Re. soccer: very perceptive, totally valid, no arguments.
Re. corn on the cob: WTF???? Grilled corn on the cob may be a mess to eat and have no nutritional value, but it's DELICIOUS. If you're going to claim it's "objectively terrible" and everyone just pretends to like it (I'm not posing! I get no social clout from eating it!) at least show the receipts in a footnote or something. Jesus.
IMO, sport in and of itself is kind of boring to watch. All sports. Like I can admire the skill of players, particularly in sports I have played. But a great performance that 100 people or even 30,000 disinterested people watch isn't that interesting or exciting. What makes it fun is the stakes and investment people have in the outcomes, the soap opera. That is why soccer is the best, because this soap opera is the best.
I think that the lack of scoring is actually one of the things that makes the sport great and exciting. Getting a goal is so meaningful, because it can win you a game on its own.
Another thing is that at least outside of a few places (USA and Mexico), all leagues have promotion and relegation, which means there are large stakes for most teams all season. Not relevant for the international game, which imo is worse to watch for a variety of reasons. In the US, a large portion of the season is spent playing meaningless games. In the EPL, every game is hard and almost every game matters for something. The financial penalty for relegation is really, really big.
I’m only a casual fan and will likely never be more because of penalty kicks. The idea that a game with such low scores can be so heavily influenced by a routine and subjective flow-of-the game decision is too much for me. A penalty in the box should be a one-on-one+goalie or something closer to the in-game play.
this is actually a really good point and my number biggest problem with the sport. Penalties currently have an 80% chance of being scored. So often you are awarding close to an automatic goal for infractions that don't prevent a good chance to score.
The counter argument is that it helps goal-scoring in general by making defenders more cautious and less bold in their own box, because committing a foul has such a negative outcome.
Also, a bit dumb, but the decision to award penalties (or not) is great for arguing/soap opera.
Every serious sport fan on the planet: “This sport that I understand and grew up with and am emotionally connected too is great, but that other sport that I don’t understand as well and don’t have an emotional connection to is boring and not as good as my favorite sport.”
I’m sorry but people are crazy for soccer all around this globe, in so many places, so many cultures and, notably, in places where it goes head to head against other sports. Soccer is more popular than hockey in Scandinavia, it’s more popular than basketball in Serbia, and by some measures more popular than baseball in the US. That’s not a coincidence. This is powerful evidence that people just love the game.
But it literally doesn't apply to me, personally; I grew up on American football but came to believe rugby is a much better game, precisely because it's less boring.
I think people like particular sports for cultural reasons, not some objective measure of boredom. That lots of people love soccer and baseball and few love hockey and rugby doesn't mean the former are less objectively boring.
I agree with pretty much everything you say about the game of soccer. But I also can't deal with what you love about the atmosphere of the sport in person. If I had stood next to the guy blowing the horn and jumping up and down the whole game I'd have left after 5 minutes.
Soccer is the chess of sports and chess is the soccer of board games. Fairly simple, very accessible, a few bizarre wrinkles people struggle to learn. And we've put enough effort into them that they've been elevated into the world's greatest, whether or not they started that way.
I disagree. American football is the chess of sports, both in format players, and similes. For one they both have turn taking, and attacking and defensive strategies that occur in sequence rather than continuity, like basketball or soccer . Second they are both modeled in war in that they have a strategy of conquering more important pieces (eg a qb sack) and gaining territory. The king/quarterback are protected by pawns/linemen so that other players/pieces can do the bulk of the damage/fighting. Player positions in American football are far more specialized like chess. It would be extremely hard to turn a linesman into a qb or vice versa. I could go on.
Another change that would make a big difference is allowing unlimited substitutions. That's another part of what makes youth games so fun is that the kids can go all-out, sub out for a rest, and go back in. Imagine how hockey would look if you had to play all three periods without a break.
Is there any real defense for the “running clock with semi-arbitrary extra time added” structure in the modern game? A lot of the annoying parts (the stalling, the diving, the aimless kicking around for teams with a lead or playing for a draw) is downstream of clock giving an incentive to slow down or stop the supposedly continuous game at every opportunity. Give the ref or a dedicated time official the ability to stop and start the game clock every time the ball is not actively in play, and call it good. We have the technology.
The other big issue with soccer is the refereeing. It’s not that it’s bad, the quality is generally good at the top level and VAR has corrected most of the most egregious errors (although added a few of its own like the Balogun red card).
It’s that so much of the actual action is a “ref event”. A big percentage of the goals are from free kicks and penalties. A big percentage of the goals in open play get overturned by offsides calls (sometimes by the thinnest of VAR margins). Most sports have controversial calls, but soccer is the worst for how likely a key match is to be decided by a subjective decision of the dude with the whistle.
I am an avid NFL and soccer fan, and a casual baseball and NBA fan, so I think I can give a fairly neutral critique. I get your argument of continuity vs discreetness. But
1) I am going to assume your analysis is based on a lopsided sampling asymmetry. You've probably watched hundreds more NBA/NFL/NHL games than soccer games and probably meaningfully know faaaaar more about rules, stats, strategies, players and tactics about the former. As someone who has probably watched an equal amount of soccer and NFL for example, I can tell you that understanding the strategy and tactics of the best teams and managers adds a surprisingly entertaining element. I had to explain to my Ecuadorian extended family all the tactics involved in American football, and once they understood they were hooked, at least on the post season. Before that, it was just a bunch of big guys huddling, running, throwing. Boring as hell. The same holds for soccer. Once you understand formations (442, 4231, 343,etc), positions (backs, wingbacks, types of midfielders (cdm, pivot, cams), types of attackers (wingers, 9s, false 9s), man/zone marking, hold up play, underlapping overlapping runs, numerical advantage, types of buildup, high press/high line, counterattack strategies, breaking down a low block, etc etc etc. You literally "see" the game in a different light and appreciate great tactics. But of course not every game offers that, which brings me to my next point
2. As part of that sampling asymmetry, I'm not sure you've seen enough great soccer games to outweigh the extremely boring games, which is what actually happens in every other sport. There are some incredibly boring NFL games, and if I had only seen those, without fully appreciating the tactics that become apparent in great games (e.g. Conference championships or division rivalries or playoff deciding Games, or epic super bowls), then I would probably also have a dim view of American football. Likewise if you haven't watched an amazing la Liga rivalry, or an EPL London derby, or a champions league final or the 2022 world cup final, with the context of tactics, then you may not fully appreciate the breadth of the game. The Mexico-South Africa game is a great example of a poor game, so if you were tuning out, it would be like tuning out a boring super bowl blowout.
One simple improvement would be to make the goals bigger. It would encourage more long range shots which would loosen up the defense for more exciting drives, and overall just improve scoring. Penalty kicks wood have to be from further away.
The audience at soccer matches is not an amorphous mass that assembles at the start of the game and dissolves at the end. Soccer club fans are well organized. Their organizations have presidents, secretaries and treasurers, and budgets. They number in the thousands. Remember Ajax-Juventus matches? Or any big Manchester United match? The "hooligans" are easy to organize because they are already parts of an organization. They can be easily organized to destroy a town. Or to clean up a town. Or to find a fugitive criminal. Or to go to war. In 1991, when former Yugoslavia was starting its dissolution, it was soccer fan organizations that instantly formed paramilitary units - they already had a hierarchical organization, and they had enough of a budget (perhaps enhanced by the state actors) to get uniforms and rifles and go straight to war. To this day, the soccer fan organizations run the politics behind the scenes. The far-right authoritarian president of Serbia, Vucic, got his start as a high level administrator of the Red Star Belgrade fan organization. The fans are mostly male, mostly low class, mostly low education, mostly pessimistic about everything. They are easy to get organized to do a lot of damage. They have spent every week for many years doing things rhythmically together (jumping, chanting etc), which stimulates release of oxytocin. Oxytocin strengthens the bonds between them, and makes strangers seem more suspicious and enemies seem more hate-worthy. Oxytocin is not a "love hormone" but an "ingroup-outgroup hormone". This function of oxytocin is used by churches, political rallies, music concerts, and yes, soccer games, to put together cohesive fighting units that will hate and fight the "enemy".
Re. soccer: very perceptive, totally valid, no arguments.
Re. corn on the cob: WTF???? Grilled corn on the cob may be a mess to eat and have no nutritional value, but it's DELICIOUS. If you're going to claim it's "objectively terrible" and everyone just pretends to like it (I'm not posing! I get no social clout from eating it!) at least show the receipts in a footnote or something. Jesus.
Yeah. And boiled is good, too.
I second this. I love corn on the cob. I grilled some just yesterday...
Its a personal opinion.
IMO, sport in and of itself is kind of boring to watch. All sports. Like I can admire the skill of players, particularly in sports I have played. But a great performance that 100 people or even 30,000 disinterested people watch isn't that interesting or exciting. What makes it fun is the stakes and investment people have in the outcomes, the soap opera. That is why soccer is the best, because this soap opera is the best.
I think that the lack of scoring is actually one of the things that makes the sport great and exciting. Getting a goal is so meaningful, because it can win you a game on its own.
Another thing is that at least outside of a few places (USA and Mexico), all leagues have promotion and relegation, which means there are large stakes for most teams all season. Not relevant for the international game, which imo is worse to watch for a variety of reasons. In the US, a large portion of the season is spent playing meaningless games. In the EPL, every game is hard and almost every game matters for something. The financial penalty for relegation is really, really big.
I’m only a casual fan and will likely never be more because of penalty kicks. The idea that a game with such low scores can be so heavily influenced by a routine and subjective flow-of-the game decision is too much for me. A penalty in the box should be a one-on-one+goalie or something closer to the in-game play.
this is actually a really good point and my number biggest problem with the sport. Penalties currently have an 80% chance of being scored. So often you are awarding close to an automatic goal for infractions that don't prevent a good chance to score.
The counter argument is that it helps goal-scoring in general by making defenders more cautious and less bold in their own box, because committing a foul has such a negative outcome.
Also, a bit dumb, but the decision to award penalties (or not) is great for arguing/soap opera.
Every serious sport fan on the planet: “This sport that I understand and grew up with and am emotionally connected too is great, but that other sport that I don’t understand as well and don’t have an emotional connection to is boring and not as good as my favorite sport.”
I’m sorry but people are crazy for soccer all around this globe, in so many places, so many cultures and, notably, in places where it goes head to head against other sports. Soccer is more popular than hockey in Scandinavia, it’s more popular than basketball in Serbia, and by some measures more popular than baseball in the US. That’s not a coincidence. This is powerful evidence that people just love the game.
Could be!
But it literally doesn't apply to me, personally; I grew up on American football but came to believe rugby is a much better game, precisely because it's less boring.
I think people like particular sports for cultural reasons, not some objective measure of boredom. That lots of people love soccer and baseball and few love hockey and rugby doesn't mean the former are less objectively boring.
I agree with pretty much everything you say about the game of soccer. But I also can't deal with what you love about the atmosphere of the sport in person. If I had stood next to the guy blowing the horn and jumping up and down the whole game I'd have left after 5 minutes.
This column is a proof of the existence of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Soccer is the chess of sports and chess is the soccer of board games. Fairly simple, very accessible, a few bizarre wrinkles people struggle to learn. And we've put enough effort into them that they've been elevated into the world's greatest, whether or not they started that way.
I disagree. American football is the chess of sports, both in format players, and similes. For one they both have turn taking, and attacking and defensive strategies that occur in sequence rather than continuity, like basketball or soccer . Second they are both modeled in war in that they have a strategy of conquering more important pieces (eg a qb sack) and gaining territory. The king/quarterback are protected by pawns/linemen so that other players/pieces can do the bulk of the damage/fighting. Player positions in American football are far more specialized like chess. It would be extremely hard to turn a linesman into a qb or vice versa. I could go on.
This is pretty accurate!
Another change that would make a big difference is allowing unlimited substitutions. That's another part of what makes youth games so fun is that the kids can go all-out, sub out for a rest, and go back in. Imagine how hockey would look if you had to play all three periods without a break.
Just increasing the size of the goals would help a lot.
Is there any real defense for the “running clock with semi-arbitrary extra time added” structure in the modern game? A lot of the annoying parts (the stalling, the diving, the aimless kicking around for teams with a lead or playing for a draw) is downstream of clock giving an incentive to slow down or stop the supposedly continuous game at every opportunity. Give the ref or a dedicated time official the ability to stop and start the game clock every time the ball is not actively in play, and call it good. We have the technology.
The other big issue with soccer is the refereeing. It’s not that it’s bad, the quality is generally good at the top level and VAR has corrected most of the most egregious errors (although added a few of its own like the Balogun red card).
It’s that so much of the actual action is a “ref event”. A big percentage of the goals are from free kicks and penalties. A big percentage of the goals in open play get overturned by offsides calls (sometimes by the thinnest of VAR margins). Most sports have controversial calls, but soccer is the worst for how likely a key match is to be decided by a subjective decision of the dude with the whistle.
re: Jarvis critique - It's called futsal.
I am an avid NFL and soccer fan, and a casual baseball and NBA fan, so I think I can give a fairly neutral critique. I get your argument of continuity vs discreetness. But
1) I am going to assume your analysis is based on a lopsided sampling asymmetry. You've probably watched hundreds more NBA/NFL/NHL games than soccer games and probably meaningfully know faaaaar more about rules, stats, strategies, players and tactics about the former. As someone who has probably watched an equal amount of soccer and NFL for example, I can tell you that understanding the strategy and tactics of the best teams and managers adds a surprisingly entertaining element. I had to explain to my Ecuadorian extended family all the tactics involved in American football, and once they understood they were hooked, at least on the post season. Before that, it was just a bunch of big guys huddling, running, throwing. Boring as hell. The same holds for soccer. Once you understand formations (442, 4231, 343,etc), positions (backs, wingbacks, types of midfielders (cdm, pivot, cams), types of attackers (wingers, 9s, false 9s), man/zone marking, hold up play, underlapping overlapping runs, numerical advantage, types of buildup, high press/high line, counterattack strategies, breaking down a low block, etc etc etc. You literally "see" the game in a different light and appreciate great tactics. But of course not every game offers that, which brings me to my next point
2. As part of that sampling asymmetry, I'm not sure you've seen enough great soccer games to outweigh the extremely boring games, which is what actually happens in every other sport. There are some incredibly boring NFL games, and if I had only seen those, without fully appreciating the tactics that become apparent in great games (e.g. Conference championships or division rivalries or playoff deciding Games, or epic super bowls), then I would probably also have a dim view of American football. Likewise if you haven't watched an amazing la Liga rivalry, or an EPL London derby, or a champions league final or the 2022 world cup final, with the context of tactics, then you may not fully appreciate the breadth of the game. The Mexico-South Africa game is a great example of a poor game, so if you were tuning out, it would be like tuning out a boring super bowl blowout.
Just wanted to say thank you for speaking the truth about corn on the cob.
https://rjallain.medium.com/do-soccer-goalies-actually-react-to-penalty-kicks-spoilers-no-6125ad023626
One simple improvement would be to make the goals bigger. It would encourage more long range shots which would loosen up the defense for more exciting drives, and overall just improve scoring. Penalty kicks wood have to be from further away.
The audience at soccer matches is not an amorphous mass that assembles at the start of the game and dissolves at the end. Soccer club fans are well organized. Their organizations have presidents, secretaries and treasurers, and budgets. They number in the thousands. Remember Ajax-Juventus matches? Or any big Manchester United match? The "hooligans" are easy to organize because they are already parts of an organization. They can be easily organized to destroy a town. Or to clean up a town. Or to find a fugitive criminal. Or to go to war. In 1991, when former Yugoslavia was starting its dissolution, it was soccer fan organizations that instantly formed paramilitary units - they already had a hierarchical organization, and they had enough of a budget (perhaps enhanced by the state actors) to get uniforms and rifles and go straight to war. To this day, the soccer fan organizations run the politics behind the scenes. The far-right authoritarian president of Serbia, Vucic, got his start as a high level administrator of the Red Star Belgrade fan organization. The fans are mostly male, mostly low class, mostly low education, mostly pessimistic about everything. They are easy to get organized to do a lot of damage. They have spent every week for many years doing things rhythmically together (jumping, chanting etc), which stimulates release of oxytocin. Oxytocin strengthens the bonds between them, and makes strangers seem more suspicious and enemies seem more hate-worthy. Oxytocin is not a "love hormone" but an "ingroup-outgroup hormone". This function of oxytocin is used by churches, political rallies, music concerts, and yes, soccer games, to put together cohesive fighting units that will hate and fight the "enemy".