wow, toolbox thread here!
soccer players aren't wimps, they pretend to be hurt all the time in order to get the call - it may be lame and it may be p@ssy, but its NOT because they actually do get hurt all those times. jeese man, if you still think soccer is a "lite" sport after watching any of the cup games this year, then you are either clueless or exhibiting a clear bias that is distorting your perception of reality akin to the kind that allows 89# bag-of-bones women with eating disorders to look in the mirror and still see someone fat and bulging!
As for guys just standing around, this is even more on crack: soccer players are among the best conditioned athletes in the world as they normally play the entire 90 minute game w/ little to no breaks - which explains why most of them are small and lean. There was a study done on a female soccer player at NC whose heart-rate never dropped below 150 or 160 during the entire 90 min match. Crazy. More hard running goes on in a world level soccer match than some other sports see in an entire season.
understanding the rules does not mean you understand the game.
Carbonyl - just stop. stop. stop talking. reason is a sharp tool and novices tend to cut themselves. your ignorant nationalistic narcissism and your jeuvenile discourse is giving me a headache.
Football is a great game - I played it and I love it. Same with soccer. Only some kind of shortsighted, imbecile child thinks for some reason that there needs to be a rivalry between these sports, as they are so entirely different.
Indeed "better athletes" is so vauge as to be nearly meaningless.
Are pro football players typcially stronger than pro soccer players? Sure!
Are Soccer players almost universally better conditioned? Absolutely!
Are soccer players typically faster? Generally yes (consider that MOST football players don't have to run much and are big and heavy!).
What critera for "athleticism" will you weight more than the others? I'm certainly stronger and "faster"(sprinter) than many world class distance runners, does that mean I'm a better athlete?
Don't be a tool. We don't dominate at Basketball b/c Amercians are somehow inherently "more athletic" than people from other countries - if that were true we would completely mop up in T/F. In sport, like anything else, there is an advantage to institutional heritage. We've played basketball longer and with more passion than the rest of the world, thus we have an edge. Canada/Soviet Block have played hockey longer and w/ more devotion than we have, thus they have an edge. Most of the rest of the world has played soccer longer and with more dedication than we have, thus they tend to kick our @ss. <shrug>
What do you really expect? We won't really be a serious contender in soccer until it becomes more engrained into our sports landscape and until more people really devote themselves to it. Not because other countries are inherently better than us, but simply because they have more invested in it than we do.
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