Why soccer?

[canso]

I had an ex-girlfriend convinced that only the smart people, with a certain poetic sense, watch soccer instead of hockey in Canada. Some of the people on this board have proved that theory, others have disproved it.

Wonder what attracts us to the game in the first place? Is there a common thread? Why do we suffer so, when it's much easier to put on a Leafs cap and blend in?

[jonovision]

I think I fell in love with it when I started playing, and that is because my parents didn't want to pay for me to play hockey. So I suppose my attraction to the game is born out of my parents' tightfistedness.

As for watching a game (at least a well played one) there is often a certain degree of poetry, although I'd rather compare it to music, in a nice build-up, with all of the moving parts independent, yet their movements co-ordinated towards a greater purpose. This of course can happen in any sport, yet in soccer it seems more natural because the game itself has more flow and rhythm then most major sports.

This isn't to say that I won't plop myself in front of the couch (next year, when I am back in Canada and there is presumably high-quality hockey on the telly) and cheer on one of the Western teams or the Sens. And I have a passion for CFL football as well, mostly because attending games is so much fun, even though my 15-game lifetime undefeated streak at Bomber games ended two years ago.

[devioustrevor]

I like the tactical aspect of games where there is a convergence of teams playing two different styles. So then the team that executes better will usually get the result they're after, and that is the way it should be.

I also like the one-on-one battles between players. The one-on-one part of the game is ruining basketball, but I think it works great for soccer.

[canso]

Two contributing factors I can point to: the Risk! board game and my dad's Atlas of World History. Played a lot of the former and spent a lot of rainy days with the latter, mostly looking at the maps. By the summer of '86 playing Risk wasn't cool anymore and I was into hockey (Habs won the cup that year, Roy's rookie season) but CBC was televising the World Cup, Canada was participating, and all of the geopolitical significance of the games really captured my imagination. Here was the next best thing to warfare on a global scale!

I played the game in high school and college, not very well, on the losing end of a 16-0 scoreline once, but when I moved to Toronto and started playing five a side in Moss Park the importance of style and personality on the game really became apparent. There was these three Trini dreadlock rastas that picked the sides out of a jumble of Somalis, Brits, Poles, Nigerians, Hondurans and me, a pasty white Canadian born into a hockey culture, who was only good enough to stand in front of whatever passed for a goal and hope the ball would hit one of my big feet. In this free for all, talents and skills determined who would play, personality how they would play. And I was lucky enough to watch and learn how to appreciate the poetry of a game that relies on mathematical precision within a system of collapsing and reforming geometric shapes, and how all of that nonsense means nothing in the face of one inspired moment of creativity.

Football, as the simplest of sports, is the best metaphor for life: you win or lose a lot of personal battles that seem important at the time, but the grind of attrition is broken only by moments of inspiration or luck, and that is how your fate is decided.

Somebody chuck me into shallow water before I get too deep!

[Desigol]

Being from 'Norn Iron' I was first exposed to 'The Beautiful Game' when NI were in the 1986 World Cup. Amazing to believe that Canada were there as well. My Dad supported Everton, whilst Mummy supported United. I was first attracted to Arsenal in the 1989 Title Showdown against Liverpool.

[beachesl]

Why not?

[juaninho]

Soccer for me captures the rhythmic metre of life more readily then any other sport. It is a sport that in a sense revels in untidyness, the untidyness of draws, the untidy chaos of defending set pieces in the box, the untidyness of being selected over another for tactical reasons, the untidy responsibility of wearing the scarlet letters 'OG' when an own goal surfaces. But it is only when you can learn to first accept and then work within this untidyness that you can move forward as a team, as a player, and as a coach. That's what i like about soccer, it can scold and yet so easily redeem at the same time. I think that's one of the elements that make it, as Desigol stated, 'The Beautiful Game'.

[canso]

Ever notice that when a defender scores an own goal, he almost always scores at the other end in the same game?

Life is all about balance.

[bettermirror]

i love the game for MANY reasons, most of which have already been mentioned. but, i love the parity. you can play a perfect game and still lose. you can play brilliantly as a striker, yet touch the ball three times.

it's a physical dance that other sports can never possibly compete with as they are either very physical, or very much not.

the game is perfectly balanced.

[runner]

I watch because I played, born and raised in England it was what kids did, just like kids in Canada dream of Modern day Hockey heroes scoring winning stanley cup goals in game seven overtime, I dreamt of scoring for the Arsenal at Wembley on FA Cup final day in the 90th minute against Tottenham...To get to that point we needed to play, every day in all weather. The smell of mud, the stinging flesh from those damned winds, the smell of wet leather, it was Roy of the Rovers stuff pure joy, never a thought for a contract Glory all the way....Now I am going for a lie down, being all emotional and nostalgic like

[canso]

Steady on mate! There's still time for a comeback, if Corazzin can do it anyone can!