What makes a country good at football? | Hacker News Reader

What makes a country good at football?

economist.com

45 pointsdsr1285 comments

Watching Germany play Brazil is so beautiful - so fundamentally and obviously different, it's like you can determine the entire national character form just a few minutes of football.

This whole article imagines that football is only played by men.

Part of the reason the US does "worse than predicted" is that they're only looking at the Men's game. US interest in the women's side (current World Cup champions) is arguably higher than in the men's.

The only reason the US is interested in the women's game is because it is the only one in which they compete, the men's team is a joke. The reason the US women are competetive is really pretty simple: title IX. Funding equality means that collegiate women have a lot of scholarship slots and team funding available for women's teams so they have a good pre-professional program. A woman who wants to play football looks to get a place on a US collegiate team in the same way a man hopes to get picked up by a U-21 junior squad -- you get better by playing against the best and in a competitive environment.

> the men's team is a joke

They didn't qualify this time round, but they are by no means a joke. They tend to do ok until they come up against real contenders. And they have a fair few players in the top leagues, though not so many at the very highest Champions League level.

the men's team is a joke.

Not American, but I think you're too harsh. It's certainly not top tier but lately it has fared much better than teams with bigger history and love for the sport

> The reason the US women are competetive is really pretty simple: title IX. Funding equality means that collegiate women have a lot of scholarship slots and team funding available for women's teams so they have a good pre-professional program.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here; wouldn't the funding being equal imply that both teams should perform well? Or is the argument that other countries don't spend money on women's teams?

The argument is that 1.) Colleges spend most of the men's money on other men's sports; 2.) There's a lot of money that colleges need to spend on women's sports (if they're going to spend on men's--which they do) and a fair bit goes to soccer; and 3.) Yes, a lot of other countries don't spend much money on women's sports at that level.

I think interest in women's soccer in the US is much more organic than this comment implies. Soccer was touted to young girls (and their parents) in the 90s and 00s as a safe and inexpensive sport particularly well-suited to women; one of the few where women can play with pretty much the same rules and equipment as men (contra softball, basketball, football). And it had a bit of foreign mystique. So there is a fairly large spectator pool of women familiar with the sport from high school or club sports who follow the games, as do some of their siblings and parents. Men are more interested in the sports they played as kids. University-level athletes are such a small population that they don't really affect viewership much. I don't even think Title 9 accommodations have much to do with the female talent pool; as in most of the world, US soccer players get hooked early and start intensive training before University. They just happen to be predominantly female.

Why is it that the US women are consistently the best in the world, and US men are consistently middling? Do women in other countries just not play as much soccer as US women?

The best US male athletes play more lucrative and entertaining sports.

One thing that probably makes a difference is there are a number of other sports drawing the young male athletes in the US. (American) Football, Baseball, Hockey, Basketball. If you look at the countries that tend to be good at football, the main sport everyone cares about is football.

So why do the women do so well? It's well funded, and it's more of a contender among the sports for women.

I can speak for South Africa and Zimbabwe. Anecdotally based on everyone I grew with and went to university with. Most women give up sport the moment they leave high school. Only a handful of sports are professional. Women's soccer is not professional. As a result, both men and women tend to focus on studies and work. Logistically in your early career, it is also difficult to play sport. Getting lifts to and from practice when you don't have a car is a nightmare, buying kit and footing your own travel expenses to matches. The men continue to play sport on a social level right up to their 40s. I gather in the US women get soccer scholarships. It doesn't happen this side of the world.

Womens' soccer gets the US' best athletes. There are plenty of stadiums open on Friday nights with 10-30K fans watching boys play American football. You would be lucky get get 100 to watch soccer.

True at the local level, but go attend a PDX Timbers or Seattle Sounders match - eventually that excitement will trickle down.

>Womens' soccer gets the US' best athletes.

I'm not sure I agree with that. US women do well at the international level in a fair number of sports. But it's probably true that women in the US are more likely to seriously play soccer growing up, including at the collegiate level, than women in other countries are.

And, of course, the US Women's national basketball team is utterly dominant. Though given the relative popularity of basketball in the US compared to other major countries, that's not exactly a fair comparison.

I’d say, women’s football has not been a well funded or highly persued sport in most countries until relatively recently, for instance in Britain women used to play different sports, hockey, netball, tennis far more. Likewise men’s hockey used to be quite rare here, but is more popular now.

I live in Argentina. Based on what I see from movies, news, and TV series from the US. It seems that in the US football (soccer) is considered a game usually played by girls.

Here in Argentina, it's a different story.

Until the last years, football was considered a men's only game (and still is for many).

If your daughter wants to play football, you don't have teams or football schools to send her. So girls usually have more options to learn volleyball, field hockey, or handball. Fortunately, that started to change. However, the professional football league is still men's only. There is a women's league, but it has zero presence on media.

The media sponsorship have a lot of influence on how professional teams develop, that could explain why the US women team performs better compared to other countries where football is still limited to men (that includes most of the Latin American countries, and probably Europe too).

I don't think it's that soccer is really seen as just a girl's game in the US. But there are major US sports, notably American football but also baseball (women mostly play softball) and, to a lesser degree, ice hockey that women largely don't play. As a result, although boys/men play soccer, they're more likely to spend their time playing something else.

"Do women in other countries just not play as much soccer as US women?"

Basically, yes. Women don't generally play that many sports in most countries.

Even in W. Europe, surprisingly not a lot of football.

There are some exceptions here and there: skiing in Austria and XCountry skiing in Scandinavia ...

The issue with US soccer is mostly the anomaly of the fact there are other, way bigger sports like US football, basketball etc. that people focus on.

Even in hockey - Sweden, Czech, Russia - with great men's teams ... their women's team are not good and it's all Canada vs. USA in that sport for women.

That said ... it's still weird that the US cannot field a competent team. I mean there are 300 million Americans, a lot of central/south American types, tons of cash, a deep field for most sports. It is a little odd.

The women team dominates physically and tactically (physical preparation is advanced in the US, it's true for all sports) but the mens team is simply too technically limited to achieve greatness at international level. Despite the result, it was blatant in the latest France - USA, the technical gap between the two teams was HUGE.

The technical gap between the two is certainly large, but the US side had an average age of less that 22.5 and the French were preparing for the World Cup. I wouldn't read too much into this—or any—friendly where the goals of the two sides are so different.

Big question: where is the best talent getting sent to?

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/14179705/antonio-brown-ty...

Below is the most relevant snippet, I don't think we see this as often for soccer as we do for other sports in the US:

Gwen Cherry Park is tucked near the edge of Liberty City, a lower-income neighborhood in northwest Miami that gave rise to Chad Johnson and Santana Moss; Amari Cooper, Devonta Freeman, Lavonte David and Teddy Bridgewater are also from here. Every Saturday, the park fills with dozens of boys, their families setting up tents and frying conch before football games. Grandmothers walk the fields in T-shirts with their grandsons' faces printed on them; high school coaches scout from the sidelines; grown men bet on games between children.

One of the challenges here in the US is competition with other sports. My son played soccer but as soon as he was old enough, he wanted to switch to American Football. I've seen the same thing with other kids, to baseball, to basketball, etc. Girls have relatively fewer sports options and can start soccer at a young age, so there's a good feeder program to advanced levels there.

Perhaps it's the microcosm I live in, but I have hope for the future of US soccer. When I was a kid 30+ years ago, soccer was viewed with skepticism as a "foreign" game. Today soccer is thriving everywhere. In my community of > 30% Spanish speaking people, soccer is religion, and they are raising the profile and quality of the game from an early age. I see the US as simply in its infancy still in terms of players, coaching, and general interest in the game relative to the rest of the world, but, with things like MLS and the influx of predominantly Mexican immigrants throughout the West increasing the profile of the game on a localized level, we'll get there.

To play devil's advocate, I've been hearing sentiments along those general lines for a very long time. And, in fact, soccer/football has increased a whole lot in popularity among kids in particular. Hardly anyone played soccer, at least in my circles, when I was growing up.

The wildcard is what happens with American football if parents and secondary schools start deciding it's not a sport kids should be playing. Rugby is the more natural alternative worldwide but it's got its own concussion issues (albeit not to the same degree) so it's hard to see American football phasing out in favor of rugby.

I don't see them as mutually exclusive - it doesn't have to be American football loses / futbol wins. I guess part of what I'm saying here is - look at where American football was in the 1960s. Some player still worked other jobs in the offseason. Formations were very simple. Max McGee famously partied the night before the first Super Bowl. Today, the NFL is big effing business to the point that it plays a role in our politics. The game itself is being played with sophistication way beyond just even a few decades ago. So, it is not hard to imagine a future for [soccer | futbol | football] where over time that same sophistication will grow for the game here in the US.

Attention is somewhat zero sum though. Arguably the rise of the NFL has come at least somewhat at the expense of baseball. (And, for that matter, I wouldn't be surprised if soccer has cut into the number of kids playing baseball.)

You know what I think would be really interesting? Some kind of urban vs. rural study on this. I live in the middle of nowhere, USA. The number of kids that turn out for sports is truly amazing. You drive past a soccer pitch on the weekend and there are hundreds of kids out there playing. Same is true for the baseball field. But, I talk to my urban friends and it isn't the same; their kids are either playing even more exotic sports like lacrosse, or they simply aren't playing. Baseball is a funny one, because even though the Mariners are top of their division at the moment, you can walk right up and get any ticket you want any day of the week - serious lack of fan support. So yes, baseball has declined overall, but I'm also left to wonder what role urban vs. rural interests play in this, as here in the heartland, baseball is still very much a big deal.

I assume there are people who know these things but I only am familiar with some things anecdotally.

There are a lot of demographic dimensions. Basketball tends to be associated with inner cities although, historically, there were some other groups like Catholic schools where hoops was popular. Ice hockey was a northern sport; at one time a large percentage of NHL players were Canadian. Today, I expect that the availability of frozen ponds and lakes is much less important although I also expect its popularity is still fairly skewed to the north. "Friday Night Lights" high school football obsession tends to be associated with the South.

It's an interesting question especially as some college-educated parents choose to increasingly live in certain dense cities where the soccer-mom lifestyle doesn't necessarily fit very well.

Some of it has to do with realistic expectations, money-wise and as means to other ends such as scholarships.

A project that might help US Soccer is to poach good athletes from other sports who would have trouble getting a scholarship in their current sport.

For example - a HS American football player with great speed who weighs less than 200 lbs, doesn't bench or squat very well, and is not a kicker.

Or a baseball player who can't come around on a 90 mph fastball. What inspires me here is how similar a good (feet-first) base slide is to a soccer tackle.

Or a 5'11" basketball player not named Allen Iverson.

To me, the question is at what age can soccer skills be taught for world-class results?

The same question can be asked of other small nations which dominate or excel in a particular sport.

Why are the New Zealand All Blacks so dominant in rugby union?

Why is Austria so good at winter sports?

Why does Ireland produce so many top class race horses?

In each case I think it has something to do with a unique cultural and natural environment, which then leads to the best in class supporting structures being built.

When a velodrome was built in my hometown, people were outraged. The cost was around $600k of 80's money. And there was absolutely no tradition in the area for this sport.

Less than ten years later, olympic gold:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Moreno_(cycli...

The same could be said for the Manchester Velodrome, high quality facilities built in an area without much history of cycling and now we churn out Olympic medalists

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Velodrome

The reason for those is local tradition.

But football is the only real global sport. There's a country on every continent where football is the main sport. What other sport can claim that?

So dominating football is hard, because there's loads of other countries where local tradition is to train football.

You make a good point about football being played in many countries globally. However, regarding the point about continents, football is not the main ball sport in Australia. It probably ranks third or fourth most popular (after Australian football, rugby league and possibly rugby union), although Australia will be at the upcoming football (soccer) World Cup.

Australia moved from the much weaker Oceania Football Confederation, apparently in 2006, to a better Asian Football Confederation, better in the sense that the competition was stronger but not by much (if you put aside Iran, Japan and South Korea). Qualifying from this region is not nearly as tough as qualifying from other more competitive regions.

Australia as a country is known to spend real money on sports. They are able to produce top athletes, that's not a problem.

Australia has been able to participate in the Confed Cup and World Cup tournaments which helps boost its ranking because more points are allocated for participating in those tournaments.

Whether Australia poses a real threat to the dominant powers, that's a different story altogether. Moving to a Asia surely paid off dividends for them though.

Englander here. Tell me when you find out.

England's poor performance is a mystery to me.

I've often wondered if having so many strong club level teams is a disadvantage for the national team. Diverting resources and bringing in foreign talent may not help.

Having said that I really no nothing about football :)

Maybe the fact that there is no UK national team?

Edit: Frankly I don't care so much about karma, but this downvote is strange. I would have thought that this reason wasn't controversial at all. I've even heard british players say that. Anybody care to explain?

Not downvoting, but I think England on its own has what it takes to do well.

Of course, but a joint team would minimize luck's role. England won World Cup once anyway, didn't it?

England has an average team and only English don't agree with that. https://www.amazon.com/Soccernomics-England-Germany-Australi...

The article hints that England's youth training did not encourage creativity, which makes sense. English players are known to be less skillful than their Latin American counter parts who grew up playing in the street.

It also mentioned that they have revamped their training scheme to systemically encourage creativity, following Germany's experiments. And English youth teams have been winning in the past few years.

A somewhat overlooked factor: Luck. International tournaments are won by single elimination games - in the case of the World Cup, four. Four wins in a row in a relatively low-scoring sport against the best the rest of the world has to offer. You have to be good but you also have to be a bit lucky. Unfortunately for England, they've rarely been particularly good and they've often been particularly unlucky.

Another common factor among many World Cup winners is a top flight national club league that produces the core of the national team and drives significant tactical or other innovation. That would give you (in their respective heydays) Brazil, Argentina, Italy, Germany, Spain. The Netherlands is missing - bad luck.

The Premiere league is commercially successful but isn't quite that sort of league. English clubs are regularly embarrassed by their top European competitors. There's not much incentive to fix this, though, since the league prints money as it is.

The reason why English clubs are not successfull internationally is proably because their own league is so demanding, that they simply save their strength for national competition, ignoring Champions League altogether.

And this even makes financial sense, because winning Premier League pays much bigger money than winning Champions League.

That doesn't sound very plausible to me. There's a big scramble for the top 4 every year.

How many players on this year's English team play in foreign leagues? compare to other competitive national teams. In recent years the only other European national team with players who don't (can't?) play outside their own country is Russia.

Hypothesis: having some of a country's top players participating in leagues with different styles of play is helpful -- so as not to be stuck in and limited by an ever-repeating style and system of offense/defense.

The core players of the last two World Cup-winning teams played in their home leagues. It helps a lot more to invent a style that confers an advantage. Foreign exposure in top leagues is useful to smaller (in footballing terms) countries making deep runs. Those countries never win the whole thing, though.

I'm pointing out that not one England player selected for this World Cup plays for a club outside of their country.

Here is where four key Germany players were in 2014:

- Klose: Lazio

- Özil: Arsenal

- Khedira: Real Madrid

- Schürrle: Chelsea

(Not counting Kroos who moved to Real Madrid immediately after the World Cup.)

As for Spain, five players had ongoing or recent foreign-league experience (mostly England!) when they won the World Cup in 2010:

- Piqué: Man U 2004-2008

- Alonso: Liverpool 2004-2009

- Torres: Liverpool 2007-2011

- Fàbregas: Arsenal 2003-2011

- Arbeloa: Liverpool 2007-2009

- plus Marchena, shortly and anciently: Benfica: 2000-2001

(Not counting David Silva who signed with Manchester City just before the World Cup.)

You're in denial.

Well, you're in being rude.

Germany had 7 players from Bayern, 16 out of 22 from the Bundesliga. Spain 2010 is even more striking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_FIFA_World_Cup_squads#Spa...

Both teams played a distinct national style. The style of the Premiere league is not very internationally competitive.

Do you believe that there is no difference between having a national team with zero players who thrive in foreign leagues vs having 4-5 key players who do?

In 2007 Liverpool reached the UEFA Champions League Final, and lost to Milan. In 2008 they reached the semi-final, and lost to Chelsea, whose opponents in the final were Man U, making it the first all-English final in the competition's history. How is that "not very internationally competitive"?

For the love of Jove, look at the squads this year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_squads

England is clearly apart from all other teams in its insularity; even Russia manages to include two players with foreign-league experience in their selection.

Or look at the EURO 2016 squads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Euro_2016_squads

Your thesis that the best teams from the "larger" football countries don't have a lot of key players in foreign leagues is plainly wrong.

Since you were kind enough to remove the grump from your comment:

Do you believe that there is no difference between having a national team with zero players who thrive in foreign leagues vs having 4-5 key players who do?

I don't believe that, it's not really what I'm saying. On the other hand, this is the winning squad of the 2006 World Cup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_FIFA_World_Cup_squads#Ita...

It's tricolore all the way. I don't think foreign league participation is what keeps English fans from having to endlessly update the years of hurt count.

Indeed, that was then. Italy's team has slowly shifted since, to include a few ex-pats, following the trend of other national teams -- except for England, which hasn't shifted at all. Note that Italy didn't even qualify for this World Cup.

We'll soon see whether the unimaginative style of England's team, which my hypothesis attributes to their insular spread and consequent recruitment of top players, is a match for other national teams. I expect them to struggle against both Panama and Tunisia, and to completely fall apart against Belgium unless the latter already feel comfortable with the group results to date.

English Premier League is the best league in the world, so why would any English player want to play elsewhere?

Regarding different playing styles: Premier League has a lot of players and managers from all around the world, so there is no shortage of different playing styles.

I think the real reasons why England has such limited success in football are these:

- having best (and richest) leaque is a mixed blessing: brings a lot of foreign players, taking spots away from native English ones.

- another reason, related to previous: English teams have a lot of money, so they prefer buying players and not training them themselves. Compare that with Spanish teams (Real, Barcelona) which have those big training sites for junior players, and usually half of the senior team line-ups is made of it's alumni. That's why Spain has plenty of world-class players, and England doesn't.

The taking spots away argument doesn’t make any sense. There are 20 clubs in the EPL. That’s 220 starting players. Even if 10% are English, your starting lineups give you enough English players to field an entire team. And those players get to play with the best in the world. Of all the teams, the English players would have the most collective experience playing against the best. More importantly (because players don’t learn how to play during matches, but rather, during training) they would have trained with the best in the world.

That should be an unmitigated advantage.

One of the main reasons football (soccer) isn't that popular in the US (as opposed to the rest of the world) is that it's not as easy to marketize as other sports, i.e it doesn't have many adverticements opportunities.

Take for example basketball: It has 4 periods with pauses in between, and a number of time-outs; on all these occasions adverticements can be played.

Football on the other hand (usually) has only one 15 minute pause at the half-time. There won't be any other pauses to play adverticements, actually the 45 minute timer for each half never stops. Also, because of how the field is laid out usually the camera will be far away so adverticements in the field or in the players' clothes won't be easily visible.

For women's football, it's more or less non-existant in the rest of the world so it can't be a proper measurement of success.

Look to Iceland. The place is no bigger than a large city, yet they have now qualified twice for major finals. And they even beat England last time.

How is this possible? Well basically it's because football talent isn't just some randomly distributed gold-dust. People there decided they would make a bunch of indoor halls to train in, and they got themselves coaching badges. They supply a lot of youth players to different leagues in Europe.

Size and wealth are just poor correlates for the number of centres of excellence: places that by luck, tradition, or directed investment have the kind of people who pour their lives into training kids in football.

One other thing to note is that size can also work against a country. You can only have one national team at each age level, so only so many players can gather experience at that level.

Minor correction, Iceland is pretty big. It takes a long time to drive around it, and I have.

The population is less than a big city.

What this article describes through statistics is what we would call Love for the game. If you want parents to take their kids to training sessions and sunday morning games supervised by quasi-benevolent coaches and referees, your best hope is to rely on the help of a fervent people.

Sadly, genetics like height/physique can no longer be an excuse in the Men's game since there are players like Messi (even as an outlier). This contrasts sports like basketball and American football.

At least for the US, would it be possible to learn from their success(dominance over other countries) in baseball/basketball and apply the same structure to Men's football(soccer)? Is it possible that the genetic variance that the US has could be an advantage in the future? Or is it impossible due to culture? (Higher chance of making money in football/basketball, etc)

Physique is extremely important. Soccer is just not as selective towards tall players like Basketball is. In fact, I think soccer is slightly selective towards smaller players. Height seems to be an extremely important factor for header ability, but small players tend to have advantages in mobility and they probably also better reflexes. Just look at the Spanish team. And Messi has an excellent physique, doesn't he? Ibrahimovic (at 1.95m) is one exception, but he has outstanding mobility and awareness.

Actually genetics should be one of the main reasons why football is more popular globally than American football or basketball: Except from the goalkeeper, most roles in a football team don't benefit from an extreme physique (e.g. being too tall has adverse effects in many situations).

Edit: But to answer your question, I think culture stands in the way:

- You can earn much more than your average NBA player but its much harder as an American to get to that level, because you need to get out of the US early on to become a contender (Infrastructure helps)

- somehow football has been marketed as 'unmanly' in the US

- American soon-to-become-athletes have many more options (NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB) whereas in most nations there's at least a clear no. 1 sport.

- Not being American (but wearing my stuck-up hat), but could it be that there's also a race-connection (i.e. caucasians more likely to choose ice-hockey, african-americans more likely to choose American football/basketball, latin-americans more likely to play baseball or football)?

I really doubt genetics has anything to do with the lack of popularity of football and basketball in the vast majority of the world. The actual probable reason is equipment. If you’re playing a tackle sport why would you choose a complicated one such as football over rugby? And basketball requires the installation of a net, a good flat surface and a high quality ball that bounces well off the ground. Soccer on the other hand can be played with basically anything.

My not-to-be-taken-seriously theory is that Italian influence helps. If you look at the national teams of Uruguay, Argentina (should really be called South Italy), Brazil, and (obviously) Italy itself, you'll find a large number of Italian surnames. That's 13 titles between these 4 countries.

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted, because there is a nugget of truth in what you are saying. Immigration spreads food, culture, and yes also sports. If Italy had been dominate in something like track and field at the point they immigrated to those countries, then guess what, they might be today skilled in that instead of soccer.

Soccer is universally beloved in south america, it isn't just the italians. There was sizeable italian immigration to south america in the late 19th and early 20th centuries but I don't think they are particulary over-represented in football.

The primary goal of soccer parents in the US is to get their sons/daughters a collegiate scholarship. I suspect the primary goal of most other countries is to play professionally.

I may not know what makes a country good at football but for sure, I can tell a thing or two about what makes Pakistan amazing at making footballs! :-)

The model seems not to be a good one

Practice?

This is a good opportunity to clarify HN's policy w.r.t. paywall articles; are they allowed? encouraged? discouraged? Only for "reached your limit" paywalls in case some readers didn't reach said limit?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

I was able to read the article in private/incognito mode.

http://archive.is/AWEhy

Haha, what is this...

So, I have no interest in football, but a quick search for top clubs -> Everton FC players reveals around half of them are foreign.

So what does this have to do with the country? A rich club can afford the best players from all over the world, plus the best training... and that's it...

The article is about predicting the success of national teams, not club teams. National team players can't be bought or sold and in most cases people are only eligible to play for one or maybe two national teams.

I see, I thought they're all the same.

Your lack of interest in football is already what makes the rest of your search fruitless: You are looking for information with little relevance to the article.

The article is about international soccer competitions, not national or international club competitions. So England might have a strong league, with a lot of rich teams with wealthy owners, but when you get to the World Cup, the English team, made up only of English men, underperforms, while Brazil and Germany, which have far weaker club leagues, do far better. It's not just a matter of league quality either: Spain has both recent international success and perennially strong international clubs, despite having a weaker economy than the UK.

Well, I'll read this, but my first thought was of American football. And my first response thereupon was, "blind allegiance".

Sounds snarky. But it is applicable, on so many levels.

(And yeah, it is a bit snarky. I'm not very keen on the U.S., right now -- even though I'm part of it.)

An initial downvote -- fair enough. For there are political and other tones to my comment. But, since the OP introduces the topic of sport, in the first place, some of the things I see in American football that lead to my comment -- and that cause my concern for the U.S.:

- Players destroying their bodies (and, we increasingly know, minds) for the sake of the sport.

- A willful blindness to the above, served at top levels by rampant commercialism and profit, for decades. Even the cognitive effects, probably for a couple of decades if not longer.

- A fan base that spends an inordinate amount of time in such allegiance and paying fealty. Granted, there's a lot of socialization around this. But there's also a lot of... well, several words come to mind, but I'll sum it up with "aggression", often I find of a rather mindless and inconsiderate sort, at least from a minority but a minority having an outsized impact.

- Most recently, when the "show" is co-opted to express another viewpoint: The protests. So much allegiance to the show and disinterest in paying attention to what the players, the participants who actually make the show possible, are rightly trying to point out -- something that belongs to many of their own backgrounds and experiences.

Blind allegiance. Stop and think about the context.

P.S. I know European football has a lot of violence -- those stories about fan violence and absurdity. But I don't feel qualified to speak to it, really. I also don't perceive the players as being quite so chewed up by the game, although I vaguely recall some stories of arthritis and significantly limited mobility. And headers are becoming increasingly suspect in brain trauma.

I think the downvotes most of all reflect the fact you didn't bother to read the article.

The discussion is about soccer, not american football.

Didn't downvote you, but I fail to see how your comments are related to the original post (why some countries are better at soccer).

Anyway,

Blind allegiance. Stop and think about the context.

I'm European but I watch a lot of NBA. Trust me there's no comparison when it comes to allegiance and supporting your club/team. In Europe and Latin America it's close to a religion. You stick to your team no matter what,changing allegiance is frowned upon and shows lack of character (what's called bandwagoning in the US). But is this unhealthy? Not to the degree your post argues

There's definitely sports related violence (especially in eastern Europe, balkans, latin America) but sports is just an excuse, there are deeper rooted problems that generate it. There's little to no sports related violence in northern Europe these days, even in Britain which was notorious for it in the 80's, but people are still loyal and mad about their teams.

As for injuries it's an occupational hazard with a great reward to risk ratio, unlike eg. working in a mine, or being in law enforcement - you're paid WAY better and you're WAY more popular even without being top tier. Risking your life for a few mil in the bank is much better than risking your life for a measly pension and a state sponsored funeral.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com