Some Truths About Football
Since I had an earlier cranky post about football, I couldn't help but be blown away by the accuracy of the best-ever cultural analysis about the relative popularity of "soccer football" in Britain and "American football" in America over at The Septic's Companion, formerly known as the English2American dictionary.
Go buy his book, or at least a beer for him. Without knowing it, he's been a great contributor to our blog. Go Web2.0!
Go buy his book, or at least a beer for him. Without knowing it, he's been a great contributor to our blog. Go Web2.0!
Labels: British life, culture, football, sport
posted by Smitty Werbenmanjensen at 9:40 AM
3 Comments:
"Best ever cultural analysis"? What a load of bollocks.
So national sports are reflective of national characteristics?
If that is true, then it is still depressingly arrogant American exceptionalism v. Rest of The World (clearly not just the UK plays "soccer"). Try the same comparison using Brazil or China,- or Iraq for that matter.
Hi Stan, and thanks for your reasoned comment. It may be important to point out that cultural analysis was written by a Scot who has lived in America. I don't know if that further colors your opinion of his analysis.
I'm afraid Stan's right in that it is indeed bollocks (and I'm a Scot who's lived in the US too).
Football (soccer) is a game someone invented where you kick a ball into a goal and somebody wins. It's hard to do that so scores are low. But that also means goals are hugely satisfying as well as the potential ebb and flow leading up to them. End of story.
I've seen plenty of NFL games won by two touchdowns to one, for which multiple points are awarded. If you got 357 points for each goal at soccer would that make it better? what about rugby with similar points tallies to American football??
I've also seen plenty of MLB games won by two runs to one. If scoring's what you want, cricket must therefore be hundreds of times times better. It isn't, but the application of Septic Companion's analysis to those sports produces the opposite conclusion on national type.
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