Why soccer is better than football
Observing the mayhem from my usual perch at the Gunmakers pub in London’s Marylebone, I left the television undisturbed, but marked a personal milestone of my own: I’ve made the switch from American football to real football. After years of trying to sneak away from the National Football League—with its weaponized linemen, bounty-hunting defenses and periodic bursts of action to break up the commercials—I am finally, completely finished with it. You may be ready for some football, but I’m so bored with the NFL.
As an American, this puts me at loggerheads not just with my countrymen—this year’s Super Bowl was the most watched program in U.S. history—but also my colleague and boss, Wall Street Journal deputy editor in chief Gerard Baker. In December, Mr. Baker penned a confessional essay in these pages describing the shame of being an Englishman who likes American football better than soccer…
But the NFL slowly lost me as an adult. While I was at a Monday Night Football game at Seattle’s Kingdome in the mid-80s, the endless commercial breaks awakened me to the extent the game had been handed over to the requirements of a television broadcast. The vicious leveling of a Seahawks receiver by the headhunting Raiders secondary came back to me years later as studies about concussions and crippled league veterans gained prominence. My last NFL highlight was Prince’s Super Bowl halftime show in 2007.
Blowback
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Obviously, you’ve never been in the stands of a Raiders game.
Johnny 100 Pesos on May 20, 2012 at 8:37 AM
The other problem with soccer is that, even with the wider screen HDTVs, you never get a real feel for the plays setting up, because the field of action is too widespread. Watching a game live you can actually see a pattern to the movements far better than sitting at home. In football, the movements of the receivers after the snap will go out of camera range on many plays, but the actions of the quarterback, the line and the running backs are always in frame, so there’s less of a situation that something key is happening outside your view on television, and given the huge amounts of money involved today, any pro sport that doesn’t work well on TV is going to struggle.
jon1979 on May 20, 2012 at 8:42 AM
Soccer is for Beta’s…
Football is for real men(and women).
Wolftech on May 20, 2012 at 8:51 AM
You should have stopped a few words before you did.
Attila (Pillage Idiot) on May 20, 2012 at 8:51 AM
If you imperialists would come out of your caves we all would.
Though the kilometer is kind of wussy.
And the people who started it still use some archaic measurement called a stone.
Go figure.
cozmo on May 20, 2012 at 9:07 AM
Well, soccer is a hell of a lot funnier than football, that’s for sure.
Dongemaharu on May 20, 2012 at 9:11 AM
I love watching soccer. You can see the players and though there’s not a lot of scoring the action rarely stops.
I grew up watching football but the last time I enjoyed the NFL season was the 1985 Bears. So many personalities on that team.
Fallon on May 20, 2012 at 9:27 AM
It’s a game full of low-rent scumbag fans who like to riot, played by ladyboys.
It’s also more boring than watching paint dry.
CorporatePiggy on May 20, 2012 at 9:29 AM
Soccer, that is.
CorporatePiggy on May 20, 2012 at 9:29 AM
If he was talking about indoor soccer, I might agree. Soccer is not popular in the US because of it’s culture and the way the sport is played. It is very European in that sense. The things that turn me off (and many Americans I’ve spoken to):
1) It’s an endurance sport without stoppage or substitution. This results in players walking up the field from their own end slowly in order to conserve energy. There is nothing exciting about watching a team slowly saunter up the field to where the defense is waiting. For Americans and our culture, it looks like the players are not giving 100% (might be true for some). What is actually happening is the players are saving energy.
2) The field is too large. The players have to save energy because the have too far to go and too much space to move. This results in far less action. Keep in mind that the NHL has smaller sized rinks than its European counter-parts. The reason is to make the sport more exciting.
3) No substitution/bench. Soccer players can rarely go all out on a play because if it doesn’t work they have used up too much of their energy. Substitutions/rotating benches ala hockey could fix this, giving superstars the opportunity to rest every few minutes so that they can go out and really show the crowd the skills they got.
4) No stoppage on injury. Granted there is “extra time” but it is not the same thing as stopping the clock when a player is injured. Stoppage guarantees the spectator that the amount of time for player recovery does not decrease the amount of time for the trailing team to mount a comeback. Stricter diving rules would help as well.
In short, soccer needs to be shorter, faster and tougher to attract American spectators.
Pattosensei on May 20, 2012 at 9:33 AM
Yes, like Rugby 7s or 5-a-side soccer.
Fast, immediate, and to the point.
Neither has subs but the games are much shorter and more aggressive.
CorporatePiggy on May 20, 2012 at 9:42 AM
Yeah, instead of commercial breaks and vicious hits, in soccer you can watch some forward writhe in agony on the ground for 5 minutes as if he’s fit only for the emergenfcy room, and then suddenly sprung back into the game as if he was shot from a cannon.
ddrintn on May 20, 2012 at 9:49 AM
* spring back, sorry
ddrintn on May 20, 2012 at 9:50 AM
Yeah, but come on. How often do “real” injuries happen in soccer? As I mentioned above, it’s mostly guys play-acting just to give the team a breather. I think that happens in hockey occasionally as well, especially (or so it seems) with eastern European players. I remember Sergei Federov of the Red Wings was notorious for that.
ddrintn on May 20, 2012 at 9:53 AM
* Federov, Fedorov? Dunno. Anyway, he was there along with Steve Yserman-Eyezerman-Izermann-Eisermann. LOL
ddrintn on May 20, 2012 at 9:57 AM
Get rid of the goaly and ad a shot clock?
Count to 10 on May 20, 2012 at 10:05 AM
They are two sports so different that an attempt at comparison or a decision of which is “better” is stupid, subjective, and lacking in any real tangible barometers to judge by, it is in fact apples to oranges.
I’m not a big NFL fan, all the players are just too good, I have no vested interest in any given team, it just doesnt excite me really at all.
College football is faaaaaaar better than professional.
And soccer is a great game. I definitely enjoy watching it a little more than NFL. World Cup time is incredible in my opinion. It’s a different game though, not really fit for most Americans because they don’t score every few seconds and most don’t know what they’re looking at and can’t see the plays, efforts, and purpose of what is going on. Also it’s the rest of the worlds sport so many automatically look down on it like the person up above calling it a beta sport, hat print opinions that have little to do with the actual game and more to do with American bluster.
Soccer is a great sport, you just have to understand what’s happening. Football is great too, just prefer college. Two different worlds though, one shouldn’t disrespect either.
Boomer_Sooner on May 20, 2012 at 10:16 AM
Bruce,
In your dreams, mate. Soccer isn’t football. Rugby is a little closer to the mark. I do agree with your observation about the commercials, but we do need a few break to get more beer and wings.
dogsoldier on May 20, 2012 at 10:58 AM
While I find the goldbricking and theatrics of soccer “injuries” distasteful, the incessant celebrating — after nearly ever down! — in football is even more of a turn off.
KGB on May 20, 2012 at 11:30 AM
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