Quote :

"There is more physical contact in soccer than in baseball or basketball"

Getting run into by a 130-pound guy with gelled-up hair is hardly my idea of a terrifying experience.

5/2/2007 11:12:41 AM

Another thing that makes soccer gay

Quote :

"A standard adult football match consists of two periods of 45 minutes each, known as halves. Each half runs continuously, meaning that the clock is not stopped when the ball is out of play; the referee does, however, make allowance for time lost through significant stoppages as described below. There is usually a 15-minute "half-time" break between halves. The end of the match is known as full-time. The referee is the official timekeeper for the match, and may make an allowance for time lost through substitutions, injured players requiring attention, or other stoppages. This added time is commonly referred to as stoppage time or injury time, and is at the sole discretion of the referee."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soccer#Duration_and_tie-breaking_methods



[Edited on May 2, 2007 at 11:14 AM. Reason : [][]

5/2/2007 11:13:42 AM

The only serious head injury I've ever had was from soccer, and I've been hit in the head with 90-MPH slap shots.

5/2/2007 11:14:13 AM

i fucked up my knee for a month playing basketball...never got hurt playing soccer...thats my anecdote

5/2/2007 11:24:56 AM

Yeah, but was that because someone hit you or because you came down on it wrong?

My point is that I got a concussion and broke my jaw because of a completely legal event in the run of play, something that's never happened in any other sport I've played, including hockey, where frozen shit flies at my head faster than I can react to it.

5/2/2007 11:26:41 AM

well i was on some backpeddling defense and the guy i was guarding gave me a shove and my knee didnt come down perfectly on the concrete outdoor court we were playing on

what exactly 'completely legal' thing happened to give you a concussion? did you get hit with the ball or did you catch a stray elbow or kick or something a la Hansbrough/Henderson?

5/2/2007 11:28:37 AM

Guy had a breakaway and let the ball run a little far so I bolted off the line and slid early; he got a toe to it just as I got there and followed through. I'm still not sure whether he actually made head contact with his foot or if I just got hit with the ball because I was knocked out immediately, but he got there just as I did, so I can't fault him.

I stopped it, though.

5/2/2007 11:35:42 AM

I understand your anecdotal evidence about soccer, because that is the way it appears to someone not as familiar with the game. At low levels, soccer is not nearly as competitive or aggressive. I coach both middle school and high school soccer teams, and I play in competitive adult leagues.

Just in middle school so far this year I have had one player get his leg broken in two places from a slide tackle, one got kicked in the lip (while standing, so you can imagine the logistics) and had to receive stitches, and another who dislocated his toe when a player came at him studs up. And remember, this is 12-14 year olds.

(The player who dislocated his toe got hurt Sunday and he has already told me he is going to try and be back playing on Thursday.)

My goalie at the high school last year got a concussion and a broken hand when it got stepped on and still continued playing throughout the season.

This is not to say that baseball doesn't have its moments, but if you put the Pete Rose headfirst slide on Fosse against the toughest hits in soccer, it doesn't even come close. There are rare cases in baseball and basketball where collisions result in injury, but it's commonplace in soccer. In the Italy-US World Cup game last year, a guy got elbowed in the face so hard it split him open and he was gushing blood and he came back on a minute or two later.

Although it seems like two guys are just nudging each other back and forth, in actuality it is a lot more physical than that.

[Edited on May 2, 2007 at 12:05 PM. Reason : asdf]

5/2/2007 12:02:21 PM

Quote :

"RUGBY IS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT"

futból is not supposed to be a contact sport

so, you lose on all accounts

5/2/2007 3:48:07 PM

Baseball is the laziest sport of them all... and the majority of the injuries are from pitchers because they're throwing 75-95 mph 80-100 times a game. Other than two guys running into each other trying to catch a ball, which looks more funny than soccer players acting.

5/2/2007 5:00:41 PM

Quote :

"Rugby may be a more physically combative sport, but that does not make it "more difficult.""

WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT...RUGBY IS A MUCH MORE DIFFICULT SPORT....YOU RUN NON-STOP FOR 2 40 MINUTE HALVES JUST LIKE SOCCER....IN THE MEANTIME THERE ARE SOME TERRIBLE HITS JUST LIKE REAL FOOTBALL ONLY WITHOUT PADS.....KICKING AND PASSING ARE THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS OF THE SPORT SO PEOPLE MUST PLAY AT A HIGH SKILL LEVEL...

ANY SOCCER FAG THAT TRIES TO TELL ME SOCCER IS MORE DIFFICULT THAN RUGBY OBVIOUSLY HAS NEVER SEEN A MATCH.....

THE PEOPLE WHO PLAY RUGBY ON THE HIGHEST LEVEL (NEW ZEALAND, SOUTH AFRICA, AUSTRALIA) ARE SOME OF THE BEST ATHLETES ON THE PLANET

5/2/2007 5:16:55 PM

^ Best athletes on the planet?? Come on now..

5/2/2007 5:20:07 PM

Taking hits has nothing to do with difficulty, so toss that out.

The precision required to accurately pass and move the ball effectively is much higher in soccer than in rugby. That's not to say that precision kicking isn't required to hook a guy on to a long ball in rugby; it is, but that kind of play happens dozens of times in any given soccer game. The idea that it's harder to accurately place a lateral pass with your hands versus play a ball between two defenders and over a third with your FEET is ludicrous.

5/2/2007 5:23:55 PM

Quote :

"The precision required to accurately pass and move the ball effectively is much higher in soccer than in rugby"

if thats the requirement then baseball wins...hit a 90 mph slider and holler back

5/2/2007 5:27:38 PM

agree


i maintain that hitting a baseball is probably the hardest thing to do in any sport at the elite level

but I'd say soccer is infact "harder" technically than rugby

[Edited on May 2, 2007 at 5:34 PM. Reason : .]

5/2/2007 5:33:05 PM

i think there's a pretty good consensus that hitting a baseball is the toughest single thing to do in sports

5/2/2007 5:34:11 PM

^what about guarding Kobe, A.I, or Nash?

or stoping a slap shot?(or scoring on the goalie)

or tackling a NFL running back?

are you kidding?

5/2/2007 5:35:40 PM

i've stopped a bates battaglia slap shot before

i can hardly hit a baseball in rec league, let alone off an mlb pitcher

5/2/2007 5:36:47 PM

^^ guarding in basketball .. you've got to be kidding me ?!

5/2/2007 5:37:47 PM

every now and then you could get lucky and Kobe/AI/Nash would miss their shot

5/2/2007 5:37:56 PM

where in baseball every now and then you get lucky and hit the ball (any sport where fucking up 70% of the time gets you in the HOF is damn tough)

5/2/2007 5:39:00 PM

I agree, hitting a baseball is really hard, because its not just athletic ability...For the pro's its just as much tactical situations and what not..

I'm just saying its really hard to compare all different kinds of sports

5/2/2007 5:41:32 PM

and i'm just saying that hitting a baseball is unequivocally harder than stopping an NHL slap shot

hockey is my favorite sport, and i love goaltending as much as anything, but hitting a baseball at an elite level is harder

i couldn't tackle an NFL running back, but if my fitness was at that level i could; same goes for guarding kobe. those are all about athleticism.

5/2/2007 5:45:53 PM

Soccer needs to require a substitution if the trainers come out. That right there would eliminate 99% of the "injuries" in soccer.

5/2/2007 6:46:02 PM

Then you'd have to change the blood rule. Technically they have to get attention and come off the field if they're bleeding.

5/2/2007 6:47:03 PM

soccer should have a smaller field and no goaltenders

you could still have regular soccer/futbol, but add a smaller field/no goalkeeper soccer like X-Soccer or something...it would be more entertaining to the casual fan

5/2/2007 7:17:31 PM

more entertaining to the 75 million casual american fans

not entertaining in the slightest to the the 5 billion real fans

5/2/2007 7:20:33 PM

like i said, keep regular soccer too

but X-Soccer would be better than friggin MLS

and i think some of the real soccer fans would find it entertaining

after all i'm a real basketball fan and i liked Slamball

5/2/2007 7:21:30 PM

Fair enough.

It tends to get really boring when you play with no goalies, though, even if you shrink the goal.

5/2/2007 7:44:37 PM

maybe you have to shoot from a certain distance or something...i dunno, i'll work out the kinks and holler at the X-Games

5/2/2007 7:45:51 PM

pick it up and run, pansies




[Edited on May 2, 2007 at 8:08 PM. Reason : .]

5/2/2007 8:02:32 PM

it's al bundy!

5/2/2007 8:14:41 PM

young hooligan

5/2/2007 11:59:35 PM

ask MJ how hard it is to hit a baseball.

5/3/2007 12:13:58 AM

hahaha... At least he made fun of himself in mutha fuckin' SPACEJAM

5/3/2007 12:16:06 AM

The best thing about watching good international soccer is that it's so perfect for sitting around with your friends and getting drunk. We don't have a strong drinking culture here in the states, so most people don't really know how to watch good soccer. I never really realized how fun soccer was to watch until last summer when I was in London during some World Cup action. Chilling in a pub and watching world-class footballers and drinking with your friends is really an awesome thing. I just hope MLS can get to the skill level of UEFA. MLS isn't nearly as much fun to watch as premier level club soccer from Europe.

5/3/2007 10:26:01 AM

Quote :

"i think there's a pretty good consensus that hitting a baseball is the toughest single thing to do in sports "

agree 100%

5/3/2007 11:25:09 AM

for some reason i'd never noticed that the little boy so filled with rage was wearing a Feynoord shirt

dutchmen

pshhhhht

5/3/2007 11:34:44 AM

Quote :

"Chilling in a pub and watching world-class footballers and drinking with your friends is really an awesome thing"

thats pretty much true with any sport though

5/3/2007 11:40:14 AM

the singing, the passion, and the camaraderie put anything we have over here to shame, with the sole exception being the college sports scene, and it's even got that beaten...

you really just don't know it until you've been a part of it

and if you have, apologies

5/3/2007 11:44:27 AM

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL

5/3/2007 6:05:41 PM

in general i'm just saying that watching a game with some cold beverages and your friends is the best way...i dont see much of a difference in watching a state game with your buddies in the bar and watching a soccer game in the same type environment...maybe instead of singing the songs we just cheer for great plays

5/3/2007 6:08:13 PM

That little kid has been photoshopped at least 5000 times.

I would like to know which team he is really there supporting.

5/3/2007 6:12:14 PM

The pace of a soccer game promotes conversation better, which is half the reason you have friends anyway, to talk to them.

5/3/2007 8:21:32 PM

Did anyone watch the AC Milan - Man U. game the other day? That was entertainment at its finest.

5/3/2007 9:11:10 PM

Quote :

" would like to know which team he is really there supporting. "

Feyenoord. It says it right there on his kit.


Rotterdam


they play in the Eredivisie

5/3/2007 9:15:26 PM

^^ http://www.brentroad.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=431920&page=8#10324281, it's a pretty decent thing going

[Edited on May 4, 2007 at 12:11 AM. Reason : ]

5/4/2007 12:09:31 AM