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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.

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.

What you've said here is true about hockey, but I don't get that same impression about soccer. The problem with soccer is that a "flukey bounce" rarely results in a goal -- simply because the playing area is so large. In hockey, a flukey bounce will often result in a goal simply because 1) the game moves much faster, and 2) the playing surface is actually "smaller" than its measurements would dictate -- because players move much faster on skates than any athlete would move on feet.

Hockey is different than most other sports in that it is primarily a "transition" game, not a "possession" game. Football is purely a possession game, and basketball is nearly so. Soccer is more of a transition game than these two, but for the most part goals are scored as the result of methodical ball movement instead of rapid transition from defense to offense.

There's no doubt in my mind that hockey's the best sport around. In fact, I'm going out right now to play hockey on inline skates for a couple of hours. LOL.

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.
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didn't say it's beyond the American sportsfan's ability to fathom. I said it's more subtle than they want to watch.

More subtle than setting up a tailing changeup after coming hard inside?

More subtle than the applied leverage at the line of scrimmage that allows the RB to look like a star?

My point is, there are subtleties in all sports. So it is rather an empty argument to say that soccer is on some sort of higher aesthetic level.

Have you ever actually PLAYED basketball? One of my favorite moves, as I was a guard, was to see a pick being set for me, faking as if I was going to use it, then driving toward the defensive player's side of the screen. Why? Because 90 percent of the time the guy on D was expecting me to dribble TOWARD the screen, and move to get around it. I was pretty quick, so I always had an advantage because my man was basically giving me an open lane on the ball side where I could drive and pass off when the help came. This only worked because I had already used other screens earlier in the game. How is that any different than what you describe in soccer?