Posted on 08/03/2004 3:12:33 PM PDT by swilhelm73
While people from Oslo to Athens and from London to Vladivostok were avidly following the European football championship in June, Americans ignored it. In the United States, the only way to see the Greece-Portugal final, or any other match in the tournament, was to make a special, costly arrangement with a satellite broadcasting company or to find a pub that was showing one of the games. Any such pub would invariably be located in an obscure corner of a large city and filled with people speaking languages other than English. Euro 2004 was the latest episode in the long history of American indifference to the world's favourite sport, which continues despite strenuous efforts to put the game on the same footing as America's three major team games: baseball, American football and basketball. Why have these efforts failed?
One reason has to do with the existing popularity of the big three. Even in as large and wealthy a country as the United States, where the national appetite for playing, and even more so for watching, games is enormous, the cultural, economic and psychological space available for sport is limited and that space is already taken. Baseball, American football and basketball have long since put down deep roots, claimed particular seasons of the year as their own (although they now overlap) and gained the allegiance of the sports-following public.
A fourth team sport, ice hockey, is widely played across the northern tier of the country and has a professional league with teams located across the border in Canada and throughout the United States, even in cities whose climates are so benign that ice has never formed in them: indeed, the franchise in Tampa, Florida, won this year's championship. The presence of four major team sports - more than in any other country - has made the barrier to entry in the competition for the affections and the dollars of American sports fans extraordinarily high, so high that even the world's most popular game has not been able to surmount it.
One in particular of those three sports - basketball - poses a singular obstacle to the national acceptance of football. The two are too similar for them both to succeed. Each belongs to the family of games whose object is to put a ball (or similar object) in a goal.
Because the two games are similar, they have the same kind of appeal. Both are easy to follow; you can immediately understand the point of each one. The rules and strategies of cricket, baseball, rugby and American football, by contrast, are less straightforward. The action of a basketball game and of a football match are easier to follow than that of other team sports as well because the ball is larger than in cricket and baseball and is never hidden in a tangle of bodies or a scrum, as it is in American football and rugby.
Football and basketball are also easier to play than the other team games. They do not require elaborate equipment and satisfactory informal games can be staged without the full complement of players. And both football and basketball players can perfect their skills practising entirely alone.
Spectators see the same thing in the two games: episodes of spontaneous coordination, with players devising and implementing schemes for scoring. They see, that is, acts of creation. If architecture is, as is sometimes said, music set in concrete, then football and basketball may be said to be creativity embodied in team sports.
The two games are both played partly in the air. Basketball players spring off the floor to launch shots at the basket and soar to capture missed shots as they bounce off the rim, even as football players leap upward to intercept a kicked ball with their heads to control it, tap it to a team-mate, or redirect it into their opponents' goal. Football and basketball are therefore the team sports that most vividly evoke a common human fantasy: to leave the ground and fly through the air.
This is why, perhaps, football and basketball are the team sports with the widest global appeal. It is no surprise that each of the two has established a beachhead in the last great expanse of unoccupied sports territory, the People's Republic of China. Their marked similarities, however, also mean that the two sports duplicate each other. They provide the same satisfactions. For spectators they are, in a sense, alternatives. North Americans don't need football because they already get what it has to offer from basketball.
There is, too, the problem of the frequency with which football matches end in a draw. Americans want conclusive results from their games. Baseball and basketball have rules forbidding draws: the two teams must play until one of them wins. Draws were more common in American football until two decades ago when, responding to the national irritation with them, the managers of the sport changed the rules. Now collegiate games cannot end in draws and professional contests very rarely do.
Most American sports fans would regard the method used for deciding international championship matches that end in a draw even after extra time - the penalty shoot-out - as absurdly arbitrary and no more fitting a way to determine a winner than flipping a coin.
There is a remedy for what is, in American eyes, football's gravest defect. The game's rules could be changed to make scoring much easier, which would mean that even if the match were drawn at the end of 90 minutes, one or the other team would almost certainly score in extra time.
Altering the rules to encourage scoring is an old and well established practice in American sport. In the course of the 20th century, baseball, American football and basketball each did so several times. The changes helped to sustain, and indeed to expand, the popularity of all three, since, as one astute student of baseball put it, 'offense [scoring] is making things happen. Defense is keeping things from happening. People would much rather watch things happen.'
To do the same thing for football might well require dramatic modifications in the way the game is now played - the abolition of the offside rule, for example, or awarding points that count in the final score for corner kicks, which, as in prize fights that do not end in knockouts, would give an advantage to the side that makes the most determined efforts to score.
Why has this not happened in the US? One possible reason is that such changes would make the American version of football substantially different from the game played everywhere else, and here Americans are reluctant to be out of step with the rest of the world. If that is the case, then the failure of the world's most popular sport to gain full acceptance in the world's most sports-obsessed country suggests that there are, after all, limits to American unilateralism.
· Michael Mandelbaum is one of America's leading authorities on US foreign policy and international relations and the author of The Ideas That Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century (Public Affairs)
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
They don't discuss the subtleties at all in football coverage. What they discuss is only the most minor aspects of strategy, and only the broadest discussion of individual action. When was the last time you heard a commentator talk about the importance of the plant foot in a block, squaring the shoulders for a hit, tapping a cornerback to get him to go the wrong direction in his coverage, how to get away with a pick? They aren't discussing these things, you know why? Too subtle. They spend like three minutes a game talking about using the run to setup the pass, maybe 1 minute a game talking about throwing bombs to stretch out the field and keep the defense from crowding the line, you'll get 2 minute on picking up the blitz but nothing on what they actually do when protecting the QB. The subtleties of the game are completely ignored, the audience doesn't want to hear it, and the commentators don't want to bore them.
A "good" commentator might tell you stuff about baseball decisions, but most don't. You get a little bit about pitch selection, but really not much. of course in the end there really isn't much subtlety in baseball to discuss, 90% of the players aren't doing anything 90% of the time, I guess the could discuss a player's sunflower eating technique.
And you just proved you don't know anything about soccer. There are structured plays, there are lots of structured plays, most of the time when a team advances the ball into the box it's a structured play. It actually requires a lot more strategy than football because the players need to figure out which plays they can get to from the position they're in and which one has the better chance of succeeding. That's EXACTLY what I'm talking about when I say Americans aren't interested in the subtlety of a game. You decided that since eveybody doesn't start from a predetermined position that means there are no structured plays in soccer, and you would be 100% wrong in that regard, but because the get to those plays subtly through motion you'll never notice it.
Good luck on the rollerball league.
Find a good italian bakery for the cannolis.
Watch soccer or hockey or lacrosse or what ever you would like--you can tell we're in the summer doldrums when ESPN features poker and bass fishing.
I can't wait for fall and the NFL, NBA, and the baseball playoffs and World Series along with college football and basketball to get going. Notice no mention of the olympics.
In the mean time we have an election campaign that may provide some excitement.
regards,
Cal
As for advertising...networks have put up the "transparent" onfield ads. Additionally you get to see a lot more of the ads around field so I would have to guess that those advertisers within camera-shot are having to pay more for their ads than those advertisers that are not in view of the tv cams.
There's also a lack of soccer specific stadiums...Stamford Bridge is fantastic....I haven't been to anything quite like it over here.
And by agreeing with Henry all you've proven is that you don't know anything about soccer or hockey. There are set plays in both, there are set plays every single time a team gets into offensive territory, there are set plays every single time a team gets into defensive territory. The lack of set plays you see is do to your own blindness.
In soccer each movement is part of a 1 on 11 battle where technique more than speed or strength determines the winner, the lack of stoppage of play between plays forces the players to know the game well enough to implement strategies, and forces the coaches to have taught the players well enough for them to implement the right strategy.
The teams do have a chance to communicate. If you sit near the field/ ice surface at a soccer or hockey game you'll fing that the communication is constant, they never stop yelling, banging, pointing and whistling to each other. they easily match the strategy of football because the strategy works in a fluid battle environment, they must adapt and overcome.
I doubt highly there are millions of decisions during a baseball game, hundreds is more like it. Hyperbole aside soccer and hockey players make decisions constantly, every single stride is a decision, every time a hockey player changes the position of his stick it's a decision, every time the coach puts fresh legs out on the ice (on average every 45 seconds when there isn't a stopage of play) there's 5 decisions. Oh and lets talk about changing players on the fly, no other sport does that, no other coach has to make decisions while the play is continuing. There are easily dozens of times more decisions during the course of a hockey or soccer game than during a baseball game, if only because there are so many more people MAKING decisions.
You're missing everything, you're missing all of the subtlety of the game, you're missing how the game is actually played, how it's coached, and how it works. You're missing why teams need two legitimate cneters of each handedness, you're missing the line changes, you're missing why dump ins happen, you're missing why players carry the puck across the blue line, you're missing how players get in position to make tip-ins, you're missing why a player passes to a certain player for the one-timer, you're missing why they pass back, you're missing why they go for a wrister instead of a slapshot and the unpredictable beauty of the backhander, you're missing why there are fights, the face wash, and grinding it out in the corner, and you missed why it's called Gretzky's office.
One might wonder why so much time is spent on writing (and posting) articles about this topic... Nothing better to do?
JP
No, those aren't structured plays because there is not a stoppage of play in between, there is no required formation as in football (at least five on a line, with ends covered, etc.). What you see in soccer is a bunch of tired guys running to approximate areas based primarily on their position, looking for likely passing lanes, etc. And no, football commentators do discuss bumping-off techniques for WRs, differences in blocking on running v. passing plays, and even differences within each, subtleties employed by safeties, etc. I don't know what football coverage you watch, but Fox announcers do a good job covering NFC games, and the ESPN/TNT crew on Sunday evenings is very thorough, as well.
Well, Owl, there you have it. You're missing everything! Case closed. Next up, pads or inserts...
Yes there are structured plays, because you don't need a stopage in play to get into a structured play. What you see in soccer is 11 guys that know the game knowing that when player X has the ball in that area and is being defended by players in certain relative positions to him then they need to go to this other area and be prepared to be passed to and pass the ball to a pre-determined area. These ARE set plays, they're no less set than how receivers vary their passing route for different coverage schemes by the defense, they're no less set than a hit and run in baseball or a sacrifice fly.
Not bumping off techniques, see you once again are bringing simple things that aren't part of the subtelty of the game and claiming that means they discuss subtle things. They don't, they never have, and the never will. The American football audience is not, for the most part, interested. And the ones that are interested will watch the mid-week shows on ESPN where they actually DO discuss these things. Fox announcers do a good job of covering the NFC, but that doesn't mean they discuss the subtle aspects of the game. And as for the ESPN sunday crew, they suck, Theisman is a homer for every QB in the league and the other color guy is just a moron incapable of forming a sentence without complaining about something, and usually he complains about things that aren't wrong. The play-by-play guy is good, they should give him some booth partners that actually earn their paycheck/
Owl_Eagle
”Guns Before Butter.”
Oh, and Jeremy Salm is a regular at our field too.
Tournament paintball is an adrenaline rush like no other.
There is a lot more strategy in a game of flow, because your strategy must deal with the fact that your players might not be starting from the spot you need them too. There's a lot more precision, for one thing every player needs to know the role of every section of ice in a set play because they might not be in their section when the set play begins, so if the rightwinger is sitting in the left defense spot when the play begins he needs to do the left defense duty.
I explained exactly why there is more strategy in a flow game, and I showed why the players need to be smarter to use the set plays. As long as you insist there aren't set plays you are really insisting nothing more than you don't know anything about the game. There are set plays every time. You have set plays when bringing the puck over the blue line on one side and set plays when doing it on the other and more for going up the middle, you have set plays for each face off location, you have set plays for when to make dump ins and how to deal with them. These are all set plays, they are no less designed than an RB off tackle slam, and they are no less practiced, actually they're probably practiced more because the players need to know when to run set play X without it being called in from the bench. Just like any other set play they need to know at this time I do this, unlike light strategy games like football though they need to spot when "this time" comes on their own, they don't get any help from the referees and TV time outs to know when the play starts.
Until you can understand that flow games have set plays you will never understand flow games. As long as you think it's impricise and random you will only show your ignorance in these discussions.
Here, to help you guys to stop embarassing yourselves by insisting there are no set plays in hockey:
http://www.jes-soft.com/hockey/
Nice markers.
I told myself when I first started playing a couple of years ago, I was going to play at least two seasons with the Tippman before I made the plunge on a electronic marker. It's about that time, and I've got my eye on the evil omen.
However, even though the tipmman is slow, I can hold my own with it, and get eliminated because of mistakes, not the marker.
My team hasn't yet competed in any national events, but I just got back from the Super7 in Denver. My son got to meet Lasoya, Rocky Knuth, Ryan Greenspan, Ryan Williams, Travis Lemanski, and a bunch of others.
Dang, you got fat city beat. ;P
Tournament paintball is an adrenaline rush like no other.
Yes it is. It took one time playing airball for me to forget all about woodsball.
It sure does. But that description really doesn't apply to soccer, since there are rarely more than one or two players on each team "running up and down the field" at any given time. The rest of them are pacing themselves -- jogging lightly or just walking around.
Hockey actually has far more strategy in it than most people realize. From a coach's standpoint, there is the constant challenge of setting up forward line combinations and defense pairs to match up against the opposing team's players. On the ice, the seemingly random, haphazard patterns of the game are far more "choreographed" than they seem. Every team goes out and uses standard, well-rehearsed plays for any number of situations (break-out passes, odd-man rushes, defensive play in the neutral zone, etc.).
Here's a good example . . .
When a defenseman gains possession of the puck behind his own net, watch how the other team reacts. Many teams will send one forward after him (a "forechecker"), while the other two forwards hang back in the offensive zone to guard against break-out passes. A forechecking forward who chases an opposing defenseman behind the net can pursue him from either direction, but a well-coached player will always try to pursue him in such a way that the defenseman is forced out from behind the net in the direction that requires him to carry the puck on his backhand (i.e., if he's right-handed, make him skate out to his goalie's left) -- because it's harded for him to make a long, accurate pass that way.
One of the most remarkable things about that game is that the outcome was decided almost as soon as the game started. The Devils eventually won, 3-0, but from the first few minutes of the game there was a clear indication that the Devils had a very subtle advantage over the Ducks -- and they spent the entire game working that advantage until it panned out. Because the Devils were the home team and had the last line change, they were able to exploit the one mismatch that worked in their favor: they had one big, physical line (rookie Mike Rupp centering Jamie Langenbrunner and Jeff Friesen) that could maintain possession of the puck in the offensive zone and overwhelm most of the Ducks' players.
The Devils used this mismatch to their advantage constantly during the game. The big forwards would gain possession along the boards, cycle the puck among themselves in the corners, and then pass the puck out to one of the defensemen on the point. The forwards would scramble to the front of the net to screen the opposing goalie and prepare for rebounds, and the defensemen would fire accurate shots in the direction of the net in an attempt to generate scoring chances off deflections or rebounds from the big forwards.
It ended up working to perfection -- Rupp scored the first goal, Friesen had the other two, and defenseman Scott Niedermayer (one of the best defensemen in the league at generating offensive chances for his teammates with those accurate shots/passes from the point) ended up with two assists on the night (and finished as the top scorer in the playoffs that year) on nearly identical plays from his right defensive position.
We are winning. The USA is currently ranked 7th in the world. In 10 years we will start winning World Cups so regularly that the rest of the world will want to play ping pong instead of soccer. Even so, I could care less about watching soccer. I might tune into a game to watch France get beat, but that is about it. I'll stick to watching football - a REAL sport (and no need to call it American football either).
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