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Author: bert.kassies
Date: 04-06-2006, 14:09
| This foxsports article tries to explain the game of football to the average US citizen. The best part:
" Soccer is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, with a strict internal sense of conduct and fairness. Whereas in American sports, an injury or a mishap is usually an invitation to seek an advantage, that is not always the case in the sport of soccer.
A case in point: When a player goes down injured, you will see teams put the ball out of bounds so that player can receive medical attention. If a team is so bold as to ignore this unofficial code, you will hear loud boos and protests not just from the opposition, but from the whole stadium as well. It is considered very poor sportsmanship, and you are likely to see some retaliation (in the form of a well-placed elbow or cleat) as well.
The same view informs the oft-confusing rule called "offside." Strictly put, a player cannot receive the ball unless he has two defenders between him and the goal, one of which may be a goalkeeper. Think of it this way: It is considered unsporting to stand down at one end of the field and just wait for the ball to be lobbed to you to shoot on goal. So, it's not legal in the game. The guys with big flags on the sidelines (the linesmen or "assistant refs") make sure a forward isn't cheating, and when they put the flags up, it means the play is dead. You will hear a great deal of heated argument over this: as players have become faster, consensus is that linesmen have become poorer at discerning if a forward is actually off-side. However, because a referee is not supposed to influence a game, doubt always goes to the defense, even though it probably shouldn't (and officially doesn't).
Penalty kicks and free-kicks are easy: Strictly speaking, yes, every "free kick" is a penalty for a foul. But in the game of soccer, a "penalty kick" is a specific type of attempt given when a player is fouled inside the big rectangle that borders the goal. That's called the "penalty area," and should a forward (or anyone else) be fouled there, in the act of trying to score, the referee will clear the entire box of people, and allow that forward to take a shot one-on-one against the keeper from 12 yards out. Penalty kicks — unlike penalty shots in hockey — are almost impossible to stop; when they are missed it is almost invariably the shooter's fault.
The rest is easy: Two teams of 11 guys, with a ball and a goal at each end. Whichever team scores the most goals wins." |
Author: Todor
Date: 05-06-2006, 09:08
Edited by: Todor at: 05-06-2006, 13:59 | Briiliant description of the soccer If I were an average American , I'd be left with the impression that the two main objectives of soccer are to clear the ball out of bounds when a player is injured and to cheat the linesmen by standing in off-side position . All the rest is simple . Two teams of eleven players . But to dissipate all the confusion the author should have added that unlike basketball the players are not allowed to handle the ball as it is consider highly unsportsmanlike and also unlike baseball the players are not allowed to use bats to hit the ball. |
Author: cska
Date: 05-06-2006, 10:59
| Funny indeed... I wonder how would look to Europeans a brief description of what the Americans call football... )) By the way, this simplicity very well corresponds to the average intelligence and the minimum mental efforts of Americans when facing something unfamiliar and unpopular with them... |
Author: pla
Date: 05-06-2006, 12:34
| lol
it's right american football is a pacific and non-violent sport... |
Author: panda
Date: 05-06-2006, 12:41
| The big rectangle??
great stuff. imagine the players on the park in training.
Coach: Put the ball inside the big rectangle! |
Author: spoonman
Date: 05-06-2006, 12:44
| I think this part of the article is even better:
First off, don't feel stupid: Americans struggle with the game of soccer not because it involves people from other countries, but because the whole concept of soccer is foreign to how we consume sports.
In America, sports are entertainment - you go to Wrigley or the United Center for a night out, to forget your troubles or to spend time with your family.
Around the rest of the world, however, soccer is a communal activity that has deep social implications and obligations. Most of us are perplexed by the violence and threatening, charged atmosphere that surrounds many big soccer matches because the USA has very few cathartic, communal sporting events like it.
Not even the NCAA Final Four - which transfixes offices across America because of the popularity of betting pools on brackets - comes close to the energy experienced at an important soccer match.
This is neither good nor bad; just different (as Woody Paige notes: "In England most people don't follow baseball either.").
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