11/05/24
October 02, 2009
The Profound Stupidity of Football: A review of the new book, Why England Lose and Other Curious Football Phenomena Explained. [psst: they mean "soccer"]
The poster is obviously someone who didn't read the piece. He saw the title and posted it in a lame attempt to get a rise out of soccer fans. The book criticizes the industry of modern football, not the actual game.
Compare soccer to what Americans have done to their once-great professional sports. Despite all of the behind the scenes nonsense, the game of football (soccer) itself has not been fucked-wth at all.
You cannot say the same for NFL, MLB or NBA (the NBA is barely a sport now- it's clearly become more entertainment than sport). All have been dumbed-down to enhance scoring. And the most popular of them, the NFL, has been expanded and socialized into awful, unwatchable mediocrity. It's now come to the point where on any given Sunday, it's the team that screws up the least who usually wins.
But forget the game itself. Having to sit through the 58 commercial breaks, the instant replays and the coaches challenges (which only adds to the absurdity of replay itself) and the awful announcing is reason enough to lose interest in that league.
posted by The_Special_Juan at 12:09 PM on October 02, 2009
I'm not too good at foreign languages, but I think I got the drift of this article. I'm not a soccer fan. I thought it was only the soccer fans in the stands who were miles below middle-class, not the players themselves. Most of the soccer hilights that one sees on the sports news is of fans beating each other to a pulp. (I was going to write smithereens, but I don't know how to spell it).
posted by pullmyfinger at 12:13 PM on October 02, 2009
pullmyfinger: Not sure what sports highlights you watch but the ones I see here in the States show game results. Sure, if there's a big mess in the stands they might cover it but that's reasonably infrequent.
Special Juan: Take your anti-American bias and piss off already.
posted by billsaysthis at 12:23 PM on October 02, 2009
(the NBA is barely a sport now- it's clearly become more entertainment than sport)
How so?
And the most popular of them, the NFL, has been expanded and socialized into awful, unwatchable mediocrity.
So unwatchable, in fact, that everyone is watching it.
posted by tron7 at 12:32 PM on October 02, 2009
The poster is obviously someone who didn't read the piece.
Sorry to disappoint. All of my posts are lame attempts. I can only recall ever posting something I hadn't finished reading once. It resulted in my post being incorrect, so I'm pretty careful about that. If you read the link, you might have noticed my post title is simply the link's title.
The book criticizes the industry of modern football, not the actual game.
I'm not sure I get the point of you highlighting this. "Football" could refer to either the actual sport or the people running the professional version.
posted by yerfatma at 12:35 PM on October 02, 2009
billsay, you are probably right. It's just that I tend to doze off during soccer hilights and only awaken when they show the fighting in the stands. I wouldn't exactly refer to it as "infrequent". That is a good word for our 4 major sports - not international (and not so international) soccer.
posted by pullmyfinger at 12:45 PM on October 02, 2009
The poster is obviously someone who didn't read the piece. He saw the title and posted it in a lame attempt to get a rise out of soccer fans.
The only thing that's obvious is that you don't know what you're talking about. Yerfatma picked up the story's headline and has been here for seven years. He wasn't trolling to piss off soccer fans. The only person in this discussion who trolls for angry responses is you. That needs to stop.
posted by rcade at 02:03 PM on October 02, 2009
Compare soccer to what Americans have done to their once-great professional sports. Despite all of the behind the scenes nonsense, the game of football (soccer) itself has not been fucked-wth at all.
Apart from the backpass rule. And the amount of time the keeper can hold onto the ball rule. And the "not interfering is not offside" rule. Catch yourself on.
posted by JJ at 02:43 PM on October 02, 2009
I love the guy on the bottom right of the picture on that article. Made me laugh for some reason.
Juan: I disagree with you a lot on here as you know, but I agree entirely with what you say there. Especially on commercials. The reason I don't watch football (as in NFL) and baseball is because I can't stomach the endless commercials. I would pay a premium for a channel where I'd get, say, 1-2 games a week commercial free. Sadly the only option is to buy the all encompassing channels that show EVERYTHING and cost a fortune.
bill: Lay off Juan. He's not being "anti american". Jesus christ. I agree entirely with him. I mean the NFL is known as the "No Fun League" (or the National Felons League). And I loathe the NBA. It has nothing to do with being anti American and everything to do with being "Anti Sports I find fucking tedious".
As for MLB, every year I think THIS is the year I'll get deeply into it. I love baseball, as in the SPORT of baseball, but I find the MLB, with its idiot commentators, endless commercials etc... Unwatchable. I've got a massive collection of old baseball radio broadcasts from the 30's to the 60's and those I find perfect.
I'm also a HUGE football (as in soccer) fan. I have a sub to "When Saturday Comes" etc... Yet I despise the English Premier League. Does that make me anti English? Oh yeah, I should point out I AM FUCKING ENGLISH!
Not everything is politically motivated, Billy boy.
Great post yerfatma. Currently reading "Power Corruption and Pies Vol 2", the collected best articles from the second decade of "When Saturday Comes" (www.wsc.co.uk) I'm on a serious footie kick right now (no pun intended) so this was great.
posted by Drood at 03:06 PM on October 02, 2009
He's not being "anti american". Jesus christ. I agree entirely with him.
There's nothing wrong with agreeing with him, I think bill was referring to a trend across posts.
posted by yerfatma at 03:16 PM on October 02, 2009
I've certainly not seen yerfatma, but then I don't read everything on here.
I found the article fascinating. It intrigues me that most fans are apparently polygamous. I'm a Southampton fan. I loved 'em in the Prem (in fact they were the entire reason I had ANY interest at all in it), and I still love 'em now in League 1. (Soon to be League 2 probably but still...)
Sadly the only way I can follow them over here is downloading torrents of the BBC's Football League Show. Of which I'm about a month behind on viewing.
Also found the blonde thing interesting. (Go read the damn article to know what I'm referring too.)
posted by Drood at 03:31 PM on October 02, 2009
I refuse to read it now.
The blonde thing is as bad as baseball scouts ignoring short RHPs.
posted by yerfatma at 04:28 PM on October 02, 2009
Drood, that guy has been posting anti-American comments across many threads for awhile. Click his name link and see for yourself.
posted by billsaysthis at 05:47 PM on October 02, 2009
I can't watch any American sports, precisely because of the commercials as mentioned above...its ridiculous to the point of being unwatchable. Perhaps if i could see a 60 minute football game in under 2-2.5 hours i might get interested again. But its just too damn much!! A 60 minute game that takes over 3 sometimes 4 hours?! Give me a flippin' break!!
Same with baseball...pitching changes, batters calling timeout, warmups every half inning. Basketbal, same shit...each team has HOW many timeouts?!
As far as that article about the book? That piece made me want to stay far away from it...
posted by StarFucker at 02:33 AM on October 05, 2009
Soccer: 90 minutes of playing time, telecast time of 120.
NFL: 60 minutes of playing time, telecast time of 240.
Have to agree with SF.
posted by billsaysthis at 12:07 PM on October 05, 2009
Of all the 34 England team members who have played at the last three international tournaments, only 5 came from anything approaching a middle-class background.
I thought this was especially interesting. What are the possible reasons for this?