Soccer or Football?

[Torch]

Have to agree with you Adler, love both games. I get the Fox soccer channel and I enjoy wathcing the Premier League and Serie A. Love that kid Pato on AC Milan. Wish they showed more of the German league thou.

 

[Colin1]

Great post. Newcastle looks like a great club! I like MU because it is always on the television and same with Real Madrid. Which leads to the question of how you all choose your teams. Are they local, tradition, or skill?

Originally, local AND tradition
football was originally a working class pursuit, men went to a pub, drank a couple of pints of beer, went to the match then back to the pub and talked the match through over a couple more pints of beer. When sons were old enough, they followed their father into club support. In the North-east, these were miners, sheet metalworkers, shipbuilders and foundrymen, work was hard and money was poor in those days and a day out at the football match would have been the highlight of the week.

There just wasn't the media coverage back then to highlight other teams. Eventually, cup finals were televised or broadcast on radio but unless you played them you didn't really get to hear how London clubs were doing, or even Midland clubs.

I wasn't alive then but it's difficult to imagine someone from Tyneside deciding that they wanted to support Aston Villa...

Nowadays, skill (or more accurately, success)
local and traditional selection hasn't changed that much, it's just that in the age of 24-hour global media coverage, most big or successful clubs now find that with international fan membership facilities, the vast, vast majority of their fanbase live nowhere near the team, the team's city or even the country that they're in. Almost the same number will likely never see them play.

Great for revenues but open to derisory comment from the local/traditional fans of other teams.

It's only really in the last 2 decades that the game has been slowly ripped from the grasp of the working-class supporter. Executive boxes, prime seating and expensive foreign players have pushed ticket prices up; a season supporting your team even just for the home matches is a bit of a stretch for the ordinary supporter with one possibly two kids. That aspect has been heatedly discussed more than once.

 

[Torch]

I live in Colorado so I have no direct attachment to rooting for a team in Europe, usually comes down to player or 2 on a team that I enjoy watching and eventual root for, ex: Van Persie for Arsenal, or Rooney Man U, Gerrard, or Del Piero from Juve, man there's a ton of great players out there, might have to root for all the teams.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Well, in soccer (football in Argentina) is forbidden to take the ball in hands...

.....

Sorry I coulndt resist.

Perhaps reference should be American Football vs Football. As the later is truely global.

Perhaps, in a perfect world ( perfect world for the UK that is). if the british teached proper football to US Inhabitants since the colony time, well..it woulndt be the need to make this aclarations.

Just note what a few british school teachers and railroad workers achieved in Argentina.

 

[Marcel]

Ah, the hand of god....

 

[CharlesBronson]

An all time classic. 8)

By the way, this was completely unnecesary.

 

[Clay_Allison]

Is it Babe Ruth?

You disturb me.

It's Bobby Layne. University of Texas, 1947.

 

[Clay_Allison]

.....

Sorry I coulndt resist.



Perhaps, in a perfect world ( perfect world for the UK that is). if the british teached proper football to US Inhabitants since the colony time, well..it woulndt be the need to make this aclarations.

Just note what a few british school teachers and railroad workers achieved in Argentina.

And a huge number of Germans.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

An all time classic. 8)

By the way, this was completely unnecesary.

Why was that completely unnecessary? I was showing the atmosphere at the time. If you can not handle it, then do not look at it.

That is part of football!

 

[Colin1]

By the way, this was completely unnecessary

I'm not sure if you're joking
You show us the 'hand of God', describe it as 'a classic' then tell us a tattoo depicting the exit of Argentina is 'completely unnecessary'?

The hand of God incident cheated England out of World Cup 86, at least you had the 'satisfaction' of being knocked out of World Cup 06 fair and square.

 

[CharlesBronson]

And a huge number of Germans.

The german inmigration came relatively late, mostly in early part of XX century when the football was already well installed as the second more popular sport ( first was horse racing in those days)

Why was that completely unnecessary? I was showing the atmosphere at the time. If you can not handle it, then do not look at it.

That is part of football!

I'm not sure if you're joking
You show us the 'hand of God', describe it as 'a classic' then tell us a tattoo depicting the exit of Argentina is 'completely unnecessary'?

I meaned unnecessary to wrote it in english, a simple "adios" or "auf wiedersehen" would be more apropiate 8)

And the hand of god is a classic play of wold football history, you might love it or hate ( and if you hate it you will be completely right) but there is no question that is a classic.

 

[Colin1]

I meant unnecessary to write it in English, a simple "adios" or "auf wiedersehen" would be more appropriate 8)

And the hand of God is a classic play of world football history, you might love it or hate (and if you hate it you will be completely right) but there is no question that is a classic

Well OK
I love football but it's only a game so it's not worth getting screwed up over although the hand of God was not a classic, it was shameful. Players who are talented enough to grace the world stage should not need to resort to such tactics.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Evidently is not the most elegant way to win a football match, but sometimes you dont win in the way you like, but in the way you could.

 

[Colin1]

...sometimes you don't win in the way you like, but in the way you could

Doesn't make sense to me
the nature of sport is the observation of the rules binding that sport and winning within the constraints of those rules. If you concede to a 'winning in the way you could' mentality, where do you draw the line?

 

[CharlesBronson]

Doesn't make sense to me
the nature of sport is the observation of the rules binding that sport and winning within the constraints of those rules. If you concede to a 'winning in the way you could' mentality, where do you draw the line?

Let me paint an hypotetic scenario:

South Afrika, 2010, world cup, final match betwen England vs Argentina, the game is tied 2-2, is the minute 92 ( 3 were concede as extra time).
Corner for England, carring a heavy retouched mullet Beckham executed a beautiful arced kick, Rooney jumps but it cant catch it very well with its head, so he use its fingertips instead....goal, the argentine defense is dismayed, the england fans exhilarating, the refferee didnt saw any suspicious, the linesman neither, the goal is in.

Would you change it ?

 

[Colin1]

Let me paint an hypothetical scenario:

South Africa 2010, World Cup final match England vs Argentina, the game is tied 2-2, it's the 92nd minute (3 were conceded as extra time).
Corner for England, carrying a heavily retouched mullet Beckham executed a beautiful arced kick, Rooney jumps but can't catch it very well with his head, so he use his fingertips instead....goal, the Argentine defence is dismayed, the England fans exhilarated, the referee didn't see anything suspicious, the linesmen neither, the goal is in.

Would you change it ?

It's a difficult scenario to envisage
because it's not part of the English game

Your premise is based upon the British sporting psyche being similar to that of the Argentines - to contemplate that and execute such a thing is, or was, part of your game.

We have an innate sense of fair play. You can argue that fair play never won a trophy but if we won the World Cup that way, the vast majority of supporters in this country would view it as hollow - we'd have cheated the opposition, the game and ourselves.
It would be debated to death on all of the football forums in this country but it would eventually boil down to the same bottom line, we didn't win it, we stole it.

Yes, I'd change it. Without a shadow of a doubt.

 

[CharlesBronson]

It's a difficult scenario to envisage
because it's not part of the English game

Yea..arriving to a world cup final is not part of the english game since 1966
( kidding)

My premise is that this kind of situation could be part of the game, in any place and any country. But aniway your call is admirable.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

T




I meaned unnecessary to wrote it in english, a simple "adios" or "auf wiedersehen" would be more apropiate 8)

What does it being in English have to do with it?????

Let me paint an hypotetic scenario:

South Afrika, 2010, world cup, final match betwen England vs Argentina, the game is tied 2-2, is the minute 92 ( 3 were concede as extra time).
Corner for England, carring a heavy retouched mullet Beckham executed a beautiful arced kick, Rooney jumps but it cant catch it very well with its head, so he use its fingertips instead....goal, the argentine defense is dismayed, the england fans exhilarating, the refferee didnt saw any suspicious, the linesman neither, the goal is in.

Would you change it ?

Of course it should be changed. It is called cheating and it is shameful.

 

[Marcel]

Of course it should be changed. It is called cheating and it is shameful.

I don't agree. It's the referee's call and should be respected even if he had it wrong. He should get fired afterwards though.

I actually think the "hand of god" is a classic. It shows that football (soccer for you US members) is (or at least was) still a human sport, decided by humans instead of technology. Humans make mistakes, but it's all part of the game. I think this is one of the charming aspects of sport.

 

[Flyboy2]

Personally I love soccer alot more than football.. Which is kinda hard for a few of my friends to grasp Thus the fact that my avatar is for a street soccer company. I almost put a logo for RSL (Real Salt Lake) one of the American teams here. GO RSL! And the "Hand of God" great!

By the way, any of you soccer fans heard of Calle?