Fanatical Fans

[warpus]

Compared to hockey, rugby, (American) football, (Australian) football, and lacrosse, it is an incredible wimpy sport (the players and game, not the supporters, who can be quite terrifying). Being an expat for 30 years, you missed the part where Canadians turn 12 and they switch from soccer to a contact sport.

Define wimpy. Covering 10km in 90 minutes without coughing your lung out is not really that "wimpy".

If fans were REALLY outraged, they would force FIFA's hand to produce far more stringent diving rules. When the Swedes and other Europeans came over en masse to play hockey, they had a tendency towards diving, but referees and fans wouldn't tolerate it so it was largely stamped out.

See, the difference between hockey and soccer as far as diving goes, is that you couldn't really fake it in hockey as well as you can in soccer. If a ref in soccer sees you dive - you get an automatic yellow card. They do not put up with it - it's just that often they are not able to distinguish between a genuine foul and a dive - because 1. the soccer pitch is huge, 2. there is only 1 ref on the pitch (plus 2 linesmen, but still), 3. there is no use of video replays.

Fans ARE pushing the officials to stamp down on diving - the Scots were going to introduce a post-game video thing where refs watch the game and hand out cards/fines for diving after the fact - this was overruled by FIFA - they are currently a bit against video replays and post-game decisions.

There's no easy solution to this - but I can see some new rules being put in place in the near future.

Who said superior sport? I was talking about how, every time I try to get into a soccer (a beautiful game in theory), I get completely turned off by the lack of sportsmanship and the generally whiney demeanor of the players. If they had a 350 pound lineman pounding them into the ground or a 220 pound Slovak smashing them into the boards, they would have more reason to roll around on the ground with a cringing look on their face.

Have you ever played soccer before? Sometimes the "wimpiest" of challenges can produce a significant amount of pain. 2 seasons ago I ripped one of the muscles in my right leg without even being challenged - nobody was around me at all. I had to go down to ground and be taken off the pitch. Soccer requires you to run around a LOT (obviously) - the legs of soccer players are well-muscled machines - sometimes it doesn't take much at all to induce pain in that area.. I mean, even cramps can make you grimace in pain - this does not happen in hockey because the players get to take breaks. In soccer you run around for 90 minutes - and end up covering 10km per game on average.

Maybe you were watching a south american league, or maybe spanish or italian? The "cheap tackle = rolling around the ground in fake pain" thing doesn't really happen in the English Premiership that much.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Every single soccer game I see, I see players dramatizing minor tumbles and incidents. Every... single... game. If they are real "owies", then they are kinda soft. If they are fake, then the are dishonourable. Either way, I am not impressed. FIFA overruling the good intentions of the Scots doesn't help me from thinking the sport is rotten at the core.

Can you imagine how bad it would be if the scrutiny of post-game cameras outed most of the top-paid players, and virtually everyone south of France? Every single fake tear pulled apart by officials and fans? There is a witch hunt I can get behind.

If that gets cleaned up, I might throw myself behind the sport a bit more. Until then, it is for the rabble.

@Warpus. Yes, I have played soccer. I was also chronically injured throughout my wrestling years and I definitely understand fighting through pain. Back injuries, ankle injuries, arm injuries, bruised ribs, all of it. There are plenty of sports with painful injuries that players fight through with less drama. Look at Vinokourov riding on in the Tour de France bleeding from every limb. Sure, it turned out he was some sort of drug-induced monster man, but still.

One last edit: I know the English are better when it comes to this stuff... and then they get burned in the World Cup because the whole rest of the soccer world isn't.

 

[Arwon]

Define wimpy. Covering 10km in 90 minutes without coughing your lung out is not really that "wimpy".

Aussie footballers cover that much distance, and risk getting smashed in full-body tackles.

 

[jessiecat]

Who said superior sport? I was talking about how, every time I try to get into a soccer (a beautiful game in theory), I get completely turned off by the lack of sportsmanship and the generally whiney demeanor of the players. If they had a 350 pound lineman pounding them into the ground or a 220 pound Slovak smashing them into the boards, they would have more reason to roll around on the ground with a cringing look on their face.

I actually think baseball is a beautiful sport, and I think I would enjoy cricket too. It doesn't need to be violent at all. I would point out though, that more violent sports like Rugby, football, and hockey, tend to have more sportsmanship than soccer.

I take it you've never really played football, have you? Diving these days is actually pretty rare. And players go down with kicks from steel studs on legbones because it is freaking painful. Much more painful than being bodychecked while you're clad in padded body armour. Do you realize the high percentage of players who are crippled into early retirement in their 20s from leg fractures, shattered knees, broken cartilage and snapped ligaments? Even rugby doesn't have such a high casualty rate esp. of leg injuries. Its not acting or faking most of the time. Don't judge a whole sport because of a minority of cheats. There's nothing wimpish about football. If you'd ever played it at a competitive adult level you'd realise that.

EDIT Cross post. Warpus has made these points too. The 90 minutes with only a half-time break is an
important one. Other sports have prolonged stoppages in play and frequent personnel substitutions. Football has neither.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

No more than the number of hockey players with smashed knees and ankles. If you think being covered in pads stops the pain of being flattened into the boards you are wrong. Why do you think in American football, they play so few games in a year, and why players careers usually don't extend much past 30? The physical hazards of football are much greater than that of soccer. You ever been hit in the foot with a slap shot and kept skating? Pick up a puck some day and imagine it coming at 90 km/hr.

 

[Oruc]

Only girls play hockey

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

We aren't talking about Field Hockey.

We are talking about this:a reason to roll around on the ice

 

[jessiecat]

Only girls play hockey

I guess they wear those big padded gloves to protect their nail polish.

 

[Oruc]

We aren't talking about Field Hockey.

We are talking about this:a reason to roll around on the ice

What you think a woman couldn't do that? what are you sexist! and what happened to all the talk of sportsman like behaviour, the two that I saw before I turned it off didn't look sportsman like.

 

[Shekwan]

Who said superior sport? I was talking about how, every time I try to get into a soccer (a beautiful game in theory), I get completely turned off by the lack of sportsmanship and the generally whiney demeanor of the players. If they had a 350 pound lineman pounding them into the ground or a 220 pound Slovak smashing them into the boards, they would have more reason to roll around on the ground with a cringing look on their face.

I actually think baseball is a beautiful sport, and I think I would enjoy cricket too. It doesn't need to be violent at all. I would point out though, that more violent sports like Rugby, football, and hockey, tend to have more sportsmanship than soccer.

I would have thought the one you like to watch is the one you would consider superior, or the one that is the greatest phsyical challenge, and you listed all violent sports. I guess I read it wrong.

But if you want to nitpick sports for being unsportsmanlike, you can find fault in every sport. I mean in Rugby players routinely stamp each other in the scrum and when rucking. The myth that it is played in a gentlemanlike manner is only perpetuated by the fans who want to ''one up'' football fans. American football has many aspects of unsportsmanlike stuff being part of the game, like kneeling and trying to draw flags for pass interference. I'm nopt as familiar with ice hockey, but any sport with fist fights during the game hardly qualifies as sportsmanlike.

Diving is a big problem in football, but the fans are not supportive of it and certainly don't see it as part of the game. But to nitpick and say that football is unique in that it has more unsportsmanlike conduct than any other professional sport is just wrong. In the high stakes world of pro sports, people will always try to cheat their way to the top. Just ask Bill Belicheck.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

What you think a woman couldn't do that? what are you sexist! and what happened to all the talk of sportsman like behaviour, the two that I saw before I turned it off didn't look sportsman like.

A couple were dirty hits, but most were well within the rules of the game. There is nothing unsportsmanlike about a clean check. Faking an injury from one, yes.

Actually, there isn't bodychecking in women's hockey!

I would have thought the one you like to watch is the one you would consider superior, or the one that is the greatest phsyical challenge, and you listed all violent sports. I guess I read it wrong.

Not superior sport, but sports more worthy of rolling around with injuries. I like amateur wrestling way better than MMA because it is about immobilizing the other player and controlling the match without causing injury or knockouts. Far more impressive in my opinion.

But if you want to nitpick sports for being unsportsmanlike, you can find fault in every sport. I mean in Rugby players routinely stamp each other in the scrum and when rucking. The myth that it is played in a gentlemanlike manner is only perpetuated by the fans who want to ''one up'' football fans. American football has many aspects of unsportsmanlike stuff being part of the game, like kneeling and trying to draw flags for pass interference. I'm nopt as familiar with ice hockey, but any sport with fist fights during the game hardly qualifies as sportsmanlike.

I would agree that fist fights are silly, but in hockey it is the equivalent of a challenge to a duel. There is a certain "honour" in how the fight is carried out. Both people have to be ready, no gloves, and when someone goes down, it is over. That being said, I left hockey as a teenager because the fighting brings in the equivalent of the hooligan scum from European football. In some ways, I thought the football players were more respectable.

Diving is a big problem in football, but the fans are not supportive of it and certainly don't see it as part of the game. But to nitpick and say that football is unique in that it has more unsportsmanlike conduct than any other professional sport is just wrong. In the high stakes world of pro sports, people will always try to cheat their way to the top. Just ask Bill Belicheck.

I will believe you that the fans are not supportive and that I just talked to the wrong people. That being said, there is something far more annoying and offensive about players playing up injuries and infractions compared to fighting in hockey. It is a lot more difficult to respect the former compared to the latter (assuming it is a "clean" fight). And to answer people's questions, I played intramural soccer in uni. Most people were really friendly, but the hard core soccer guys tended to whine and complain to the refs about EVERYTHING. Way more than any other sport I have been involved in. The running aspect of the sport was great! It actually made it so that I could hold my own with less talent, because I was in pretty good shape. Of course, it was a pretty weak league, but I can respect the sport for what it is. The culture of the players just seems somehow worse than the sport deserves.

 

[Oruc]

A couple were dirty hits, but most were well within the rules of the game. There is nothing unsportsmanlike about a clean check. Faking an injury from one, yes.

Actually, there isn't bodychecking in women's hockey!

If those are in the rules then ice hockey is a load of crap.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

If those are in the rules then ice hockey is a load of crap.

Considering that it is the de facto national sport of Canada, do you see why many of us would be disgusted by the acting on a "pitch"?

Maybe I am just a caveman and I feel that fair violence is less irritating than whiny, sneaky, cheats.

 

[Samson]

But if you want to nitpick sports for being unsportsmanlike, you can find fault in every sport.

Snooker?..

 

[Flying Pig]

One of the best fights I have ever been in was after a rugby match, when I was 16. Fun times...

 

[cardgame]

Define wimpy. Covering 10km in 90 minutes without coughing your lung out is not really that "wimpy".

A 10 kilometer (10K) walk is 6.2 miles long. It is a common distance for charity run/walks and the standard distance for volkssport walks. Most walkers complete a 10K walk in 90 minutes to two hours.

Walking as compared to running is kind of wimpy.

 

[Flying Pig]

You think walking's wimpy? Try THIS.

 

[holy king]

if you find watching spain vs italy once a year too wimpy go play football as it should be played and stop complaining.

 

[Traitorfish]

People, people, please. It's a well-known, scientifcally proven fact that there is one and only one truly great and manly sport anywhere in the galaxy: the Caber Toss.

 

[Brighteye]

Walking as compared to running is kind of wimpy.

I agree. I can cover 10km in 40 minutes and not cough up a lung, although I'll be exhausted. Last time I ran that distance I only managed 42 minutes, but then I ran home, so perhaps I didn't try hard enough.

You think walking's wimpy? Try THIS.

Done that, or the equivalent. I've been on 35-mile hikes with rucksacks weighing 20-25kg and done them in the day.
I've done a 26-mile run on Dartmoor with two rucksacks because one member of my team was too wimpy to carry his. We managed it in six hours. I wasn't exhausted from 4 weeks of training though.