Football, as in the kind that freedom-lovers play.

3rd IFAF World Championship is being held in Japan right now. The US team appears to be made up of recently graduated college players who didn't make it to the pros. Roster: http://www.usafootball.com/teamusa/players/

Participants are Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Sweden, United States

Japan blanked France 48-0 earlier this week.

The US team just played their first international game against South Korea, destroying them 77-0.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sf20070711a1.html. USA #1

Quote :

"Any uncertainty likely faded away nine seconds into the game when captain Bobby Awrey returned the opening kickoff 84 yards for the first of 11 American touchdowns. The Koreans, who made their World Cup debut just two days prior against Germany, were thoroughly dominated in every facet of the game from start to finish. ... The Americans tallied four rushing touchdowns, two punt return scores, one score on a kickoff return, a blocked punt that led to a score, one interception return for a touchdown, a fumble return and a passing score. --------------------------------- On the defensive side Team USA totally dominates on the scrimmage allowing no first downs with -31yds total yards."

Scores:

US v SK - 77-0
Japs v Surrender Monkeys - 48-0
Sweden vs Surrender Monkeys - 16-14
Germany vs SK - 32-2

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 3:47 AM. Reason : Football for Olympic Sport!]

7/11/2007 3:39:04 AM

Nothing says "America" like kicking everyone's ass in something only we care about.

7/11/2007 3:49:21 AM

aha, couldn't have said it better myself

7/11/2007 7:23:50 AM

Now THAT would have been a fun game to watch. I can just imagine these little South Koreans getting bowled over repeatedly.

USA #1

7/11/2007 9:59:25 AM

Quote :

"Nothing says "America" like kicking everyone's ass in something only we care about."

yeah, i guess all of those players for those other countries thought it was the other football.



[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 10:14 AM. Reason : asdf]

7/11/2007 10:14:16 AM

Quote :

" "Any uncertainty likely faded away nine seconds into the game when captain Bobby Awrey returned the opening kickoff 84 yards for the first of 11 American touchdowns. "

Nice kickoff. I've heard of 1 player on the USA #1 roster.

7/11/2007 10:16:08 AM

Quote :

""I was pleased with the focus of the team at the beginning of the game," U.S. head coach John Mackovic said. "We put this team together for the first time just three weeks ago. We've just had three weeks to learn this offense and defense and have a coaching staff also together for the first time. No one had worked together so we were uncertain how we would be in this very first game." "

This isn't even competition for our flag football intramural teams.

7/11/2007 11:40:15 AM

Quote :

"no first downs with -31yds total yards."

Sounds like they had Chuck running the offense.

7/11/2007 12:00:47 PM

how much time in between games?

7/11/2007 12:10:52 PM

back a few years ago I thought about if football became an Olympic Sports... just imagine Ray Lewis or Roy Williams hitting the WR of Belize as he tries to go over the middle BWHAHAHA




and wow, I follow college football more than anyone I know, and the only name on the USA roster that I recognize is Jeff Ballard

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 12:19 PM. Reason : d]

7/11/2007 12:17:48 PM

Craig Coffin was the only one I heard of, he's a badass PK. Was 11-11 in this game. I don't think he has any range past 40 yds. though.

7/11/2007 12:30:51 PM

^^ to be fair you probably havn't heard of most of the colleges either.

I bet Christopher Newport is going to be the next Ohio St.

7/11/2007 12:56:24 PM

Quote :

"yeah, i guess all of those players for those other countries thought it was the other football."

All I ever hear about is how "no one" gives a fuck about soccer in America. Well, by that standard, no one gives a fuck about football outside of America.

7/11/2007 2:28:14 PM

I bet more people over the age of 8 give a fuck about football in other countries than people here over 8 do about soccer. Hell, just the military alone would probably cover this...

7/11/2007 2:32:57 PM

the most advanced nation in the world loves American football while the poor 3rd world countries are big soccer fans

hmmmmm

ps: im not the one who made this thread into a FOOTBALL VERSUS SOCCER thread

7/11/2007 2:34:44 PM

^^ You're probably right, but it's really a question of percentages, not numbers. I'm sure I could find more albinos in the whole world than I could in just America. I'm willing to bet that the percentage of Americans who actually care about soccer is similar to the percentage of non-Americans who actually care about football.

7/11/2007 2:38:47 PM

^truth

7/11/2007 2:49:24 PM

USA #1

7/11/2007 3:37:26 PM

Quote :

"the most advanced nation in the world loves American football while the poor 3rd world countries are big soccer fans"

Even if poor 3rd world countries liked American football, the costs would be too prohibitive to play. That's why soccer is the global game (a ball and two nets) and why America's biggest sport contribution to the rest of the world is and always will be basketball, it's dirt cheap. All you need are a ball and two bicycle rims each on a different pole.

Heck, if high school players here had to pay for all their own football gear instead of it being on the county's bill, Florida alone would go from football hotbed to zero talent overnight.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 4:24 PM. Reason : /]

7/11/2007 4:23:02 PM

^tru

7/11/2007 4:26:57 PM

Quote :

"^^ You're probably right, but it's really a question of percentages, not numbers. I'm sure I could find more albinos in the whole world than I could in just America. I'm willing to bet that the percentage of Americans who actually care about soccer is similar to the percentage of non-Americans who actually care about football."

Not being bombastic or a jerk, just making a point here.

The Italy-France World Cup Final got a 7.0 rating on ABC. That was estimated to be 12 million viewers. Univision was estimated to get 5 million viewers. http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002802867

17 million divided by 300 million = 5.4%.

World population is estimated to be 6.6 billion. 5% of that would be around 350 million people.

Considering the only country that could field a halfway-decent professional national team in football besides us is Canada, not too sure that comparison of "soccer here versus American football there" is close to correct. According to CBS, 93 million viewers watched their telecast of the Super Bowl. http://www.tvweek.com/news/?newsId=11504 The country that likes pro football the most after us, had 3.4 million Super Bowl viewers out of a country of about 30 million. http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/NFL/Playoffs/2007/02/05/3532549-cp.html

The only people outside of the U.S. that care about pro football is pretty much Canada, parts of Mexico, parts of the Caribbean, Americans living abroad, and a smattering of foreigners. All the other American sports leagues - NBA, NHL, and MLB - make more money internationally than the NFL. That's one reason why the NFL finally closed down NFL Europe and are now going to start playing regular season games overseas.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 4:56 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 4:46:21 PM

what kind of stadium attendance numbers did NFL Europe get (Before it was recently canned)?

7/11/2007 4:53:15 PM

^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NFL_Europa#Attendance

5 of the 6 teams were in Germany, which is the most receptive to the sport due to the large ongoing American military presence in the country since the 1950s. There used to be teams in London, Glasgow, and Barcelona, which were all folded in favor of German teams. However, only a couple Germans ever played the sport professionally in the league, which was one of the aims of the league when the NFL took over the World League.

I forgot about Germany when putting together my response above. It has far more support for the game than other countries that the NFL had exhibitions in like China, Japan, and Australia.

[Edited on July 11, 2007 at 5:06 PM. Reason : .]

7/11/2007 5:03:28 PM

Quote :

" Sounds like they had Chuck running the offense."

ahaha well said

7/11/2007 5:06:01 PM

Scores:

US v SK - 77-0
Japs v Surrender Monkeys - 48-0
Sweden vs Surrender Monkeys - 16-14
Germany vs SK - 32-2
US v Germany - 33-7
Japan v Sweden 48-0 (when did Japs learn to play FB??)

It's Japan v USA in the final.


[Edited on July 12, 2007 at 8:51 PM. Reason : The Japanese superbowl is called the "Rice Bowl"]

7/12/2007 8:47:24 PM

haha, i thought it said the director of operations was taco bell

7/12/2007 9:30:54 PM

I wish this was televised.

This is the kind of international sporting event I could get into.

7/13/2007 11:22:07 PM

^Maybe once the games become competitive.

7/13/2007 11:23:32 PM

^Who cares?

USA #1!!!!


It'd make up for the embarrassment of watching the USA basketball team last summer.

7/13/2007 11:27:31 PM

this is the kind of thing ESPN should show instead of primetime re-runs of the home run derby

7/14/2007 7:38:44 AM

SK def. France, 3-0 (5th place game)
Germany def. Sweden, 7-0 (3rd place game)

Only the championship game remains.

7/14/2007 12:42:04 PM

^^^ Team USA basketball is in August. I understand they should have all hands on deck (Kobe, lebron), so they should return to winning form.

7/14/2007 12:44:24 PM

^but who knows?

If you look at the roster we fielded last summer in the FIBA championship, there is no excuse for falling to the Bronze. Our players were putting on an offensive show, making plays that their opponents couldn't possibly match, but failed to play strong defense.

If you let other teams hang around all game, you won't win the gold.

7/14/2007 12:48:21 PM

^^ I think that tournament is just a Pan-Am tournament to determine who qualifies for the Olympics next summer. Only the host, China, and defending World Champions, Spain, automatically qualify.

edit: Being held in Las Vegas! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas_Championships_2007

[Edited on July 14, 2007 at 1:10 PM. Reason : .]

7/14/2007 1:08:56 PM

USA wins, 23-20, in overtime.

7/15/2007 9:41:41 AM

^college or pro OT?

7/15/2007 10:34:08 AM

College.

I think they were using NCAA rules for the whole thing.

7/15/2007 10:45:32 AM

I didn't expect the Japanese team to be so good, but apparently they won the championship the previous two years and they have been playing together since April, the longest of any of the teams.

7/15/2007 11:33:01 AM

It didn't turn out like expected, though.

People thought the rain would disrupt Japan's passing game, but instead, it caused us to turn over a lot of fumbles.

Would've been interesting to see how things turned out if the weather had been calm. Either we could've kept the ball and dominated...or they could've thrown it all over the place and beaten us.

7/15/2007 1:04:34 PM

http://wc2007.info/777/game9_rpt_e.html

Must be a poor translation, but some slight trash talking from Jap team.

[Edited on July 15, 2007 at 1:23 PM. Reason : Seriously, though, this would be the ultimate Olympic sport where nations can clash.]

7/15/2007 1:16:29 PM

Quote :

"we have things we can win against the Americans, we have things we are superior to them."

They really think they can hang?

After losing to a squad of college players that come from powerhouses like Wooster and Christopher Newport?

I mean, if they want to talk shit, take on a team of Pro Bowlers.

7/15/2007 1:26:53 PM

1. Reference vinylbandit's post. Japan doesn't take this shit seriously, so beating them isn't a big accomplishment. Now, if we're talking about baseball, let the trash talk fly.

2. That's a bad translation. He was talking about this American team in particular, not all American teams.

3. It would be cool if NCSU or another college team can play in this as an exhibition.

[Edited on July 15, 2007 at 2:07 PM. Reason : dasf]

7/15/2007 2:05:11 PM

rugby world cup begins in 54 days.

7/15/2007 4:37:02 PM