hear the fans chanting "Let's go Red Wings!" in many of the games they are (not) in.

I was pulling for the Oilers too, but alas, Lord Stanely will be hearin "y'all" instead of "eh" for a year.

 

I'm starting to get excited over every game now - no matter who plays. Weird

 

Mwahahah, we've got you now! You'll be calling is Football and getting a beer belly before long!

 

I still most commonly call it Soccer (short for Association Football), I occasional call it futbol due to the hispanic influence in SoCal, and only in forums to I waiver and occasionally call it football. How come they don't call it HeadAndFootball, oops I mean we can't for get the keepers and the throw ins, HandAndHeadAndFeetball.

Good game with Sweden today. It's a good thing for England that their best athletes are playing in the National Hockey League.

 

I never get why american football is called football when they hardly even use their feet. English football was around before american football aswell so why copy the name aswell :S