Top 10 Reasons Why Soccer Is Better Than Football

Real Clear Sports ^ | January 9, 2014 | Brian Colella

[C19fan]

Soccer is, without a doubt, the world's most popular sport. Football is, without a doubt, America's most popular. Football absolutely dominates in the U.S., but once you leave North America and nobody cares about Brady vs. Manning, or Auburn vs. Alabama. Messi vs. Ronaldo? That's more like it.

The new year dawns, like always, with a zillion college bowl games and the NFL playoffs, and the over-saturation of football has us puzzled as to why its popularity so outstrips soccer's in this country. Football's flaws, some unredeemable, are there for all to see: serious injuries, drawn-out replay reviews to interpret Byzantine rulebooks, and - let's be honest - extremely creepy commercials for Old Spice. What good reason is there to choose all that mess over "The Beautiful Game"?

[crusty old prospector]

I prefer hockey as it basically soccer on ice with the brute physicality of football.

[Charles Henrickson]

The irony here is that women's bodies are ill-suited to the game. This was explained to me by a women's soccer coach as she and two of her students had suffered ACL injuries from the sport.

ACL injuries are epidemic among girls in high school and college, particularly among those playing soccer and basketball. Their bodies are just not made for those explosive cuts and moves. Go to any school and you will see several girls hobbling around on crutches.

[minnesota_bound]

Soccer players are nearsighted.
There is this GIANT net and they can only manage to score 1 maybe point.....
In football you hear the players hit and the bones cracking.

[conservaterian]

I am NOT a soccer fan, except that I will on occasion watch women’s soccer hoping they will take off their jerseys at the end. However, the low scoring we hear about in soccer - a 3 to 2 soccer match is not much different than a 21 to 14 football game. Still just 5 scores in the game.

[onedoug]

Soccer is, without a doubt, the world’s most ridiculous sport.

It should be started with fifteen minutes of “free kicks” to generate a score, then the rest of its nonsense can be played out.

[Dead Corpse]

If you could check someone into the boards in soccer, that might make it more interesting...

[CommerceComet]

mom--you experience about seven different emotions in 2 seconds of baseball!" and it is the same with football

To be fair, I get the same feeling from soccer -- if different degrees of boredom count as a separate emotion.

[Notary Sojac]

Beat me to the punch. I'm not a big fan of soccer on the field but I do think the tiered leagues are a great innovation.

If the bottom four teams in the NFL got dropped to a minor league, you sure would get rid of a lot of complacency and nepotism in front offices.

[Empireoftheatom48]

I played Soccer from grade school through College, it was great exercise, but I can’t stand to watch it, just a lot of running around with a score every once in a while. Snoozer!

[scrabblehack]

I don’t really know but how often does soccer resort to NFL-style tiebreakers (season standings not game result)?

[scrabblehack]

Well, now that I think about it, during the World Cup, the teams are divided into divisions, and teams play only the other teams in their division. So you can look at the standings and tell who’s ahead. The tiebreaker is goal differential, and you don’t have to figure out head-to-head or points within the division or within the conference, etc.

Then the top two teams in each division advance to the knockout round. Ties are not allowed in those games.

[qam1]

But to simply dismiss soccer isn't correct. It's the wave of the future and you should get used to it.

LOL!

The wave of the future since 1970!!!!

They been saying the same thing about Solar Power, The Metric System, Presta Valves, Windows 8, etc.

[Ransomed]

I’m a baseball fan first as well, I especially can’t take the NFL. But I wonder about the TV audiences that tune in to games does the 162 games translate to bigger numbers as opposed to football? And not just actual games, but all the dedicated TV/radio shows in the off season. I mean how many dedicated programs are about football as opposed to baseball in the off-season? Someone is watching them, even if I think football talk in July might be the most boring thing ever.

FReegards

[EQAndyBuzz]

Football and soccer are for wimps. Attend a Buzkashi match Nd then you will appreciate true sport.

[qam1]

I am NOT a soccer fan, except that I will on occasion watch women’s soccer hoping they will take off their jerseys at the end.

Any women who can run around in all directions for 90 minutes is not going to have a chest worth waiting for.

See post #36 above, the top girl on the left. She can't play soccer (Maybe the Jaguar's Cheerleader below could)

[BreezyDog]

I was a F.I.F.A. member when I played and last time I checked I was a guy. As a matter of fact I really am attracted to this SMILF:

[Hegewisch Dupa]

Nice, but that chick must have some mighty big hands to make balls look that small; just sayin’

[DoodleDawg]

So where does the fact that soccer matches were fixed on a regular basis but football games are not fall in his top ten list? Link

[1rudeboy]

"This sport is boring, scoring is too difficult."
/waah