Guest Post: 7 Reasons That American Football is Better Than Soccer
It’s the first weekend of the Six Nations, so who better to hand the 7 Reasons sofa to than blogger, occasional 7 Reasons guest poster and sports nut, Richard O’Hagan. And what more appropriate subject for him to write about than…oh…the Super Bowl? Which is also happening this weekend. Apparently.
It’s Super Bowl weekend. What do you mean you hadn’t noticed? How could you not notice? It’s the biggest single sporting event in the world. No other event makes an entire country grind to a halt like the first Sunday in February does in America. You want to know how special it is? It’s one of only three days in the year when Americans actually manage to eat MORE than usual – no matter how impossible that might be to imagine.
Yes, all over America, football fans will be doing their best Mr Creosote impressions, barbecuing as if their very lives depended upon it and convincing themselves that they have room for just one more giant pretzel, before settling down in front of the television for the sporting event of the year. Meanwhile, people like me attempt to stay awake until stupid o’clock in the morning, because despite all of the above the Yanks haven’t yet worked out that there are people elsewhere in the world who like to watch the game, too, so they start the game at somewhere near midnight UK time.
And why do I put myself through this every year? Simple. American Football knocks just about every winter game into, if not a cocked hat, then a football helmet. And that particularly includes what Americans call soccer, because:
1. Fat People Can Play This Game, Too. Come on, when was the last time you saw a fat guy playing what, to avoid confusion, we shall also call ‘soccer’? A really fat person, the sort of guy who would make the 1980s Jan Molby look anorexic. I’ll tell you. Never. Even William ‘Fatty’ Foulkes, the fattest man ever to play professional football, was only average size for an American footballer. It’s an all-inclusive sport, you see, and for some positions on the field being 300lb-plus is a minimum requirement. And it is not just being over 300lbs that counts, because every one of those guys can run 40 yards in less than 6 seconds, and most of them do it in close to 5. Go and try that for yourself. Most of you won’t even come close.
2. And The Players Are Educated, Too. There’s one unbreakable rule in American Football, and that’s the one that says that you can’t play it professionally unless you have been to university for at least three years. Proper university. No going to the Mail Order University of Chipping Sodbury. And no studying nonsense degrees such as ‘The History of Popular Music Since the Spice Girls’. There are guys playing football with degrees from Harvard, from Yale and all of the other elite US universities. Compare that to a sport where Frank Lampard is regarded as educated because he has more than one GCSE.
3. Cheerleaders. Yes, I know that some soccer clubs have tried this, but frankly they are rubbish and wouldn’t even make a high school cheerleading team in the States. Football teams have proper cheerleaders, most of whom have also gone to university to train as cheerleaders. When it comes to grinning inanely, clenching your butt cheeks and waving pom-poms, you have to say that football is the best.
4. Lingerie. Sepp Blatter famously wanted female soccer players to wear skimpier kits. Americans have already embraced that idea and the women’s football is played indoors in little more than lingerie and protective pads. Google ‘Lingerie League’ and you’ll see what I mean. You might think it wrong and you might think it demeaning, but it gets a heck of a lot more television than the women’s premier league does and pays better, too.
5. Adverts. One of the biggest whinges about Football is the number of ad breaks, but in fact you hardly notice them (and see reason number six anyway). But look at the players’ kit. Notice anything? Takes you back, doesn’t it? Back to the era before every soccer team sullied their shirts with advertising. Every kit is pure and unadulterated and you can wear your team’s shirt without in some way providing your own endorsement for some evil corporate monolith and their tax-dodgy, peasant-exploiting ways.
6. Beer. You can drink alcohol at football matches. In most stadia they even bring it to your seat. You can’t do that at a soccer match. And even if you don’t have in-seat service you still need something to do during the ad breaks, and what better to do than getting another beer?
7. Hardness. Every time I see a soccer player lying sobbing on the pitch because an opponent breathed on him, I reach for the sick bag. You want to see proper hard men, watch the US game. And do it without whinging about the helmets and padding, because that just proves that you don’t know why they are worn (the explanation is too long for here). Instead, think of someone like kicker Nate Kaeding, who in 2008 played three games without realising he had a broken leg. That’s ‘leg’, not ‘fingernail’, soccer fan.
So go on, give the game a try. Take Monday off work, stock up on pretzels, doughnuts and tasteless beer, and settle down for some American action. It’s better than football.
Funny stuff – agreed for the most part, just not #2. Don’t know where you got that idea, must be that most players go through the college draft system, but it’s not a requirement. One thing both games have and it’s greed resulting in something else the NFL has over soccer, labour disputes! http://theendisalwaysnear.blogspot.com/2011/01/xlv.html
The irony of this blog post is that almost everything you’ve listed is a reason why football (i’m not calling it soccer because we invented the game) is better than Amercian football.
Football is simple, pure and accessible, American football is contrived, relatively unskilled and overly complex.
1. Fat people can play
I don’t want to watch fat people play. I want to watch finely tuned athletes at the top of their game that have worked hard to become hyper fit. Besides, if you want to watch fat guys playing football just turn up to any Sunday league match across Britain.
2. The players are educated too
What sort of ridiculous system would deprive naturally talented and gifted individuals the chance to fulfil their potential as world class athletes based on a lack of education? What if you can’t afford to go to Harvard or Yale? Sport shouldn’t be limited to the priviledged, it should be available to all and be based on merit, not a degree.
3. Cheerleaders
Can’t argue with that
4. Nobody likes/watches women’s football in England.
5. I would rather have a football kit literally made of adverts rather than having to sit through the amount of crap you get in an American Football match. I want to watch football, not be marketed to.
6. I enjoy going to football games and not having to listen to some pissed-up moron incoherantly burbling. Banning alcohol from football was one of the best things to happen. Perhaps if half the American Football fans weren’t tanked up they’d actually realise what they were watching was horrendous.
7. Can’t argue with that.
So in summary, football is without doubt a better game and the reason why it is the most popular sport in the world (American Football doesn’t even reach the top ten). Stats don’t lie.
This is complete shit!
1. FAT PEOPLE? Fat people aren’t banned from playing ‘Soccer’, they just can’t run as fast as thin people. The only reason fat people are included in American Football is because its harder to knock them over.
2. Many ‘Soccer’ players are highly educated;
– Barry Horne has a first-class university degree in chemistry from the University of Liverpool.
– Steve Coppell gained a degree in economic history from the University of Liverpool.
– Steve Palmer gained a degree in software engineering from Cambridge University.
– David Wetherall gained a first-class honours degree in Chemistry from Sheffield University.
– Iain Dowie graduated with a Master’s degree in engineering from Southampton University.
– Shaka Hislop graduated with an honours degree in mechanical engineering from Howard University in Washington DC and was an intern at NASA.
– Steve Heighwey got a degree in economics from Warwick University.
– Arjan de Zeeuw has a degree in medical science and plans to go into sports medicine after his football career is over.
There are many many more. So believing that ‘Soccer’ player are generally uneducated is very naive.
3. Cheerleaders. Well, we go to ‘Soccer’ games to watch the game. And in my opinion, Cheerleaders were only created to entertain the crowds at American Football games during the lengthy and frequent breaks in play.
Quite simply, there are no Cheerleaders at ‘Soccer’ games because there is no need or time for them.
4. Lingerie. Well, outside of America, women are generally respected and treated as people, not sexual objects. For every sport that we have here in Britain, there is also a female alternative, and it is played with all the professionalism as the male version.
5. Adverts. How you claim the adverts are hardly noticeable is beyond me. They are played every couple of minutes. And are usually for yet another American Pick-up truck.
In ‘Soccer, the only adverts are for a few minutes at half time. And you hardly ever watch them anyway, because at half time, you go to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee or get another beer and return to watch the analysis of the first half.
6. Beer. If you go to watch a ‘Soccer’ game, you will only be in the stadium for a maximum of 2 hours. I can’t speak for Americans, but although us British are renowned for our ability to drink, we also have the ability to go without a pint for a couple of hours.
On a match day, fans will often pack out the pubs and bars around the stadium before and after the game.
7. Hardness. Although it angers me how easily our ‘Soccer’ players go to ground, you are totally wrong as to the reason behind this.
You claim it is because ‘Soccer’ players are not ‘Hard’. I would disagree. The reason they go to ground so easily is because they are trying to gain an advantage for their team, either through a simple free kick, or by having their opponent disciplined or possibly even sent off.
If you had even the slightest understanding of the rules of ‘Soccer’, then you’d be able to see that quite easily.
Finally. Why are you even comparing ‘Soccer’ to American Football? The games are nothing at all like each other.
A more relevant comparison would have been American Football and Rugby League.
1. Rugby players are huge, but never fat.
2. Most Rugby players are very highly educated.
3. Cheerleading is emerging throughout the world of Rugby right now.
4. In Britain, women are still respected in the world of Rugby.
5. Advertising is still minimal in the world of Rugby.
6. Beer? Pretty much the same situation as ‘Soccer’.
7. Hardness? Well, Rugby League is considered the toughest sport in the world. They hit hard, not as hard as American football, but the only protection Rugby players wear is a gumshield, and that’s it. So when compared, American Football players look like they’re scared of getting hurt.