Ask me about football

[Enjay]

Deeforce said:

For which team you will stand for?

Whichever team drops a nuke on the whole competition, wipes out the whole fucking lot and somehow leaves a fatal radioactive marker in the genome of every remaining footballer on the planet, one that leaves them hideous to any right-thinking person so that they are shunned by society and left to die cold, alone, hungry and penniless. :P

[GreyGhost]

Enjay said:

Whichever team drops a nuke on the whole competition, wipes out the whole fucking lot and somehow leaves a fatal radioactive marker in the genome of every remaining footballer on the planet, one that leaves them hideous to any right-thinking person so that they are shunned by society and left to die cold, alone, hungry and penniless. :P

With North Korea in the competition, that could happen if they play below Kim Jong-il's expectations. ;-)

[Phobus]

Enjay said:

Whichever team drops a nuke on the whole competition, wipes out the whole fucking lot and somehow leaves a fatal radioactive marker in the genome of every remaining footballer on the planet, one that leaves them hideous to any right-thinking person so that they are shunned by society and left to die cold, alone, hungry and penniless. :P

But then I'd be radioactive :( As a student I'm already the latter two though, so I guess cold and alone can't be too bad.

[Enjay]

Phobus said:

But then I'd be radioactive :(

To quote the Doom comic:

"Now I'm radioactive! That can't be good!"

;)

[TheDarkArchon]

Enjay said:

*Wishes of nuclear destruction on the Football World Cup*

<3

[Enjay]

MajorRawne said:

Ignore my smack talk, I'm trying to unsettle the Americans before England thrashes them 2-0 at the weekend!

2-0? Thrashes? See, that's maybe why Americans don't really get football. A game where only 2 points have been scored in an hour and a half of playing can be described as "a thrashing". Compare that to a basketball scoreline or something. ;)

I do actually remember once, many years ago, that there was a serious proposal to increase the size of the goal mouth to make scoring more likely. This was intended to make the game more attractive to (specifically) an American audience.

I have to admit, it does contribute to my bewilderment about football. In addition to all the venom that I reserve for the industry and "culture" of the game and the ridiculousness that surrounds it, even if all that nonsense was gone, I wouldn't even find it an interesting game. I'm sure I could name dozens of sports that are, IMO, intrinsically more interesting to play or watch than a game where, after a full match and a lot of running around, not one single goal being scored is a very realistic possibility. It is, IMO, an incredibly dull game.

Quite why this snore-fest turns so many people into a blistered and suppurating cock sore of a human at the merest mention of a game is completely beyond me.

[The Ultimate DooMer]

Enjay said:

2-0? Thrashes? See, that's maybe why Americans don't really get football. A game where only 2 points have been scored in an hour and a half of playing can be described as "a thrashing". Compare that to a basketball scoreline or something. ;)

Or American football. And speaking of which, at least proper football isn't riddled with 2 hours worth of ad breaks :P

Enjay said:

Quite why this snore-fest turns so many people into a blistered and suppurating cock sore of a human at the merest mention of a game is completely beyond me.

Working class culture...it brings people together like going down the pub does. But on a similar note, why celebrities and reality TV shows turn so many people into a blistered and suppurating cock sore of a human at the merest mention is completely beyond me :P

[Belial]

Yay, we lost a friendly match with Spain 6-0.

Every time I see a score like that I hope the blindfold will finally come off and the media will notice that football hasn't been our 'national sport' for at least 30 years now. If there's anything worthy of the term, it's speedway.

IOW, fuck football. It's the most boring of all team sports.

The financial fiasco this World Cup is bound to be might be more effective at cutting the next event down to size than any nuke or terrorist attack.

[Qaatar]

Belial said:

IOW, fuck football. It's the most boring of all team sports.

The financial fiasco this World Cup is bound to be might be more effective at cutting the next event down to size than any nuke or terrorist attack.

Not only financially, but this:

"AIDS

South Africa and others have expressed concerns that the World Cup will stimulate and be a boon to the illicit sex trade.[88][89]. Football fans are being warned that South Africa has one of the worst HIV infection rates in the world[90]. The British government has given £1 million to buy 42 million condoms[90]. AIDS campaigners have accused FIFA of blocking the distribution of condoms at football grounds [91]." - Wikipedia

...lol

Basketball > football (or any other sport)

[Quast]

MajorRawne said:

Ignore my smack talk, I'm trying to unsettle the Americans before England thrashes them 2-0 at the weekend!

Um, yeah. Let me put it this way: If the USA team actually happened to win the world cup, I'm willing to bet no one here would know it even happened.

Enjay said:

2-0? Thrashes? See, that's maybe why Americans don't really get football. A game where only 2 points have been scored in an hour and a half of playing can be described as "a thrashing". Compare that to a basketball scoreline or something. ;)

The Ultimate DooMer said:

Or American football.

I don't think it's that. Even in american football, you might see a score of like 21-30 on average, but that's only 3-4 separate actual "scores". Just that the different methods of scoring are worth different points.

Honestly, I think the biggest reason football/soccer isn't popular in the US is simply because we have way too many sports and different professional leagues here to begin with.

[dew]

Quast said:

Honestly, I think the biggest reason football/soccer isn't popular in the US is simply because we have way too many sports and different professional leagues here to begin with.

my theory is: football is played continuously with just one long break. that is extremely unfavorable for unavoidable ingame advertising (=MONEY). any 'american' sport needs to have 80% ads time and 20% game time. baseball is the most extreme case, possibly the only more boring sport than golf, but gridiron football is similar. hell, even nhl matches are plagued by in-game ads. there's not enough money in usa's soccer, so there's not enough hype fabricated around it. and usa doesn't have enough leverage to put commercial breaks in, so why bother.

[Scet]

dew said:

even nhl matches are plagued by in-game ads.

Well since I've never seen a goal occur during a commercial, I'm betting there's a delay for television. There's no reason the same system couldn't be used for football.

I agree something needs to be done about the scoring though. However non-Americans would never except the changes, so you'd end up with "American soccer" or something equally stupid since "American football" is already in use.

[Qaatar]

The main thing with football (soccer) is that it is mainly a tactical game. Much of the real "action" on the field is determined through player positioning, formations, and counter-strategies against other formations and plays. None of that is very "exciting" to the average viewer (like me...which is why I hate watching it, but have a healthy respect for the sport).

Therefore, I don't see the scoring as the problem, but more the flow of the game.

[dew]

Scet said:

Well since I've never seen a goal occur during a commercial, I'm betting there's a delay for television. There's no reason the same system couldn't be used for football.

the clock runs continuously in football, even when the game is stopped after fouls, goals, outs, substitutions... there's no room for running ads. you'd have to play them over the game and pray you won't miss anything important, which doesn't work well even in the uneventful world of boremula 1. the referee is supposed to take note of how much time was lost in the delays, then add it after the 45 minutes of the period run out.

there's no realistic chance of changing this system to allow (ad) breaks, at least not with the franco-italian clique running the show via their swiss puppet (try writing sepp blatter in google and see what it suggests). there's so much football could steal from the rule improvements rugby and handball applied to accomodate to modern times, but fifa is extremely conservative and irrationally bent on keeping all the loopholes and exploits in the system. wait... there's probably a doom parallel here that makes me a hypocrite. :)

[Maes]

I've seen ads being "flashed in" during events such as setting up for a foul, penalty kick, corner kick etc. not to mention heavy fouls, awaiting a throw-in or goal kick etc.

My bet is that there's some sort of "ads director" under a "best effort" contract of sorts, aka he gets to judge and decide on the fly which ads can be "flashed" after a certain events (e.g. a 6-second ad can be poked in after the ball went out and the goalkeeper sets up a goal kick, a 3-second ad can be poked in during a slow throw-in etc.

I don't know if American Football has entirely predictable/more numerous game stoppers though. Then there is sideline advertising and now even screen overlay advertising, so a game doesn't even have to be interrupted to flash an ad.

[Aliotroph?]

American football seems to spend most of the game stopped in some form. It's terribly boring. I hear the Canadian version is slightly less boring, but it looks like the same crap to me.

Actually, I find almost all sports awfully boring to watch. Some of them seems like they should be cool, but I still don't like them.

I did have a good laugh, though, when I read an article about the controversy over the ball Adidas designed for the World Cup. I'm surprised they still bother.

[Scet]

dew said:

the clock runs continuously in football, even when the game is stopped after fouls, goals, outs, substitutions... there's no room for running ads. you'd have to play them over the game and pray you won't miss anything important, which doesn't work well even in the uneventful world of boremula 1.

That's what the delay is for. You delay the "live" broadcast by a few seconds so you know whether you can show an ad. The system is already is use for other live events, which is why I don't buy the "continuously clock" equals no ads argument.

Maes said:

I don't know if American Football has entirely predictable/more numerous game stoppers though. Then there is sideline advertising and now even screen overlay advertising, so a game doesn't even have to be interrupted to flash an ad.

American Football is all about stops and showing commercials. It's painful to watch. Only a small percentage of a game will be players actually doing something. How this is entertaining I'll never understand.

This pie chart should explain why nobody outside America watches American football.

[Enjay]

Hellbent said:

Did anyone watch the England USA game today? Big fumble on England's part. Go Green!

Ha! Ahahahaha. Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!. Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

I just caught this "news" on the radio. Ahahahahahahahaha! Serves all those complacent dickheads who, all week, have been saying shit like "well, we know we are going to beat the USA". Ahahahahahahahaha! I don't know why they can't face up to the fact that British teams - all the British teams - are pretty shit.

Yay! another exciting 1-1 scoreline. Football, it's just so riveting. I feel like running through the streets beating people up and breaking stuff.

Anyway, I think I'm just going to go into media blackout mode now. I seem to only be able to watch TV or listen to the radio for about 5 minutes before some cunt mentions the world cup so it's DVDs, CDs and MP3s for me until this shit is over.

[dew]

jeez, you forgot to take your meds, mr. osborn. eng-usa was actually quite an interesting match and proved the yank performance on the confederations cup wasn't a fluke. korea-greece was far worse, because only one side seemed interested in winning.

failed ninja edit: the one thing that fills me with rage is the fucking buzzing sound of the fucking vuvuzelas. this sums it up. it's annoying even coming from tv, i don't want to imagine how bad it must be on the stadium.

[Enjay]

dew said:

eng-usa was actually quite an interesting match

Unpossible. It was a football match. These are dull by design. No exceptions.

[MajorRawne]

Fuck's sake, the curse of England's bad luck strikes again.

The USA team is good, a lot better than not too long ago, but they shouldn't have held England to a draw. I'm sorry, the USA have good players and a very good goalie but come on... this should have been 2 or 3 nil to England! If we can't beat the USA, how the hell are we going to beat Brazil and Argentina?

[Enjay]

MajorRawne said:

England's bad luck

Bad luck?

Enjay said:

I don't know why they can't face up to the fact that British teams - all the British teams - are pretty shit.

Nah, not bad luck, just a team that isn't as good as the fans delude themselves it is.

MajorRawne said:

If we can't beat the USA, how the hell are we going to beat Brazil and Argentina?

I'm sorry, I didn't realise that you were on the team. :P

[MajorRawne]

Enjay said:

Bad luck?

Nah, not bad luck, just a team that isn't as good as the fans delude themselves it is.

There are certain over-rated players like Lampard, who apparently plays well for his own club but never seems to perform for England. The England team is rated 8th in the world despite some shoddy performances. Also in their last tournament under Eriksson, they were undefeated in every single game and were only knocked out on penalties, traditionally England's weak point.

On the other hand an on-form England has nearly always been capable of performing as well as any team in the world. England can be severely under-rated, mainly because they seem to lack the ability to play as a cohesive force on some occasions. That said, in the England/USA match, while the USA played brilliantly at times, I think it's fair to say England were all over them for much of the game, and it is very true we would have won if our goalie didn't have butter fingers.

Enjay said:

I'm sorry, I didn't realise that you were on the team. :P

That's how we talk about football in the UK - I assumed that's how people talked about it everywhere.

Why is the England football team shit? There's nothing shit about them and never really has been (EDIT: except penalties of course). In the last 10 years or more we have had a team that could have won the world cup if they hadn't made silly mistakes now and then, or if Eriksson had played an aggressive formation instead of isolating Rooney up front where he couldn't make any impact.

I always thought Crouch was one of the best England players. He is committed, skilled, an aggressive striker and to be honest I think he tends to do more than Rooney in most matches; Crouch is severely under-rated.

Also, England's rugby team recently won their world cup, and despite being much smaller and less prosperous than the USA and Russia, and having much less of an emphasis on providing training/facilities/funding to our athletes (for some reason), Britain usually makes a good account of itself at the Olympics.

Finally, the British Touring Car Championship was at one point the highlight of world motorsport with 1 billion people watching it worldwide, making it second only to Formula 1 which has always lacked the drama of the BTCC.

[Enjay]

MajorRawne said:

Stuff

I did actually respond to your post but myk has deemed it yellow card worthy (I see what you did there myk ;) )

I'm not sure wherther the whole thing is deemed to be Post Hell material or not (probably) but if you are at all interested in what I said, don your heatproof suit and step into hell. ;)

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post-hell/51633-fifa-world-cup-2010-enjay/

I actually thought the points about people deluding themselves about the greatness of their favoured teams (in this case Eng-u-land) were fair enough (if far from diplomatically worded) but, yeah.

[Enjay]

DeathevokatioN said:

On a contrasting note though, the buzz around my father's factory is disturbing. Some of the workers are openly telling me that their friends (outside the factory) are planning on ways of mugging tourists. I hope nothing happens.

Not quite the same thing but I am intrigued to see what will happen if some of the football "fans" decide to indulge in their common apres game activities of beating the crap out of people and vandalising shit. The South African police are not known for their softly-softly approach to... well, anything really but with the eyes of the world on them... Hmmm. Potentially interesting.

[bytor]

Enjay said:

...don your heatproof suit and step into hell. ;)

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post-hell/51633-fifa-world-cup-2010-enjay/

oh gawd i just peed myself alittle on that one.

[MajorRawne]

Enjay, It might surprise you to know I'm not really a football fan, I simply like the excuse to be proud of my country for a change, rather than slagging it off like everyone else does.

You mentioned all British teams being crap - that's why I brought the BTCC and Olympics into it. You should avoid generalisations when there are obvious contradictions.

I'm proud to be British, I'm proud to be English, and I enjoy the chance to join in with the rest of the world about how "my country's national sports team is the best".

Anyway, Brazil are traditionally a bit poor on the defensive, they simply score enough of their own goals to render it moot. Are we now going to hear about how crap they are too?

I'm not going to try to change your mind because I respect your entitlement to your opinion. Just want to make clear that while I respect it, every fibre of my Xbox 360 obsessed being disagrees with all of it :)

[Enjay]

MajorRawne said:

You mentioned all British teams being crap - that's why I brought the BTCC and Olympics into it. You should avoid generalisations when there are obvious contradictions.

In the context of a thread about football it was my mistaken assumption that it would be clear that I was only referring to football teams with my original statement. I apologise. (If that sounds sarcastic, it isn't meant to be.)

MajorRawne said:

I'm proud to be British, I'm proud to be English, and I enjoy the chance to join in with the rest of the world about how "my country's national sports team is the best".

I have to confess, at some core level I just don't get the whole "I'm proud to be [insert nationality here]" thing. I'm happy to be British. I consider myself lucky to be British. I enjoy British history and culture and immerse myself in them and have a sense of place because of them but I don't see why I should be proud of something that was a mere accident of birth. I like to think that in my own small way I do stuff that helps keep Britain a decent place to live and I can be proud of my achievements in that area. But proud to be British when I had nothing to do with me being British? I don't get it.

As to whether your team is "best", I'd be surprised if that is borne out -by this competition anyway. ;)

MajorRawne said:

Anyway, Brazil are traditionally a bit poor on the defensive, they simply score enough of their own goals to render it moot. Are we now going to hear about how crap they are too?

Well, you saw my opinion of all football teams. ;) But, no, having some weak areas wouldn't make them crap if the overall package was superb. As you say, their weakness is moot because they compensate for it elsewhere. With England (and all the other British national football teams) the overall package, when pros and cons are evaluated, still come out as not that great. Sure, the English team is almost certainly the best of the British teams, but that's not saying much really is it? :P (Anyway, why does a supposedly "United" Kingdom have so many national teams? We don't enter 4 teams in to the Olympics.)

MajorRawne said:

I'm not going to try to change your mind because I respect your entitlement to your opinion. Just want to make clear that while I respect it, every fibre of my Xbox 360 obsessed being disagrees with all of it :)

And that's fine and just how it should be. :)

[Belial]

MajorRawne said:

I'm proud to be British, I'm proud to be English, and I enjoy the chance to join in with the rest of the world about how "my country's national sports team is the best".

Here's how the first seeds of nationalism are planted.

In most of my favorite sports there are no Polish competitors. I guess that's why I find it easier to watch sports in general without giving a damn about where who's from.

[Deeforce]

Deeforce said:

Maybe this or England will become world cup winner, we cannot say whether they will win, but of course we stay tuned! :-)

Now it looks like germany is going to win the world cup, they played really good! Hopefully England won't look that bad, when playing vs. Germany :-/ . [4:0]