which sport is more collective: football or soccer?

Due to injury and getting tossed from games, soccer teams do play short handed at times and even then, it's far from a given that the other team is going to score. Take one player off the field for one team in football for any length of time and they're more likely to struggle.

 

nothing to debate here, your points are dead on. football is much more team oriented especially how theyre all spaced so close every play, whereas soccer defenders usually just sit and watch as the offense goes to score.

 

the defense on a football team is watching when the offense scores to...

 

I picked football because it is the same thing as soccer

 

Put this on an "european" forum and see how it turns out....

 

you have to define "collective".

I could argue that soccer is more collective because all players can and do interchange many times throughout a game. for example if the keeper comes out of goal for a challenge, a defender will usually slide in behind and back up the keeper and protect the goal. same goes for a defender who makes an offensive run up the field, a holding mid or overlapping wing will cover the defender. when all 11 field players move and have responsibilities like that, that can certainly be described as collective.

you don't see that real time interchange with football, it's just a different game. instead you see very strict responsibilities which if not performed will usually result in failure. and no don't bring up the wildcat here

so a football team is like a factory line that must work together to create the product. if someone on the assembly line fails the whole line fails and has to be shutdown. that's certainly can be described as collective.

a soccer team is more organic, if something moves or fails another piece can take over briefly or permanently to do that job but it never stops working. also sounds collective right?

 

Football is *the* definitive team sport.

 

Soccer.

 

Buddy Ryan thinks not.


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I'd class myself as neutral in this debate because neither sport is my favorite (Rugby League is), I don't come from a country where either sport is the number one sport here (Australia) and I consider all of my opinions on sport to be 100% correct! :grin:


I'd say in American Football the entire team works like a machine, if one part of that machine fails, the whole thing falls apart.

In Soccer, errors on the part of an individual are not as catastrophic as they are in an American Football game for the most part.

Yes a howler by a goal keeper or a bad back pass can lead straight to a goal, and one goal in worth more to the outcome of a game then say a returned intercept for a touchdown in American Football.

However many mistakes happen in a Soccer game that are not punished so severely. A bad pass turning the ball over, a bad shot on goal, a foul and the like.

You also get more chances in a soccer game to have possession, meaning a turnover in possession in a soccer game is not as terrible as it is in American Football.


As for the team sport where you need every player to do their part or things can go horribly wrong, I'll throw in two mainstream sports that applies to, possibly even more so than American Football.

Baseball and Cricket.

In baseball, one bad throw can cost a game, poor fielding and hell, a few bad minutes by a pitcher can end a game too.

In Cricket, a dropped catch can seen a team get punished for hundreds of runs. You need all your fielders to be on their game, all the bowlers being economical and your batting lineup to be putting runs on the board.