The only thing more boring than the sport of soccer itself is an argument over the level of athleticism that sport requires.

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Competitive Eating

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Agreed wholeheartedly IB, nothing more to add.

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Soccer is way more demanding. Played for 90 minutes with no subs. Compared to NFL's 15 minutes of total action or whatever it is.

On the other hand Boxing/Ultimate Fighting is also brutal. But unless you've done one or the other it's hard to relate.

Texas Hold 'em players.

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Hockey. Durr.

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Hockey. A close second are surfers and triathletes.

WHILE skating on ice? No. I don't.

The reason that Wayne Gretzky was able to do what he did without any sort of outstanding physical attributes was because he "thought" the game better than anyone has at any other sport.

One of the key things that hockey players are taught from early on is to always know what you're going to do with the puck if you were to get it at any given time. Doing that while moving around at approximately 20 miles an hour on 1/8th-inch wide steel blades requires a significant amount of a specific mental prowess, and that's hockey at it's most base level. Creativity with and without the puck is an entire level of processing above and beyond that.

<Hawk voice> THOUGHT PROCESS </Hawk voice>

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Oh no?





Irish Boy, what in the hell are you talking about? Soccer players are not only running for 90 minutes, they're keeping a ball between their feet, and keeping it away from someone trying to get the ball from them. They have tremendous strength--but it's in their legs. That's why they can "run around" for 90 minutes. Sometimes more.



Yeah sure, after a few plays, typically the wide receiver and/or running back goes to the sidelines. That argument has no merit either because it's never happened and there's no evidence of it.



Yeah they can sprint for a few minutes then take oxygen for 20. Soccer players sprint for 90 minutes and can't go to the sidelines (except for rare occasions). They typically have 0% body fat and are in incredible shape because the sport demands it. They have 3 subs per game, and typically subs aren't used until 70 or 80 minutes into the match. They also command a lot of skill, just like any sport does.

I am not buying anyone's argument who doesn't watch the sport and understand it.

If a European guy, English guy or Scottish guy or whatnot came on here and complained about American football being boring and those guys aren't athletes they're just freaks (which I've heard before), you'd probably say they're wrong and they don't get the sport. And you'd be right to point that out.

Well lets not get the plane off the ground just yet here. Soccer players do not sprint for 90 straight minutes. There is a lot of time when they are walking (i.e. the other team is boringly (is that a word?) bringing the ball across midfield), jogging or running quite slowly, or standing around (injury, or ball out of bounds-- mind you for none of these does the clock stop which is utterly stupid). So yeah, football players have a lot down time as well, but they're bodies take much more punishment than a soccer players.

As far as throwing and kicking, overhand is not a natural motion. The legs have the largest muscles in the body, as well as the largest bone. Thus anyone, athlete or not, has more strength in thier legs. Why do you thinnk people can leg press close to 1000 pounds but are lucky if they're able to bench 200? So it should be easier to kick than throw. Accuracy and technique is a learned skill, but not so much the power

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I'm not saying who can kick a ball the hardest or farthest. I'm saying passing with accuracy.

There was an argument that a soccer player doesn't do much except run around. They dribble a ball and kick it to other players as well as in a net, while running. When you "see" what they do, it's damn impressive. There's a reason why it's the most popular sport in the world.

Of course there are times when they're not running at full speed--no human could withstand that. In general though, they're moving around most of the time. And when they take off on a sprint and slow down, they don't get to go to the sidelines. They still have to see what's going on and react.

<Hawk Voice> SPINMASTERS! </Hawk Voice>

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You do realize I was defending hockey right?

Your prejudices are showing here. This is dangerously close to the "he never played, how can he criticise me" position. Besides, while many (most?)here find soccer dull to watch and/or play, most of us have probably played the game and even have some understanding as to the skills and strategies employed. That having been said, no one has claimed that soccer players aren't good athletes, just that they aren't the most 'athletic' athletes. They don't run for 90 or even 45 minutes straight, far more often than not don't run anywhere near top speed (without the ball), and while they have some upper body strength, it is used far less than that of most football players as it isn't required. They have good coordination and dexterity, but from a pure 'athletic' standpoint, those are lower on the totem pole.

Conversely, using the logic of most who share your position, biathletes would be far superior to even soccer players. They have to Xcountry ski over changing terrain, often at 'high' speed only to have to come to complete stops, fully control their breathing & heart rate and engage in the very difficult mental skills need to shoot targets, in freezing conditions. All while actively racing others over great distances while carrying a rifle.

Consider this a vote for football, the biathalon, hockey, basketball, and then soccer in order of 'athleticism'.

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*long post*

By "they only run around", I mean that their strength is rarely brought into play. I know they don't just aimlessly run around electric football style.

But the points Frank brought up are good ones. 90 minutes of running just isn't all that much. Kids in high school do that on a daily basis for cross county and track (usually a lot more.) And that's hard running, not the occasional jogging and standing of soccer. My rule of thumb is anything I can do, a professional athlete should be able to do. A lot of the running in soccer simply isn't that big of a deal for a true athlete. And despite the always-ticking nature of the soccer clock, that doesn't mean that every match is a 90-minute frenzy. There's quite a bit of standing around, some more light jogging, some time where defensemen get to wait out the action at one end, and then the inevitable 3 minutes lost per game after a goal for running around with a shirt over your head making motorboat sounds and crawling on top of the other striker, which I'm sure is tiring to those guys, but less so to the other 19 men on the field.

Football players need to be able to run also, especially at skill positions, but they need a lot more then that. They need to carry much more muscle then the average soccer player. Think of it this way: Ladanian Tomlinson is only 5'10 (two inches taller than me- that is, not very tall) and weighed 221 pounds coming out of college... and benched 430 pounds and squatted 610 pounds. He did 18 bench press reps of 225 pounds at the combine. That's simply insane. And it's not only the very best players with those stats. Garrett Wolfe is 5'7, 180 pounds or so, and did 18 225lb bench presses at the combine and a 370 pound max bench press. And they are just running backs! They also have 4.4 time, are durable enough to take a hit from a linebacker at full speed, and can stop on a dime. And Garrett Wolfe isn't even very good. They need both the wind to play the game and complete body development. (I tried to look up what the best soccer players could bench, but apparantly they don't, if google is to be believed.)

Now look at the strength guys, especially on the O-line. To play the O-line, you basically have to be a freak of nature: huge size, disproportionate strength, the feet of a ballerina and enough speed to either beat a pass rush around the outside, get to the second level before getting clipped, or pull to the outside roughly as quickly as the running back your blocking for who weighs 100 pounds less. You also don't get any offensive plays off, every play is like a car wreck, with another 280 pound guy using his entire strength against you, and any one mistake could end another players career (ask Russ Grimm about that.) They go from stop to start 10, 12, 15, sometimes as many as 20 times in a row in these conditions. No, they probably couldn't run around the field doing laps for 90 minutes (although some of them might be able to- look at Joe Thomas.) But what they do is absolutely grueling, and in a much more holistic way.

There's a lot of athleticism that goes into ball handling in soccer, I'm sure of that. But it's not a grueling exercise. Soccer players have strong legs, I'm sure of that. But those skills aren't any more exhausting that getting your hands and feet in proper position to meet a rusher, or take on a blocker, or hit the whole in a zone at the maximum speed while positioning your body for both a catch and a car-wreck collision.

My final piece of evidence:
Soccer:





Football:



(sorry for the homo-erotic nature of the pictures. Also- it's a lot easier to find pictures of soccer players with their shirts off)

As for not understanding soccer- yeah, I do. It's really not that complicated. I've watched it plenty of times. I understand it. I know that it's tiring. I know why its tiring. I know that you couldn't just pick yourself off the couch and play a game in the Premier league. That's not my point. My point is that if you take the whole package of athleticism- strength, speed, endurance- football wins. Or put it this way; would you rather put the average starting RB in the NFL on a soccer field as a striker and give him adequate ball handling skills, or put a striker on the footbal field at running back and give him adequate knowledge of how to find holes? The soccer player would be broken in half. The football player would at least have the speed and endurance to make it through.

Er...yes...? So is everybody else's...?



No way. As I said, if someone came on here and said the same thing about our football, everyone would be saying the same things I'm saying, defending it. I've gotten into this argument with some English guys with baseball--not athletic related, but interest related. They couldn't believe that I could like baseball or why anyone would, thought it was the most boring sport in the world. Okay. Well, I told them about the strategies and they still didn't get it. When I say you don't "get it" I'm speaking of something ironically intangible. I understood baseball, the game, when I was a kid. But I didn't "get it" until I was in my late teens. I don't even know if I can explain how I "got it". But I love the sport, and the same thing happened with soccer.

Even when I played soccer when I was a kid--I knew what I was supposed to do. But I didn't "get it" until recently.

I'm not even saying everybody HAS to "get it"--I just get infuriated when people admittedly hate/don't watch a sport but are more than willing to share their ignorant point of view about it. Or any subject for that matter. You guys are all too intelligent for that.



Irish Boy pretty much did with "running around, not much else".



Come on, basketball OVER soccer? You can't tell me you see more soccer players standing around than basketball players. And there are plenty of unfit basketball players--you won't see that in soccer.

Those pictures, while highly erotic, only show that LT lifts more weights and works on his upper body.

He HAS to do that. He is carrying a football with his hands. He needs upper body strength.

A soccer player doesn't need that (though some try and build it for intimidation purposes), they need leg strength and you didn't show pictures of their legs, you showed their upper bodies. Yeah, they're scrawny. But their legs are what is important.

And they do hit each other, there's a lot of contact in soccer. There is "tackling".

It's obvious this isn't going to go anywhere. I think soccer players are some of the most elite athletes in the world. I don't think anyone's going to really change my mind on that.

You are twisting what I said about "just running". I know that there are ball-handling skills involved. I'm not a moron. Soccer is "just running" in the same way that basketball is "just running"; it's not a holistic test of athletic ability, but focuses on one aspect of athleticism alone. I know that more goes into it than that, but like I said before, those are skills, roughly as difficult as the skills to compete at a high level in any sport. It is difficult to run and dribble a basketball. It is difficult to complete a bounce pass. It is difficult to make a shot. And it is difficult to do all those things with your feet on a soccer field. But when you are disallowing use of half of your body, you are automatically ensuring that those players are not the best possible athletes they could be. That doesn't mean that they aren't world-class athletes. Just not as good. Just not as complete.

Actually, that was TO.

W_Z, Maradona was never, never one of the most athletically gifted people, though he did have the "Hand of God", right? Pele and the Brazilians have never been physically imposing, just fluidly athletic. There are plenty of thick legged guys without much upper body musculature running around in soccer that I would dare to say look puny next to most NBA players. Or at least that look more like rec league basketball players well beyond their primes.

I think the thing of it is that most natural US citizens will long see only the Brazilian national team or the occaisional African team, or the stars of the French team as ever really being 'athletic' from more than an endurance and moderate strength basis. Beckham isn't supremely athletic, Wayne Rooney has been injured for how long now - and is he as overrated as some say he is anyway?-- But these are the seeming poster boys.

And really, when you equate American soccer players with finely tuned athletes, it is laughable. American soccer doesn't have the (lack of)speed of even the Mexican leagues, certainly not the clutch and grab strength nor endurance, and I think that even you would have to concede that Mexican soccer is damn dull, if not poor compared to Europe. Not athletically graceful or inspiring.

I won't even go into the American sports fan's natural bias against the accepted practice of diving in games and the lack of 'strength that shows.

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Sorry to W_Z, as I feel it unfair that he has to respond to lengthy responses from both of us with legnthy responses of his own. Needless to say, I think RR and I are right. But W_Z wasn't the only guy pimping soccer here. Where are the other defenders?

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I know! Goddamnit...

Anyway, I'm writing this post then I'm headed for bed because tomorrow's commute will be a total bitch and I have to get up earlier...

To IB - I get what you're saying now, I just don't like it when soccer is consistently put down and simplified as a "boring" game of "running around" because I think there's so much more to it than that that can't be appreciated unless you really get into the fluidity of the game.

RR - Basketball players may be bigger, that doesn't automatically make them better athletes. Some of them are downright pitiful when it comes to their shape. Soccer players on average are more fit than basketball players. As far as the "big names", Wayne Rooney got big because of his youth and ability to score goals--but he is highly overrated. Some people that aren't - Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs, Steve Gerrard, Didier Drogba, and Thierry Henry...that's not all of them that's just a few.

Don't even bring up American soccer players, at least, the wusses that play in the MLS. There are some Yanks making noise in the EPL--I hope it continues.


PS - I didn't take a really good look at the picture of TO, I thought you were talking LT so I thought that was a picture of him...my bad. The hat made it hard to immediately identify as well.

The best combination of all 3 attributes, IMO, are Olympic freestyle Wrestlers. Anybody who has ever gone 3 rounds on the matt would agree that pound for pound, wrestlers are some of the strongest athletes around, and while many are not gifted with speed, all have exceptional quickness.

Football & Basketball have become so specialized, that an athlete who excels in one of the above attributes can be very effective, and in case of a Tom Brady or Dan Marino, none.

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Only triatheletes who compete in that race in Hawaii. Seriously, is there another sport that is so grueling that competitors regularly lose control of their bowels towards the finish?

I must come and defend my fellow soccer fan. While I don't think soccer players are necessarily the best athletes on the planet (I think hockey has the best combination of endurance, speed and strength of the team sports), I don't think as some have said that any football player could automatically play soccer.

Sure a guy like LT or TO could play soccer if they had the skill but we are talking about some of the best athletes in the NFL. Could an O-lineman or D-lineman play soccer? No. Even linebackers such as Urlacher, while being great physical specimans, probably would have trouble running around a mile or two with a 250 pound frame. And if your playing in Europe for a good team it could be 3 games in seven day period.

You also have guys like Jarrett Payton, Atari Bigby and Chad Johnson who all played soccer earlier in their lives who now play in the NFL.

Beckham has never been considered a great athlete in soccer circles and Ronahldino, the Brazilian guy whose picture is on this thread, had been criticized for being out of shape.

Google Christiano Ronaldo, Manchester United player, and compare him in terms of shape to an offensive lineman or d-lineman (remember Keith Traylor?).

Yes, I was just exacerbating your point for the uninformed.

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All I did was google the two guys I'd heard of and are considered good players. I tried Zidane too but found nothing. It wasn't an attempt by be to find the two scrawniest soccer players.