Well, for me it's been like this... In the past when I've tried to watch a soccer game... like the Dynamo, or something.... I'd be watching the game, thinking... "Okay we've got the ball...we're driving.. we pass it." it's getting exciting, right? But then we lose control of the ball and the opponents take control. Okay. So, we play defense and I'm urging my team to regain control, which we eventually do. And then, I see us drive and try to move the ball downfield, but we lose control again... ...and again.... and again.. And it's soon clear that the whole game is like this with a very rare occasion when somebody scores. It's hard for me to get excited for each possession when 99% of the possessions are completely fruitless. And I don't like to see control of the ball so easily lost/gained by a team. It makes the game look like there's not much strategy to it. I'm not saying that there isn't strategy. I'm just saying that, if there is strategy, I don't see it because, when control of the ball is so easily gained/lost, the strategy seems to vanish. And it doesn't transfer to TV well - the field is too big, there aren't enough cameras close up on the action, and the ball moves around the large field too quickly for a camera.
right, and it makes me question the worth of a 162 game regular season when a mediocre squad like the 2006 Cardinals can stumble through it and then get lucky at the right time.
Watching the Dynamo is about as exciting as watching minor league baseball or trying to get krunk about a NBDL game.
Australia is very much like America when it comes to soccer. Participation rates in the juniors are huge, but as kids get older here they tell their parents they want to play out more popular sports and the numbers fall away dramatically. Over here we basically had the sports that formed and become the games to follow. Nation wide, Cricket during the summer. In winter, Rugby League was the game in the northern states and Australian Rules in the southern states. Soccer only really started to get going in any capacity in the 1960's. The soccer types love to talk about it as the sleeping giant of Australian sport, saying it will take over and all this rubbish, but it never will. I think like Americans, Aussies are not real keen on the theatrical drives, the boring goalless draws or games decided by penalty shootouts. In other countries they just accept that's the game, but both Australia and America have a history of evolving sports that have changed due to public demand. At the end of the day I think that's why both countries don't embrace soccer. We both see problems with it that frustrate us.
And your point is? droxford gave his take on the flow of the game of soccer as the reason why he dislike it. And his description is correct whether he talks about the Dyname or Read Madrid. Because players can only kick the ball, their coordination and accuracy decreases tremendously compared to players in American sports. Which leads to back and forth nothingness.
Really good observation, I tend to agree with this and have never really considered it. I guess anothe thing is that soccer is so widely played in so many countries you have to have a "consensus" on how to play it, so changing it is really hard unless everybody in FIFA agrees, whereas if you want to change the rules of Rugby Union or American Football it's not quite as difficult. One more thing - I really disliked soccer for quite awhile until I spent a lot of time watching it while stuck in Euorpe or Asia (with nothing else to watch). Once you start following the clubs and the players and the storylines it gets infinitely more interesting.
Wow, I never saw it this way. I guess in American sports culture the possessions should always mean something. And in football it's constantly going back and forth. So now I could kind of see how someone could find that boring if they are view the lost possessions as "turnovers". But it isn't like that, it's more about general possession of the ball and trying to gain the upper hand, not a turn by turn possession game like how basketball tends to be. Now I'm not trying to convince you to start watching it or whatever but I would say that viewing it like how you're viewing it would lead to you see it as boring. And going into a sport expecting it to be one way (whatever you're accustomed to) would make it easier to not like the sport because you have certain expectations from it. It's like someone watching basketball and saying that the defense is horrible because teams score on most possessions. But we who follow the sport know what good defense is and know it's impossible to stop a team from scoring entirely. As I said my intention is not to convince anybody of anything but I think a lot of people (not all) haven't really given it an earnest chance or gone into it with an open mind.
