You have heard of a "pick" in basketball, yes?
Soccer is not shunned because it's beyond the American sportsfan to fathom, but because it's boring as hell for a spectator.
We Merkins crave two things... anticipation and scoring (we settle for fisticuffs in hockey).
Soccer provides N.O.T.A.
The pick has no similarities. In hockey and soccer you do thing like come across the line and look to your right for somebody to pass to not to actually pass to somebody but to program your opponent into thinking you'll be regularly looking pass when you hit that part of the playing surface.
I didn't say it's beyond the American sportsfan's ability to fathom. I said it's more subtle than they want to watch. The American sports fan can understand the play action pass and when to do it (often times it seems the American sportsfan knows when to play action better than the NFL coaches do), they can understand soccer and hockey... but first you have to want to. The American sportsfan just doesn't want to, which is fine, not insulting anybody, just telling it how it is.
There's more anticipation in soccer and hockey than in any other sport. You never know when a flukey bounce will result in a goal, there literally is never one single minute of play when it's not possible for one team to score, they are total anticipation.
I have. What is it?
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