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when you have "50 lbs of armor" -- which is actually about 15 pounds of plastic -- then you can go full speed and deliberately slam your body into someone else's, face first, 50 times per game.
nobody hits with the force, technique, reckless abandon, or frequency of football players. certainly not rugby or soccer -- they can't. if they did they would break every bone in their face. it is silly to even try and make the comparison.
Not an athlete? Ive been playing competitive ice hockey since I was like 8. And, you obviously know nothing about sports if you believe soccer isn't rough. That is just ridiculous.
not anytime soon. where i grew up, the soccer kids were about as cool as the trivia team.
Well, we better stop the World Cup then. Soccer players just arent cool enough.
International soccer players are the most followed and most famous people on the face of the earth.
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Originally Posted by le roi
i never understood the appeal. it isn't nearly violent enough, it is just running around in circles, with the occasional dive at your opponents feet.
First, the sport involves a whole hell of a lot more than that.
Second, why does it have it be violent
Third, soccer is classified as a contact sport. Go play sometime and you will find out just how violent the game can be. My guess is that you would be sucking wind in less than 5 minutes and unable to keep up.
Fourth, watch a professional game some time. Players get stitches and staples in their head and go back out and play.
Well, we better stop the World Cup then. Soccer players just arent cool enough.
International soccer players are the most followed and most famous people on the face of the earth.
you're in the wrong thread. this thread is about soccer players in the United States.
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Second, why does it have it be violent
in order to compete with football, as the most "cool" or exciting sport in the US.
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Third, soccer is classified as a contact sport. Go play sometime and you will find out just how violent the game can be. My guess is that you would be sucking wind in less than 5 minutes and unable to keep up.
haha, "classified as", huh? by the international body of violent sports, right? look at you trying to act all official.
yes, i have played, and yes i would be sucking wind. my point exactly. it is like a track meet with a ball.
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Fourth, watch a professional game some time. Players get stitches and staples in their head and go back out and play.
Not an athlete? Ive been playing competitive ice hockey since I was like 8. And, you obviously know nothing about sports if you believe soccer isn't rough. That is just ridiculous.
you need to brush up on your reading comp., too. i said it wasn't violent enough to be a cool sport.
First of all, a soccr match lasts 90 minutes (two halves of 45 mins) and not 3 hours. However, that time is all action and there are no timeouts or breaks for TV commercials.
Second, the rules in soccer are equally as intricate as in other sports. The offside rule, for example, generates endless discussion.
Third, you do get the occasional "fluke" score but no more than in any other sport and they are quite rare.
Fourth, soccer is popular for kids in the USA because a) it requires little outlay on equipment and b) more importantly, it has been converted into a non-contact run-around sport. The soccer American kids play is not the same as is played in the rest of the world.
Finally, soccer transcends national wealth and is played by rich and poor alike. That is the beauty of it. It is fundamentally non-elitist.
Your opinion of all action is completely different than mine. Most of the time is spent kicking the ball back and forth. The ball gets stolen again and again, The lack of shots on goal is awful. A lot of people point out the lack of scoring, however I think it is the lack of potential scoring. There are not many attempts on the goal. Also, most shots are near impossible to save unless they are kicked right at the oalie. So a great save only happens once in a great while. As an American I just don't see the excitement. To each their own. In my opinion it's boring.
Your opinion of all action is completely different than mine. Most of the time is spent kicking the ball back and forth..
In American football, most of the time is spent with the players standing around doing nothing. In baseball, most of the time is spent waiting for the pitch to be thrown or the batter to step into the batters box. In basketball, most of the time is spent with the ball being passed around. In hockey, most of the game is spent with players passing the puck around.
The difference is that it is a constant flow in soccer. You have 20 players constantly moving and making runs. There is a ton of action in a soccer game.
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Originally Posted by renter8319
The lack of shots on goal is awful. A lot of people point out the lack of scoring, however I think it is the lack of potential scoring. There are not many attempts on the goal. Also, most shots are near impossible to save unless they are kicked right at the oalie. So a great save only happens once in a great while. As an American I just don't see the excitement. To each their own. In my opinion it's boring.
1 - There are just as many scoring opportunities in soccer as any other sport. It is just that scoring is more difficult so there is less of it. There are about just as many shots on goal in a game as there are possessions in the red zone in football.
2 - Most shots are not impossible to save unless kicked straight at the keeper. Most keepers are like 6 feet 2 to 6 inches tall and are extremely flexible. There are usually many great saves every match.
You may not like it but your reasoning is poor and false.
Lance Armstrong is only about 6 foot and a 170 pounds and he is a better athlete than anyone in the NFL, NBA, or MLB can even hope to be. No one in those leagues is even worthy enough to suck his dick, much less compare.
He is the best athlete of our time and possibly the best the world has ever known.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I think that's taking it a little too far. Lance Armstrong was a superb athlete, but he is not the "best athlete of our time" nor is he "the best the world has ever known." If you define athleticism as stamina and skill riding a bicycle, then yes, he is the best athlete the world has ever known. But I hardly believe that you subscribe to that narrow a definition.
Athleticism, in my view, is a combination of several physical attributes, including speed, strength, agility, stamina and dexterity. I would also include jumping and throwing on that list, even though throwing is more or less a skill you develop. Lance Armstrong has the stamina, and I'll give him the "dexterity" factor, but it's tough to determine how he measures up on all of the other factors.
In my opinion, basketball and soccer are the two most athletic sports, with an edge to basketball. Both require skill, speed, agility, strength and stamina, though we may argue over the degree to which each of these sports requires these attributes. The reason I say that basketball is more athletic, however, is that strength (Shaq) and jumping ability (Vince Carter) can set a player so far apart from other players on the court. There are simply things Dwyane Wade can do on an athletic level that 99% of NBA players will never be able to do. In soccer, it's more the skill that sets a player apart from all the others. You even said yourself, when discussing the offside rule, that the game was set up to make the playing field as equal as possible, so that it would be a game based more on skill than athleticism.
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Originally Posted by RjRobb2
I bet just about every single person on this board could go outside right now and throw a 30 yard pass with a football or baseball to their friend without even thinking about it. Even people with no training in either sport. However, I bet hardly anyone could do that with kicking a soccer ball even standing still much less doing it while running.
I don't know about that. Most people on this board could probably go outside and throw a football with a fair degree of accuracy because we grew up doing it. It would be unremarkable. But I have encountered a few people who never learned to throw. I mentored a student from Togo who could not throw a baseball more than 30 feet to save his life. He had ridiculously poor mechanics. I have also worked with adults who could not hit a speed bag for more than 5 seconds without it flailing all over the place. It seems easy to me, of course, because I've had gloves laced on my hands from the time I left the womb.
I understand your point about Americans not being accustomed to using their feet, but I can assure you that an African kid who never plays basketball will have as difficult a time learning to dribble a basketball as an American kid who never plays soccer will have learning to dribble a soccer ball. Though you could argue that everyone grows up throwing something (car keys or even a brick, perhaps, at a sibling), it could also be argued that everyone has a fair share of practice kicking things as well (every American kid has played kickball and people sometimes kick things over to people as well as throw them).
By the way, if throwing a football were as natural and easy as you suggest, how come Tavaris Jackson and Jamarcus Russell are out of a job? Admittedly, I am not very good at throwing a football. I usually suck at those state fair/carnival competitions where you have to throw a ball into a hole or through a ring. I throw a lot of "wobbly ducks" too.
Last edited by BajanYankee; 06-25-2010 at 03:34 PM..
I've played both on highly competitive levels. Yes, basketball is much faster paced and short bursts of play will drain you of temporary of energy. However, over the long term, soccer takes far more endurance and physical fitness.
It's been scientifically proven that soccer takes more endurance than basketball.
The running is only a part of it. It's also the fact that you're constantly, constantly pushing and shoving on the defensive end, and that can wear you out. Shoving for position on a corner kick is not the same as defending someone in the paint. If there's a guy guarding me who's only 5'10 and 150 pounds, I'm backing him down each and every possession. If he hasn't been hitting the weight room, he's going to pay a price.
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Originally Posted by RjRobb2
You really cant compare boxing to soccer and basketball, it is an entirely different animal.
Why can't you? If we're talking about sports that require fitness, you would have to rank boxing above basketball and soccer. Boxing is the ultimate workout.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I think that's taking it a little too far. Lance Armstrong was a superb athlete, but he is not the "best athlete of our time" nor is he "the best the world has ever known." If you define athleticism as stamina and skill riding a bicycle, then yes, he is the best athlete the world has ever known. But I hardly believe that you subscribe to that narrow a definition.
Athleticism, in my view, is a combination of several physical attributes, including speed, strength, agility, stamina and dexterity. I would also include jumping and throwing on that list, even though throwing is more or less a skill you develop. Lance Armstrong has the stamina, and I'll give him the "dexterity" factor, but it's tough to determine how he measures up on all of the other factors.
Hmm.
Cycling is a tough sport.
Lance Armstrong's stamina is amazing, dexterity is awesome has strength and an amazingly high cadence speed. So yeah, he's pretty good. To win 7 Tour De France's is an unbelievable effort, which in my opinion is one of the hardest sporting events in the world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BajanYankee
In my opinion, basketball and soccer are the two most athletic sports, with an edge to basketball. Both require skill, speed, agility, strength and stamina, though we may argue over the degree to which each of these sports requires these attributes. The reason I say that basketball is more athletic, however, is that strength (Shaq) and jumping ability (Vince Carter) can set a player so far apart from other players on the court. There are simply things Dwyane Wade can do on an athletic level that 99% of NBA players will never be able to do. In soccer, it's more the skill that sets a player apart from all the others. You even said yourself, when discussing the offside rule, that the game was set up to make the playing field as equal as possible, so that it would be a game based more on skill than athleticism.
In my opinion, Australian Rules is far more athletic than basketball or even soccer.
Mostly because,
stamina: the size of the field is 160 meters (524 feet) x 141 m (462 feet). Players are expected to run up & down over the course of the game which has a playing time of 120 minutes.
You need speed, vertical jump, agility to out manouvure players, plus you need to be have strength. Also have the skill to kick an oval ball and make it bend around the goals....
Here are good clips of the requirements of playing AFL football:
I don't know about that. Most people on this board could probably go outside and throw a football with a fair degree of accuracy because we grew up doing it. It would be unremarkable. But I have encountered a few people who never learned to throw. I mentored a student from Togo who could not throw a baseball more than 30 feet to save his life. He had ridiculously poor mechanics. I have also worked with adults who could not hit a speed bag for more than 5 seconds without it flailing all over the place. It seems easy to me, of course, because I've had gloves laced on my hands from the time I left the womb.
I understand your point about Americans not being accustomed to using their feet, but I can assure you that an African kid who never plays basketball will have as difficult a time learning to dribble a basketball as an American kid who never plays soccer will have learning to dribble a soccer ball. Though you could argue that everyone grows up throwing something (car keys or even a brick, perhaps, at a sibling), it could also be argued that everyone has a fair share of practice kicking things as well (every American kid has played kickball and people sometimes kick things over to people as well as throw them).
By the way, if throwing a football were as natural and easy as you suggest, how come Tavaris Jackson and Jamarcus Russell are out of a job? Admittedly, I am not very good at throwing a football. I usually suck at those state fair/carnival competitions where you have to throw a ball into a hole or through a ring. I throw a lot of "wobbly ducks" too.
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