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I think that's why the golden era of Man Utd (last 15ish years with Fergie at the helm) wasn't that good for American fans. Yea, it brought in some (me)... but after a while, I found myself not caring about seeing a game if it wasn't against Chelsea or Liverpool. Even then... After 2 years of that... whoopie... Man Utd got another win against, oh look an ant is struggling to carry a cookie crumb.

That and diving. Seriously, fuck FIFA and all the EU leagues. They cant figure out how to deal with diving and playing for time, I cant figure out why I should care. It's painful to watch any sport where grown men fake getting hurt. The cringe is far more damaging than the love taps they whine about. Rugby and hockey have that shit figured out, why cant they?

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> Rugby and hockey have that shit figured out, why cant they?

Something else they could learn from rugby, respect for the officials. The number of times you see football players chasing after or arguing with the referee is just embarrassing. Rugby officials don't stand for it, neither should football officials.

Absolutely. What's the joke regarding the two sports? Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans while rugby is a hooligan's sport played by gentlemen. Something like that. Either way, the level of respect players have for one another and refs is awesome since it really is a violent/dangerous game. There are a few exceptions, but it's fun when refs say, "This isnt soccer, you cant get away with that here." Football/soccer players are just rich brats. FIFA and the various leagues encourage it too.

Football is a sport played by Gentlemen watched by hooligans. Rugby is a sport played hooligans, watched by Gentlemen.

Although the rugby hooligans are very respectful to the referee. Mic-up the referee in football.

As someone who grew up watching rugby and only got into football as an adult, I couldn't believe the amount of disrespect players show to officials. I think I spent the first two years constantly saying "in rugby this guy would have been sent off by now" on repeat...

I only discovered rugby a few years ago. I was completely floored. Players apologizing? Players being the first ones to admit making a mistake? Players making sure opposing hurt players are okay? What in the fuck am I watching? Who made it okay for mature, respectable adults to play a televised sport? Why haven't they been fired yet? Dont they know what planet this is?

When the players are respectful that's when you know it's a combat sport.

Same, as an American sports fan. Touching an official or yelling at them in any sort of aggressive manner is almost always an automatic foul or penalty, and possibly grounds for ejection.

My only thought as somebody who never played soccer is that the decisions a soccer referee makes are much more consequential, and oftentimes very subjective. A single call in soccer can change a game in a way that doesn't happen in any other sport.

I don't think it is true that referee calls in soccer are more consequential than in e.g. rugby. In fact I would argue that in rugby a referee could make very subtle calls (that would likely not be picked up by many fans even) that can very substantially change a game, e.g. just how he referees the breakdown or scrums. Let's not even talk about giving or not giving a try etc..

Rugby Union is a shining example of sport done right. Everyone other sport would do well to take a long hard look at their processes. I used to love ice hockey and then football (soccer) but now the only sport that I can watch without getting a bad taste in my mouth is Rugby. Six Nations is my favourite time of year.

May be it is just me, but my memory of old football in the 90 /00s wasn't like that at all. No Match was too easy, No Team were unbeatable.

Despite the old Analog TV, No 4K, No HDR, No 60fps, No Super Complex Codec, but the intensity was there. Something was transmitted from the field to audience in front of the tele. You can feel Roy Keane is about to punch somebody in the face if they dont make one more step or dont chase after the ball. And that is how time and time again Man Utd make their comebacks.

If we ignore the big teams like Liverpool, Man U, Arsenal, I remember Leads had the Australian pair Mark Viduka and Harry Kwell, Alan Shearer in Newcastle, Paolo Di Canio in West Ham, even Bolton Wanderer has Jay-Jay Okocha. Every team has a fighting Chance. And football was so much more fun back then.

I think somewhere along the line Football becomes very commercially focused. And big money flowing in means there are far less Middle Class Team. ( Sounds like our society in general ). And with less competition, along with players just dont seems to give a fuck about anything other than their pay cheque. The game becomes less interesting.

I miss the old days where everything was transmitted from 1 camera in the nosebleed section. Switching the camera all the time is fatiguing.

With how much increase in bandwidth we have now days, they should just broadcast all of their different camera views. Sports bars would be much more interesting if you could look at different screens for different views.

If you're relatively new to football, you may not remember what we used to call the "cloggers" in the UK, players who were specifically tasked with going around and injuring opposing team members with violent tackles. (Although if you're a Man U fan you may remember someone called Roy Keane...?) The pendulum has probably swung too far in the opposite direction but, for example, Maradona had his ankle broken in a famously bad tackle by Goikoetxea, a player notorious for doing this, and he wasn't banned for many matches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wqi3z-3VXo (warning - includes slow-motion footage of the ankle break near the beginning). Given a choice between these things, I'll take the diving, and hope for more retrospective punishments for diving in the future.

I started caring in 04 I think. There was a huge soccer/football push at the time in the states. A dedicated soccer channel even sprang up. I think I remember the whole excessive injury thing brought up a few times, but that's over 15 years ago. I think it was the season after the 06 cup, someone did a really blatant dive. I could swear Ronaldo, but he's dived a lot, so not sure. Anyways, it was during a huge string of dives in the league and I just thought to hell with the sport.

I get it, there's a want to avoid injuries. I respect that. Rewarding stupidity and blatant cheating was beyond a pendulum swing. Retro punishments isnt enough. It has to be consistent red card, ejected from the game, multi game ban if you're going to fix the image of the sport. Also, cant remember what it's called, but when they intentionally kick a ball into an opposing player so it bounces off them, then out of bounds so they can get a throw in. Yea, that I hate too. I watched a 70s MU vs Liverpool game, none of that shit was going on. Just a pure game. I think that was when I was becoming disillusioned with the sport, because I saw how it used to be played... like an actual fucking sport.

Maybe The Code from hockey needs to leak into soccer/football. That's a better way to fix diving and injuring strikers. Put the beat down on that player, continue the game. Itll sort itself out eventually. Until then, I'll choose a sport that has itself sorted out.

>They cant figure out how to deal with diving and playing for time

I always find these complaints strange coming from American fans. "Playing for time" is hugely important and mainstream strategy in the NFL. Coaches will be criticized if they don't run the ball enough when they have the lead in the 4th quarter. Meanwhile flopping is hugely common in the NBA. You can just search Youtube for "LeBron flops"[1] for plenty of evidence of the exact same behavior that is always condemned in soccer.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=LeBron+flops

To be fair, American Football is a game based around playing for time. What's interesting, college games are a bit more faster paced, mostly because those kids have something to prove so they can get into the NFL draft. Either way, I dont like American football without friends, snacks and booze. Baseball on TV, I feel the same, in it for the party. Theyre slow sports in reality. Though, in person, at the stadium, baseball is awesome.

I dont watch basketball at all.

>college games are a bit more faster paced, mostly because those kids have something to prove so they can get into the NFL draft.

That isn't the reasoning at all. The NFL doesn't have guaranteed contracts, so in a very real sense the players in the NFL are playing more to stay in the NFL than players in college are playing to get into the NFL. Also some of the highest paced teams in college are the teams full of players with no hope of playing in the NFL.

The reason some college teams play faster than the NFL (and it isn't all teams) is because there is a wider talent distribution in college. It is possible to win games there by being faster and playing faster than your opponent. Talent is more evenly distributed in the NFL. You can just out athleticism your opponent.

Another factor is that both players and coaches spend more time strategizing in the NFL. It is harder to just run the same scheme every game without it being eventually exposed.

>To be fair, American Football is a game based around playing for time.

And time for advertisements.

Let us be honest about this for once. There are no USA sports. Just ads that happen to have a sport segment.

The biggest sporting event in the US sport calendar year is known - not for the crunching tackles, not for the high flying antics, not for the pin in the needle plays...no sir - it is known for ads. Superbowl ads are bigger than the sport. When I was younger I though Superbowl meant ad marathons.

> I dont watch basketball at all.

Strangely enough, this sport has had a similar problem with playing for time that afflicts football/soccer. It used to be a horrible problem that almost destroyed the sport until the invention of the shot clock. I think it may have gone a bit too far in the other direction, to the point where you can ignore everything but the last five minutes of most games, but football/soccer could really use something like a shot clock to force offensive action.

I think in the USA playing for time is considered acceptable and a good strategy so long as it isn't overdone. It's different in the NFL though, where there is an inbuilt limit to how much you can really delay. But anyway, you're right -- I don't think it's generally considered bad, at least not anytime I've ever watched sports with friends and colleagues.

Diving though; that's universally considered to be unquestionably lame. It's never cool.

Yes, there are built-in limits to playing for time in both American football (play clock) and basketball (shot clock). Anything within those limits is fair game.

> That and diving. Seriously, fuck FIFA and all the EU leagues. They cant figure out how to deal with diving and playing for time, I cant figure out why I should care. It's painful to watch any sport where grown men fake getting hurt.

This is the only football I know. That's why I was never interested in watching football as a kid and I'm still not today as an adult. I am an absolute sport enthusiast and play everything from football to basketball, skateboarding and what not but I can't watch a bunch of drama queens having a cry when the wind blew their hair the wrong direction or someone got slightly touched by another player. The sport seriously needs more Zidanes who know how to head butt if someone is making a scene.

In a way, the drama is a genuine part of the sport. Many matches became memorable just due to these theatrics.

Football (soccer) is by far the best game for just playing in my opinion. Two jumpers on the ground for goalposts and an open space is all you really need. It is easy to learn, fun to play, and very cheap.

It is just that the professional game is pathetic, and I don't watch it for that reason.

I grew up watching soccer and then stopped cold turkey until last world cup. I just couldnt stand watching this crap anymore because of all the diving and time wasting etc.

I started watching NFL this past season and i found a lot more interesting than today’s soccer. Great display of athleticism, discipline to follow plays, and the dance moves!

> That and diving.

There is something even more painful to watch than soccer simulations: sports that encourage killing the watch like football, baseball and basketball.

At least in diving, a little bit of acting talent is involved.

There's no watch to kill in baseball. You have to get the other team out a set number of times.

Correct, but the use of stoppage is a little bit similar to the use of timeouts in other sports, in my humble opinion.

Another dishonorable gameplay of baseball that makes me hate it (my apologies for not remembering how this is called): this move batters often do to just amortize the ball so the field players can snag an extra base!

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "stoppage"? I think baseball does have a pacing problem, but it's really cultural more than anything else: games are about 1.5x as long today as they were 50 years ago, even though in terms of what happens (number of pitches, batters, etc.) they're basically the same. Unfortunately the main way to combat this, the "pitch clock" rule, is unenforced. I can't imagine why.

I don't understand what you mean by your "dishonorable gameplay" example. What does amortizing a ball mean to you?

> Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "stoppage"? When players or coaches call timeouts (I don't know if this is the official name), even tho there is no clock to interrupt, to interrupt the flow of the game at key moments.

> I don't understand what you mean by your "dishonorable gameplay" example. What does amortizing a ball mean to you?

It took me some time to find out, but this is what I was refering to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunt_(baseball).

Now truth be told, one thing that makes me love baseball is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Gaedel#At_the_plate.

The Eddie Gaedel stunt was perpetrated by Bill Veeck [1], who came up with so many baseball stunts throughout his life and had many rules changed in reaction to them. Apropos to this discussion is that he is also the last person to buy a major sports team in the US without being massively wealthy.

A few days after that Eddie Gaedel stunt, Veeck did another one where the fans got to decide everything that the team did during the game, by holding up cards to vote.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Veeck

What makes bunting dishonorable? If anything it's the opposite, the player sacrifices themselves to move a teammate.

> What makes bunting dishonorable?

Well, it is obviously subjective, but bunting can be used to prevent no-hitter which is why I personally see it as disgraceful.

Breaking up a no-hitter with a bunt requires bunting for a base hit, which is orders of magnitude more challenging than a sac bunt. It's not as rare as pitching a no-hitter, but it's rare enough to be notable when it happens. You have to place the bunt in one of only a handful of defensive dead zones and it requires elite base running speed.

Basketball has the opposite problem: clock-stopping in close games through intentional fouls.

The shot-clock in basketball was introduced to prevent clock killing, and promote scoring.

Basketbal

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