US Qualifies for 2014 World Cup and.........

Probably not. The USA doesn't seem to like any team sport where they have to actually play against other countries who might be better than them, or even as good as them! I think it must be an issue of deep-seated insecurity, and the fear that they might not be found to be 'winners' and 'world champions' every single time they play. They prefer to have their own team sports that nobody else really plays, and then declare themselves as the best in the world at them - it must give them some kind of feeling of warmth and comfort!

They also tend to like to think of those sports being the 'best' and 'hardest' and 'most dangerous', and so on, and in some cases they are correct (some of the motor-racing in the USA is stupidly dangerous and life threatening in a way that the rest of the world has moved away from, and rightly so). On the other hand, of course, they play their own 'football' in ludicrous body armour and helmets, and still claim that it makes their sport somehow 'harder' than what other countries play!

As for people not getting hurt playing 'soccer'......


Ummmm.....I don't think so! Some players have a reputation for play acting in order to try to get referees to award fouls and so on, and rightly so, but that doesn't mean that real injuries don't happen, or are even uncommon. They aren't. That video is of some pretty extreme examples, of course, but 'soccer' can and regularly does produce some particularly nasty leg and ankle injuries in particular, and also hamstring injuries and the like.

Of course, the players aren't kept locked away in suits of armour, like toddlers learning how to skateboard, either! Neither do they have a coach's voice in their ear telling them exactly how to play everything, and neither do they have to stop for 5 minutes for a rest and a chat after every few seconds of play, and neither do they have to stop to change their entire team depending on whether they are attacking or defending because the players are too stupid to be able to do both!

Soccer has its drawbacks, and I'm always going to be a rugby union man at heart, but at least it's a proper sport played by proper players who actually have to play the game themselves, not just a game of stop-and-start chess between two coaches who just have an endless group of pawns to move about!

Baseball, - against yourselves (in a 'world series', even though nobody else actually plays it!!)

Football, - your own version, which nobody else plays in anything like a serious way

Basketball, - mostly against yourselves - a few others play it, but few other countries have anything like a professional structure

Auto Racing (NASCAR, Indy, NHRA & Sprint Cars), - your own versions of it, which nobody else is involved with

Golf, - other poeple actually play that, but it's really a walk with a stick and a ball rather than a proper 'sport', and not really a team game at all.

... Bowling - nobody else takes that seriously at all - it's just a kids and drunks party game, taken less seriously than darts in the rest of the world.


See the pattern there? Americans don't seem to be able to handle the idea that they might sometimes not win at everything, so they simply don't bother to compete seriously at, or watch, any team game that anybody else in the world plays. They stick to the their own versions of things, and just call themselves 'world champions' so that they can prove themselves to be 'winners' at them.

I don't care particularly at a personal level, of course - it's a matter for the American people what sports they happen to like. It is certainly a notable and strange thing, though, and does make me wonder whether it is a symptom of a wider issue with Americans having to always be 'winners' and never 'losers', and always having to prove to themselves that the USA is 'the best in the world' at everything. A very obvious manifestation of 'American exceptionalism', and it can be somewhat disrespectful to the rest of the world, especially when it involves claims not only that they are the best at their own sports (which they are, because nobody else really plays them to the same level of seriousness, professionalism or public popularity), but that their own sports are somehow 'the best' sports to be playing (which is nonsense, and somewhat disrespectful to professional sportsmen and athletes in the rest of the world, as well as billions of people who watch them play).

Although the figures are always estimates that are difficult to verify (especially when they involve large audiences in developing countries) and not always agreed (depending on how they are estimated, what is being estimated, and so on), the most viewed single sporting event on the planet is probably the football (soccer) World Cup Final, which probably bests the the Olympics opening ceremony into second (and that's not really sport, obviously - the sport itself is watched by less than that). The Cricket World Cup is probably third, with the the Super Bowl (USA's biggest porting event, of course) coming a pretty poor 4th at best, and quite possibly beaten into 5th by the European Champions League Final (also 'soccer', of course).

As far as leagues go, the English (and Welsh!) domestic Premier League (soccer, obviously) is watched by 600+ million in over 200 countries. That is something like 3 times as many as the largest estimates for how many people as watch the NFL worldwide (including the USA).

American sport is pretty much meaningless and irrelevant to the rest the world - winning it doesn't make Americans 'the best in the world' at all, because they aren't competing with anyone else anyway. In true international sport (i.e those sports other people play), the USA is usually a 'loser', and doesn't succeed in competing at anything like the same level as the rest of the world. It's good, I think, for Americans to get something of a sense of perspective on that.

Ah yes - there's another US problem with sport - the idea that it's only 'exciting' when someone actually scores points. That's not the case at all - it's like saying that politics is only interesting on the day of a general election! The actual goal itself is great, of course, but it's the build up play that is the interesting bit, and that build up play is just as interesting whether or not it results in a goal. It's watching the whole game develop that can is the fascinating thing, as teams struggle for supremacy, possession, control of the game, and so on - the skills exhibited by all of the players in the passing of the ball, the tackling, the running and ball control, the finding and exploiting of space, movement off the ball, the saving and preventing of goals by defenders and keepers, and so on. The same with rugby union, of course - it's 90 minutes (or 80 in rugby) of constant play and constant skill and constant interest.

There aren't many videos of full games around, but try some 'extended highlights' of a decent game. It's not all about the goals themselves at all:


American football is kind of simplistic, in that one team has possession until it's handed over. It's almost devoid of tackles that result in a change of possession - you don't get people 'out of position' in the same way, gaps opening up to be exploited by clever balls, and all the rest of it. Everything is pre-set for each play, and then the game is stopped after each play. There's no flow to it. There is no interest value unless someone scores (and often not much then!), it's just start-thud-run-thud for a few seconds, then it stops again and everyone waits around while the set themselves up as they are told to before starting again. They even only have one player who has to pass the ball, and a couple more to receive it, and everyone else to just get in the way of each other - the variety of 'skill' required for most of the players on a team is pretty limited, and the variety of action for the audience to watch is pretty limited too.

Oh, and 'riots' and 'violence' are very rare at 'soccer' games these days, especially at top level games.

OK, let's.

Absolute nonsense. There are no 'plays' in soccer - the game is constant and flowing, and those not actually in possession of the ball aren't 'roaming around' at all, they are constantly moving, putting themselves into space, drawing opponents to create space for others, watching where opponents are to cover them, and so on. The position of every player is critical, and any player might receive the ball or be called on to get the ball of an opponent at any time, and what they do with the ball is critical every time. Players have to be constantly alert for the entire game, without being able to stop and have a rest, and without the entire team being substituted when position changes - everyone had to be an attacker and defender and passer and reciever, and everyone has to maintain a vigilant awareness of the entire field of play, the ball, and all of the other players (their own and the opposition), not just the one person in front of them.

Anyone who has seen a kids game ('bees around a honeypot'!) will know what happens if they aren't doing that!

Complete red herring. Every pass in football has to be just as precise in delivery, timed to perfection to find the player in the space, with the right pace and spin on the ball to allow the receiver to use it effectively (and he needs to use it, control it, pass it, and so on, not just catch it and run - it's a continuation of the movement of the ball). Every single player has to be both a passer and a receiver, not just there to block other people physically.


Irrelevant. There is only one method of scoring, but innumerable and infinite ways to achieve that aim, given the infinite variables in the build up play, pace, power and accuracy of the shot, position of the goalkeeper, and so on.


What do you mean by that? There is only one team on each side, and they are all having to work together all of the time to get, retain and use the ball in order to score (and to stop their opponents from scoring). Attackers have to defend and defenders have to attack (and midfielders obviously do both), and many, many goals are scored by defenders (and prevented by attackers). It's an 11-man game, and aside from the goalkeeper (who can still score - it's relatively unusual, but a former Manchester United goalkeeper was well known for scoring headed goals from free kicks and corners) everyone has their 'speciality' and their position on the field to operate in, but they don't stay there, and have to cover and assist each other (and be alert at all times to the need or opportunity for that). Usually in modern football the left and right backs also form part of the main attacking option on the wing.


Nonsense - every player in soccer has to be aware of everything and alert to everything at all times, and they don't have pauses to plan (and pauses long enough for an advert break, of course - there are no adverts during a half of a game of football, and the only time there's a break that long is when someone has to be treated on the field and then stretchered off with a serious injury), or coaches in their ear telling them what to do. They have to be aware of everything and everyone, and watching everything and everyone, and moving around to exploit or address what they themselves see and identify, at all times. Any player not pulling their weight effectively on that will quickly be spotted and exploited by the opposition. Skill with the ball is vital for everybody in the team, and keeping the ball moving in the right way between all of the players is the essence of the game. Everybody has to be alert and moving all the time (they could get the ball anytime), and one mistake by one individual can create an opportunity for the opposition to exploit that could (in a game with relatively low scores, of course) lose the whole game. That kind of pressure of constant and complete alertness doesn't really exist in American Football at all.


That's an issue for the daily news in the US, and we've already considered why the US doesn't like things where they aren't constantly champions of the universe (and the US pro soccer league is of a very poor standard relatively anyway - probably about the equivalent of the 3rd or 4th tier of the English and Welsh league, if that)! Riots are extremely rare in soccer - there have been issues with hooliganism in the past (although actual riots weren't exactly common then!), but those have been effectively dealt with for the most part, and it really isn't something that happens regularly any more in the civilised world. South America still seems to have some issues sometimes, but apart from that top level soccer isn't marred by violence on a regular basis at all. The daily news of pretty much every other country in the world includes soccer (and often not only their own domestic stories, but stories and results from elsewhere in the world, as well as the various international competitions that are running all the time). No other country has American Football on the news at all ever, of course, apart from the occasional 'hey look at the fuss the Americans playing their little game against themselves are making about it all' report on the Superbowl, but usually only if it's a particularly slow news day.



Yup - a real man.....in a suit of armour, helmet, and so on, who doesn't have to think too hard because the coach tells them what to do every time they stop for a break (which they do every few seconds of play), doesn't have to play the whole game (because change the teams all the time), probably (unless he's one of the privileged few) never has to touch the ball, and doesn't have to think at all beyond what specifically he has to do to the specific individual in front of them for that specific play, and the little space immediately around themselves!