Forbidden Donut

i didn't get to watch either game as i was working but i have to agree about the refs in this tournament.

some of the worst foul calling i've ever seen. its seems like from game to game they are either too quick to call things or miss everything.

but all and all its been great to watch.

*somebody* got rich last night.

As high as 100 - 1 against.

Nothing compares to the atmosphere of an international soccer event. Having lived in Ireland when i was younger i got to see the Irish national team play twice. The noise, passion, and experience all exceed anything i've seen in the US's popular sports.

Aside from that, what the US did was pretty impressive. However, they won't beat Spain.

Not with that atti......ah you're right..

As happy as I am to see a footy topic it pains me to see the word soccer!

xD

If anyone watched the champions league Chelsea semi final there was some of the most disgusting refereeing I've ever seen.

Can't wait for the world up, best fucking event in the world, really feel for you guys not having footy as your number one sport, with the numbers you have in your country you should be such a better side then you are.

Watching an international game over here in a pub is such a fantastic experience, let alone going to an actual game. Shame we have some hooliganism associated with it over here however. Probably one of the main reasons we struggle to ever get to host it, as we certainly have plenty of fantastic football grounds for it.

Also my German best friend said Germany hosting the competition was one of the most awesome experiences for her, especially the story of the German team in that world cup. I would literally jizz my pants if we were to host the competiton and it's the only way we'd ever win it again.

I don't really care whether it is called "soccer" or "football," but can we at least all agree that "footy" is the gayest possible name you could assign to a sport?

One of those words that only reeks of faggotry when said with an American accent I'm afraid.

I think the British have just grown used to having a constant dick in their ass.

footy = all codes, making it even less useful. I use it to refer to Aussie Rules all the time though /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

that made me lol

<---- egyptian

SO PISSED.

worst game they played in 20 years or so

But not yet used to the ones Americans have in their mouths.

Thats because in the USA we believe the sport football should be a man's sport, so we renamed the sport formerly known as football to soccer and created a new sport to our manly likeness and named it football.

World Cup Soccer is great.

I suspect it wouldn't be nearly as great if it were held every year... somehow... It's like the olympics. I wouldn't watch a guy swim for hours at a time if it were common.

That said, American Football is a better sport, and the world will be poorer for not realizing it.

Touche, sir. Touche.

American football is one of the shittiest "sports" I have ever had the displeasure of spectating.

3 fucking hours of my life I will never get back.

I enjoyed it initially, only to realise that every time they stopped to dick around (which was every ten seconds), the actual fucking clock stopped as well.

How the shit is that even sport?

Guys, exert yourself for ten fucking seconds then take a minute or two break. Good game. Furthermore, lets cover ourselves in padding rather then man up and take the hits. American football is the bastard offspring of Rugby, slowed down and weakened to give spectators more time to sit around and drink beer whilst watching adverts rather then the game itself.

Also, it really fails to lay claim to being a true sport when you have big fat guys calling themselves athletes. That starts to drags it down to the same sporting level as Bowling or Nascar. Only in America could that be considered a sport. There certainly are sports where being bigger can have its advantages, but being bigger and fucking overweight?

Jog on!

It literally boggles my mind how anyone can enjoy it as a sport. I certainly don't know the finer points of the game but even if I did it wouldn't make sitting on my arse waiting for play to resume any more interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGLZqDXau98

Basketball > every other sport

Why do sports make people, who are otherwise fairly intelligent, absolutely stupid?

It's cool that you don't enjoy American football. It's also cool that you enjoy everywhere-else football. But leave it at that. I will assume the rest of what you said was simply for the sake of stoking the flames because I find it hard to believe that you are actually that retarded.

The people that play American football are incredibly fit. It is true that there are some positions that require people to be huge. What you fail to point out is that if someone attempted to play their position without being that large, they would die. If you took the best soccer player on the planet and had him play center on an American football field, he would be killed. Literally dead, as in never-to-return-again.

Now, I'm not arrogant or stupid enough to say that the soccer player is somehow less of an athlete because he couldn't possibly compete in that situation -- it is entirely different than what the soccer player is used to/good at/built for. In this particular situation, mass is a requirement. That being said, I would like to see any soccer player sprint 100 yards at 300+ pounds after two hours of running at full speed head first into 300 pounds with the exact opposite momentum.

Football and rugby are different sports played by different people in different ways. There is tackling, there are teams, and there is a ball, but the similarities quickly dissipate any further than that. You assuming that football is simply a watered-down copy of rubgy is a clear indication to me (someone who doesn't even pay that much attention to sports in the first place) that you are purposely spouting stupid nonsense or actually don't really understand either or both of the two. You might as well say soccer and lacrosse are the same sport -- they both have nets and are played on the grass!

Please.

You're right, most of what I said was to pander the flames, but I stand by (if to a modified extent), that american football is a watered down version of Rugby.

If watered down is too offensive a term (as it could imply inferiority) then consider it an Americanised version of Rugby. Everything good it has going for it isn't allowed to flourish due to a huge stalling process, less true physicality, needless showboating and general "American-ness" for lack of a better term.


While of course the rules vary to a huge extent, the actual playing of the game is very similar, mainly in the physical approach to a ball game. To say it only has a ball, teams and tackling in common is somewhat short sighted. When comparing major sports American football and Rugby are easily two of the most comparable ones out there.

Imma have to agree with court here and say you are just spouting this for the sake of argument.

American Football is similar to rugby in several ways but really they are totally different games. I don't know all the rules of rugby, but I find it entertaining to watch, and if I actually put some time into learning the rules and maybe playing I am sure I would enjoy the sport, but even with my limited knowledge I can see that you can't really compare the two.

You try running into a man the size of a bus every 20 seconds and tell me how you feel at the end of the day. Try sprinting as fast as you can to catch a ball when you quite possibly will be nailed once you catch it. Yeah, soccer..oh i am sorry..football has a lot of running and there is no real stopping of the plays like in American Football, but its not like the players are always "in the play". Sure they sprint a lot and the endurance to play world cup soccer blows my mind, but its not like every player is running to one side of the field and back every 10 seconds.

Also, I think you are overlooking what is added to the play of American Football because of the stopping of the time (which is not true..only when you go out of bounds or drop a pass). Strategy is a huge part of American Football, pretty much every single time hands touch the ball....not just by a player calling a play or trying to make it up on the go.


Of course your fat argument is a total joke....what about sumo /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

Lastly, its your kind of attitude towards American Football that makes it hard for America to like soccer. It's like a jerk reaction to the unknown and different forms of manliness.

Sorry for the double post but....

"True Physicality"...I don't even know what the means in your context.
Its an American sport..heck yeah it should have American-ness...but why does that make it worse. You basically just said that adding American-ness to things makes them worse.

Needless showboating? Everytime there is a fricken goal in soccer the whole team rushes a dude and they celebrate for an hour. I am totally cool with this, but how is doing a little dance at the end a touchdown worse than that? I've never seen a football player take off his shirt in a fit of joy(well...maybe cause that would be hard to do..rahter time consuming).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHCXNt4P8Xg

Weak?

True physicality in my mind does not involve protective equipment. Granted it may take a lot of strength and balls to run into someone the size of a bus, but doing so when wearing a helmet and padding is a hell of a lot easier then doing it without.

That's a point in favour of rugby in my mind. There are plenty of hench guys that do just that in a game and do it without any protective gear. Furthermore they don't do it for only ten seconds before taking a break and then doing it again. Stamina is a huge key asset in any sport to make it enthralling.

How many american football players would be able to do what they do for 80 minutes straight? Yes, you can point out to me that games will go into three hours of length, but how much of that time is actual play? 45 minutes if I remember correctly. 45 minutes of play is a hell of a lot easier when it's spaced out over 3 hours.

Granted, as I admitted above, the fat point was obviously over exaggerated, but due to the stop and start style of American football and the switch out of offense and defense you can afford to have players become the size they are in the first place. Because they are not required to maintain such a high performance for an extended period of time, without only one break, they can become that much bigger.

I personally respect a hench fucking dude who will wreck the crap out of you non stop, for 80 minutes, without padding and then happily shake your hand at the end, more then I would a slightly bigger dude who won't nearly be able to keep up with that. I use the term true physiciality in a comparison of american football and rugby, not as a comment of the sport in general.

You may be right in the tactics department, I wouldn't have much of a clue about the tactics employed in american football, but a game doesn't need to stop every ten seconds to make tactics more viable or enjoyable to see in action.

With regards to the showboating, I certainly didn't claim that 'soccer' was devoid of that bullshit, it isn't, but it's the pre game hype that pisses me off. Maybe that is more of a cultural thing, but over here if a 'soccer' player were to talk pre game about how he is going to trample his opposition, he is a twat. Simple as.
That's what I mean by American-ness. It's that self rightous attitude that just seems to be there for no apparent reason. I get it's part of your culture, so maybe it's something that makes it more enjoyable for you, but for me it just doesn't work.


------ edit -----

I didn't say it was weak Jedd, I said it was weakened in comparison to Rugby.

Clicky Click

You ... have no understanding of the rules and format of American football... do you?

"true physicality?" "showboating?" "stalling?"

First of all, you're not aware that professional rugby players are neither faster nor stronger than professional AF players.
Secondly, that there really isn't all that much showboating during a game of AF, compared to say, soccer. In fact there are rules against it.
Thirdly, if you think they are stalling gameplay, you clearly have no comprehension of the feats these guys perform for each and every play. They have 40 seconds to rest, come up with a plan, set up for the next play (arrange 11 guys), and react to the defensive setup. That's really not a lot of time. And it's not necessary. The offense can hurry that up if they like.

If you can't wait 30 seconds and watch two teams do some planning, then you're probably a big impatient gorilla. I'd argue that it's a much more intellectual sport than rugby, so that time is necessary to evaluate your options. Without that "stalling" it would inevitably turn into 11 men on one side of the ball pushing on 11 men on the other side of the ball with the bigger team winning. But then it would be called Rugby. /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

clicky clicky here too.

1. football has pads, this is wussy.
2. football doesn't go continually for the duration of the game, this too is wussy.

This man broke another man's spine. Doing his job. Without violating the rules. While they were "covering themselves in padding."

He's 1.93 m and 123 kg, and he can probably outrun damn near any rugby player in the world down the length of a football field, though I'll concede that rugby and soccer players have more running stamina. But the man isn't even considered 'fast' in the sport. 4.63 s 40 yd dash, when there are people who can do it in < 4 seconds out there.

The ability of these players to take 272 lbs of muscle and accelerate to their max speed in < 1 second is pretty much unparalleled in sports. Then they do that. Over and over and over again. And you're claiming they don't have stamina because they wait 30 seconds between plays. Plays in which they exert absolutely ludicrous amounts of energy.

Thanks for the vid. I love seeing people get hit.

The last man to play a full game of football: Chuck Bednarik (He played two of the toughest positions on the field for his day, Center and Linebacker). BTW, he calls all the modern players "glamor boys" for not playing "iron man" football. You aren't alone in that complaint department.

It isn't that there aren't players who could play every minute of every game (McNabb couldn't, Brian Dawkins probably could). The reason they stopped having players play both ways (offense and defense) is because they were getting hurt. They are paying these guys a ton of money and want every dollar paid to count.

Oddly enough, that is the same reason they were forced to start wearing pads.

NFL players making contact:
This one is actually college
Collection (includes Earl Campbell, Dick Butkus and Jack Lambert)
I can't find the hit that ended Irvin's career.

You find me someone who runs the 40 in less than 4 seconds and I find you someone who doesn't actually exist.

Maybe just over 40? I thought Darrel Green got just under 4 sec for the Redskins. But the combine (and the pursuant combine history lesson) has been over for a while.

Bo Jackson got like a 4.10 or some ridiculous shit.

And then there're just the fast mo'fo's out there like Devin Hester, Deangelo Hall, Herschel Walker, Tedd Ginn...

But yeah, I suppose I could be mistaken about which side of the 4 they fall on. All the same, what do you think a rugby players 40 time would look like? Or a soccer player? Or a baseball player? Hell, an olympic sprinter wouldn't do *much* better.

/edit: research indicates that Darrel Green had an "unofficial" time of 3.89. My bad.

Here's highlight footage of the man whose back was broken. So there's no confusing him for being a bitch or anything.

In response to the college footage, here's my favorite high school player. Sam McGuffie! He's since gone on to Michigan State and was transferred to Rice, I think?

Darrel Green is not a real person.

Also, Devin Hester runs a 0 second 40 yard dash because he jukes the electronics out of the timers.

Well, of course he has no *official* 40 time, for this reason. But his unofficial times were something like 4.41 I think. Still god damned fast.

Shit... BJ Raji, that fat lineman from this years draft ran a 5 something and was damn near the slowest guy. They had one of the announcers run the 40 and he did it in a little over 7 seconds. And he was 'fit'. These guys are all retarded fast.

bringing this thread back on track

USA USA USA

i have to admit i thought it would take a lot to get it done but i had some faith. great game.

I'm rather shocked atm.

Just got out of work and just watched the highlights... unbelievable. Wish I had been able to watch the entire game.

Hey man, no fair. I work hard for my threadjacks.

/I'm quite shocked by the outcome of the game in question.

I only got to watch the first half of the game basically, and it is awesome that they were able to pull it off. They really did try their best, and you can obviously see the skill they were up against. Spain actually controlled the ball and tried to set up attacks, USA pretty much defeneded and went for quick long ball attacks.

If they can beat Spain, they can beat Brazil. If they win it would be an amazing run, and I believe the first FIFA cup USA has ever won...I guess it has to be since its the first final they've been to.