Compare it to basketball
1-A 90 minute football match is over in two hours with the half time.
Basketball while shorter takes longer in real time.
2-While supposedly basketball has the epitome of athletes they seem to need to be constantly substituted and require time outs.
While those boring footballers go for 45 minute halves – with some injury time without a nice rest. There are only three – too many in my opinion – substitutions and coaches actually coach without having to stop the match.
3-It seems that the game must be pretty easy as the score is so high – it seems more often than not a set play ends in success.
4-Fearing failure it seems that an entire season is played to eliminate less than half the teams.
5- a point in basketball is like a lira in pre E.U Italy, pretty useless. In fact you cannot get a point in basketball.
Football – “American”
1- An advert for overeating at McDonald’s. 300 plus pound, men who are so winded they have to stop every play and rest for 45 seconds. Where players cannot problem solve on the run but have to stop and rethink what they are doing. Here an hour game takes three. Even Canadian football only allow 35 seconds between plays. Rugby where players are less transfat blimps have to go 45 minutes without a rest.
2- These masters of athleticism need about 40 people for a game that allows only 11 on the field at a time, they can substitute at any time. They are so speicalised that they cannot multitask. Association football allow less than half of that on the bench.
3- With all of this they still need time outs.
4- There is a chance in five to win your division and even then the second best team is allowed to play for the championship.
5- Scoring is so easy that one can get three points for kicking a ball between uprights from 50 yards away.
Baseball
1- Selig – nuff said
All these sports reward mediocrity. They are for people who have problems paying attention. But then again this is a land there are graduation ceremonies for kindergarten, where one gets awards for showing up. In my limited knowledge of the world, where there is an art school where one gets credit for showing up to 12 of 15 classes, where being productive is making a print once a year and expecting tenure, where working three days a week for 30 weeks a year is so taxing that people who have been teaching all of seven years, have to go half time for fear of burn out, where the logic of the powers that be is that they can only raise money when not in debt not to get out of it i.e. when it is easy to raise money, and keeps the position, how can one appreciate a match in which plays are executed beautifully but still result in failure (no goal), where one has to concentrate for an extended period.
How can they relate to a sport where a league - say the English Premiership - has 30 odd teams and only one wins the divvy that some/most teams are out of the running after the first couple of months?
What would Cubby fans do if they knew that their team could be relegated to the minors for their quality play?
No no it is much better to keep them entertained without having them think.
And of course supposedly the U.S. can beat the world at everything else – well except baseball oh and basketball, and no one plays American football.
1 comment:
Despite its undeniable link to commerce and profit, I love my “bread and circuses”—organized sports. Unlike the ancient Romans, however, I don’t care to watch anybody get killed; but the bashing of bodies in pursuit of winning leaves me very nearly always wanting more.
During the Italy v. France World Cup soccer match this past Sunday, I was as surprised as anyone when in the 110th minute of Zidane’s last match—his farewell game—Zadine bashed his shaven head into Materazzi’s chest.
At first, I was both fascinated by the drama and physicality of the confrontation and aghast at the lack of professionalism and good sportsmanship exhibited by Zadine. Then I used my now-educated brain and thought of the act in a deeper connotation: Hey, here was a Frenchman with some chutzpa! When’s the last time we saw that—like, since Napoleon? (Not that Napoleon was right either, but he did have more than his share of chutzpa.) Right or wrong, red card or not, perhaps even STUPID and MORONIC, it was about time for a Frenchman to show a little unrestrained moxie!
Yes, non-American football does take a greater share of skill, which is undoubtedly why we Americans are not good at it at all. Nonetheless, I still fall victim to my less-evolved past as a species and crave my bread and circuses in which bodies bash against one another, men use clubs to smash balls, and where, when certain men score, it can mean as many as six points or as little as one.
Despite the questionable nature of Zadine's actions, I nevertheless applaud his passion, his drive, and his unhesitating willingness to take action. Oh, that it were always and only confined to sports!
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