I understand the difference between a tackle, and penalty, a yellow card and a red card. However, to me it seems like what is called is somewhat subjective. When does a hard tackle cross the line to being a foul, and when does a foul constitute a yellow card? Is it left completely to the referee's discretion? Is there a way to get a red card without first getting a yellow card? I need some help here.

[ June 14, 2006, 16:13: Message edited by: dmc ]

When does a hard tackle cross the line to being a foul The obvious answer is when you hit the player and not the ball :p , but there are some cases where the tackle is foul even if you haven't touched the player,such as when you tackle with two legs.

when does a foul constitute a yellow card It depends on many things like how much hard the foul has been, where in the field it has taken place, if the purpose of the defender was to make a foul and not take the ball etc.

Is it left completely to the referee's discretion No and yes. There are strict guidelines but in reality the referee bases his decision on many things ranging from if it is the second yellow card and therefore a red card to who is the player (famous players usually get away).

Is there a way to get a red card without first getting a yellow card? Yes, when the player is in a position where he can score and when the foul is extremely hard and done on purpose. Also, when you commit an act of violence, if you swear the referee and other similar things which don't belong to normal athletic behaviour.

A tackle from behind is always considered a foul, a tackle with both legs is always considered a foul, and a tackle with your leg straight forward is always considered a foul, anything else depends on the refs interpretation of the game at hand.

Immediate red cards are usually given when a player is about to break through, and is tackled from behind or stopped by pulling his shirt. Very hard fouls, like obvious tackles on ankles and kneecaps can also result in an immediate red card.

And stop calling it soccer already.

Thank you all. Very informative.

Pac man, the reason I call it soccer is we here in the states already have a game that is called football. I am completely aware that 90% of the western world refer to the game being played in the WC as "football". But to us uncultured Americans, since the term "football" was already in use to describe a completely different game, we went with soccer.

And the use of soccer in the U.S. is on all levels. The youth leagues are called soccer leagues. The youth league for American football and called peewee football leagues. Even at the pro-level, it's refered to as major league soccer, or now the more popular ISL (Indoor Soccer League).

Here (http://www.drblank.com/slaw12.htm) are some more information. Easy explained.
Here (http://www.soccerhelp.com/Soccer_Tips_Dictionary_Terms_F.shtml#fouls) are some more.

Aldeth, the US performed on earlier WC's, before American Football even existed, so you guys were more than aware there already was a sport called football. Since when is American Football officially a sport ? the 1960's ? Well, football, or soccer as you call it, is from the late 1800's. Bit weird to adopt a name that's already taken by a completely different ballgame. Matter of fact, i even consider it a breach of copyright. :D

Pac man - american football is significantly older than the 1960's. One place I looked at indicates that its rules were first codified in 1879 and derived from English Rugby rules. While soccer is older than that, here in the states American football has been around for a significant time and is so much more popular than soccer that you will have to forgive us our transgressions in essentially ignoring soccer as a popular sport for a century. ;)

Yeah, as people have said, the general line where a tackle turns into a foul is when the tackling player never touches the ball and takes the player. You can dive in, slide in, jump in, do what you want so long as you win the ball first. Exceptions to this rule are showing your studs, jumping in two footed and sliding in from behind. Also, shirt-pulling is a foul, as is elbowing to the face or head and holding someone down when challenging for a header.

Cards are down the ref's discretion most of the time, although in this World Cup FIFA seem to have given refs instructions top give yellows straight away for things like lunging in, showing studs and shirt pulling.

There are some ways to get a straight red card, but you have to do something severe and deliberately against the rules (like chopping a guy down from behind when he's running in on goal and it's obvious you're not going to catch him). Otherwise known as a 'professional foul'.

And any Yank here who tries to tell me that football isn't getting more and more popular over there is deluding themselves as I know for a fact that it is ;) . It's just that the Americans don't like to entertain a sport they're **** at :lol: but it's definitely growing in popularity.

And any Yank here who tries to tell me that football isn't getting more and more popular over there is deluding themselves as I know for a fact that it is It is getting more popular, but the rubbish performance the U.S. put up against the Czechs was embarassing. Unfortunately, most soccer fans in the U.S. are very casual fans and don't realize that the U.S. Team is capable of a much better performance. I can't make any excuses for yesterday - the U.S. was clearly outclassed and outplayed - but they are capable of better. Unfortunately, casual fans are most likely not going to get an opportunity to see that this year, as the only chance the U.S. has of advancing is beating Italy, which is practically part of soccer royalty. I don't see that happening. It's looking like the U.S. is going to go 1-2 in the first round, and that means no second round.

@Pac man - dmc is correct in stating that football started as a sport in 1879. However, it was not formalized into a professional league until 1902. At that time, while I'm sure there were many in the states that knew there was a game already called "football" - hell most immigrants came from Europe, so they certainly knew - no one played soccer in the U.S. at the time, so there was no confusion. Soccer didn't become even remotely popular in the U.S. until the 1970s, and it remains today a second tier sport. The pecking order is clear in the U.S. The Big Three, in order of popularity, are football (American), baseball, and basketball. Everything else is a step below. Hockey was challenging to overtake basketball for a while, but now they can't even get a decent TV contract, so good luck seeing the games. Similarly, sports like soccer and track and field have followings, but they are definitely considered second tier sports in the U.S.

I don't think the US will get anything from Ghana either to be fair, they looked a much better team than the US. Their midfield is rock solid with Essien and Appiah (who are 2 of the better players I've seen in this tournament).

To be honest, the US were never going to get out of this group anyway, but they needed a better performance than that to try and boost interest.

Rugby is where it's at

To be honest, the US were never going to get out of this group anyway, but they needed a better performance than that to try and boost interest. You're probably right with that. Beating either the Czech Republic or Italy would have to be considered a major upset. And I can easily see them losing to Ghana as well, because that is their third match. If they lose to Italy - which they will in all likelihood - they'll have nothing to play for beyond pride when they go up against Ghana. So my prediction of a 1-2 finish is probably optimistic more than realistic.

You'd think that USA would still be able to cobble together a semi-decent team though. Regardless of soccer's relatively low interest level in that country, it is still a huge country with a soccer playing population that is larger than the entire population of some countries. You only need to find 20 good players and you'd think there would be a few thousand ex-South Americans floating around there who could make a good team.

Women's rugby is probably an extremely low interest sport in USA but they still have one of the top 2 teams in the world at that sport.

The US team is decent enough, it is good they just had the bad luck of getting into a very very tough group.

I think joacqin hit the nail on the head. While the U.S. is not a top 10 team in the world, I think you could make a good arguement of putting them somewhere around #20. The thing is, Italy and the Czech Republic are most certainly top 10 teams - maybe even top 5. The loss on Monday still leaves me scratching my head a bit though. It's one thing to lose, it's another to lose 3-0. Not only that, but if it's even possible, I'd say that the U.S. looked worse than the 3-0 score indicated. They didn't even look like they belonged in the same league as the Czech Republic.

Regardless of soccer's relatively low interest level in that country, it is still a huge country with a soccer playing population that is larger than the entire population of some countries. You would think. The size of the U.S. population is estimated to currently be about 296 million. So you're right - even if only 10% of the nation is interested in soccer, that still gives us nearly 30 million people - which is comparable to a country like the Czech Republic. It's still considerably smaller than countries like France or Germany.

Women's rugby is probably an extremely low interest sport in USA but they still have one of the top 2 teams in the world at that sport. To further your point about women's rugby being a low interest sport in the U.S., I would like to point out that while I knew the sport of women's rugby existed, I had no idea we had a team that competed internationally.

You would think. The size of the U.S. population is estimated to currently be about 296 million. So you're right - even if only 10% of the nation is interested in soccer, that still gives us nearly 30 million people - which is comparable to a country like the Czech Republic. It's still considerably smaller than countries like France or Germany.And yet, much much larger than the 9 Million that Sweden can muster, and the Swedish team is WAY better than the American.

I edited the title because it looked like the rules part had been dealt with, but that the thread had segued into something useful.

I think that an assumption that 10% of the US population is interested in soccer is a rather large overgeneralization. I'd be suprised if 5% of the population had any cognizable interest at all and I'd be shocked if more than 1% actually followed the sport to the same degree that the big three sports are followed. When you consider that it takes more than just following the sport to get good enough at it to perform on the world stage with any credibility, I see nothing unexpected with our level of suckiness.

As for things like women's rugby, my expectation is that no one country in the world has any great following of this sport and that, in such a situation, our population would bear on the subject, as we have more people who might express an interest in such a fringe sport.

i don't think 10% is too much to ask.

1 - American kids everywhere do play football. Just that for some reasons, they gradually give it up when they go to college. At least that's the impression i've gotten from talking and seeing.

2 - i would say football is a significant part in sports for American women. The team women usa stars do go around to promote football among little girls when they are not playing that much.

3 - Freddy Adu. good player not born in u.s. but he is documented. And you say you come from los angeles? haven't you realize the influencial force of undocumented Americans?

I think raising top-level soccer/footballers, or top-level athletes in any very competative sport, requires *a lot* of infrastructure, the most important of which is cultural. You need a large pool of kids growing up idolizing footballers and playing playground ball obsessively. Then you need an infrastructure that recognizes talent at a young age and provides years of training.

Where I grew up, in (Am) football country, we played (Am) football all the time and followed our favorite teams closely. Though I played (soccer) football starting in 5th grade, I *never* watched games on TV, and *never* played a pick-up game with friends. In fact, I remember hanging out with my (soccer) football teammates, and we played a pick-up game of (Am) football!

I think this explains a lot about the US team: with the exception of a few immigrant players, the US players were fostered through a system that draws almost exclusively from the suburbs. In the US, the "soccer mom" is almost considered a political block: middle-class and upper middle-class mothers who drive their kids to soccer practice in a minivan. (Soccer) football is the sport overprotective moms encourage their sons (and daughters) to play, because it's considered far less aggressive and dangerous than (Am) football (and because all the running about wears out their hyperactive Ritalin-using ADD affected kids).

While this system might produce a few decent atheletes, it is *not* a way to produce 'brilliant' atheletes. The athletes aren't driven to perform by their entire culture, but rather by a small subset of their peers (and by their mom).

What I'm saying is that there needs to be a "dream" there to encourage kids from a very young age. In the US kids dream about basketball and (Am) football, whereas soccer is something their moms sign them up for to get them out of the house in the summer and fall...

To add to what Bion said, I think that the number of superior athletes any given country produces is proportional to the population. So it seems logical that America should produce far more world class athletes than a country like Sweeden for example. However, these world class athletes go on the play all different sports. What sport you go into is determined largely by culture, but also by how much money you can make. Soccer players make a pittance in the U.S. compared to athletes in basketball, baseball and football.

Also, it must be taken into account that a lot of the skills needed to be an exceptional soccer player (things like speed, coordination) are the same basic skill sets required in most other sports. It's all in how you hone those skills. Someone with excellent coordination and speed could probably become a baseball player as easily as he could a soccer player, but most of those people go into baseball, with the opportunity to make millions of dollars, rather than play soccer and lead an upper-middle class lifestyle. The same skills are also of use in things like basketball and football, but to a somewhat lesser extent, as size matters a lot in those sports as well. (There aren't too many basketball players under 6 feet tall, but there are a whole lot of baseball players who are of average height.)

And I don't think the salary demands can be understated. Minimum salaries in the major U.S. sports are around $300,000 annually. Those are for backups and benchwarmers who don't get into the game that often. There's only a handful of U.S. soccer players that make that much, and those are the stars. When deciding on a sport, the top level athletes no doubt take this into consideration. Play a sport where the salary tops out at a few hundred thousand annually, or play a sport that tops out at several million annually - not a tough decision.

Well, proportional given the presence of an infrastructure to develop atheletes... Otherwise India (with over a billion people, and where at least Bengal is really into soccer/football) would have a great national team. But I don't think they have the infrastructure in place to develop footballers the way they do for cricketters.

I agree that the smaller salaries given to soccer/footballers relative to other sports reflects the level of interest in the US... Tho I would imagine kids don't think at all about salaries when they choose a sport, it's more the lack of cultural interest (which then translates into lower salaries).

You would've thought that with all the Mexicans and what have you in America, they'd be at least a section of real hardcore football followers and players. Those Hispanics are crazy for football (as is most of the rest of the world, hint hint).

Tho I would imagine kids don't think at all about salaries when they choose a sport, it's more the lack of cultural interest (which then translates into lower salaries). When you're talking about young kids, I'm sure you're right - but that's not the problem. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of kids player soccer in the U.S. I'm talking about the time they reach college. I imagine it's a hell of a lot more tempting to accept a football, basketball, or baseball scholarship than a soccer scholarship.

Didn't i mentioned women's football? America, i don't think is that bad. Don't tell me no one play women's football. The very least, i know Liverpool FC has a ladies team and they have a few leagues to play in. Liverpool's women relegated from Premier division to northern division. There were 4 women's world cup, US had two. Really, is football in US bad?

Only 4 million people in New Zealand, so it's no surprise that our soccer team is ranked about 120 in the world.

Didn't i mentioned women's football?Good point. I think this ties back into what Bion and I were saying before though. There are far fewer professional leagues for women than men, and the pay for professional women athletes (with notable exceptions of golf and tennis) is nowhere near the level it is for male athletes. Sure there's a professional women's rugby team, but they aren't making millions. There's a women's NBA (appropriately named the WNBA), that's barely managing to keep its head above water financially. There's probably a professional women's softball league out there, but hell if I could name a single player on it.

What I'm saying is that the salaries and prestige women in the U.S. can acheive playing soccer are as good if not better than most other sports, so I feel that more of our women athletes are directed that way. It's like I was saying before - it's not that the U.S. is incapable of producing world class athletes, it's that most of our world class athletes don't pick soccer as the sport to specialize in. I think it's different for women, as there are fewer options available for becoming a professional athlete, and much fewer options for making a huge amount of money.

OK then, how come you manage to come up with so many great track and field athletes and winter sport athletes? Those sports must rank alongside soccer on the public interest scale (i.e. behind the BIG team sports). People don't watch those sports passionately every week.

The question still remains: why is it that the USA does not follow soccer as passionately as just about every other country in the whole world does? EVERY one else loves soccer. EVERY one. So why not USA (and Canada, for that matter)? The rest of the American continent is completely nuts over it, and the Soccer World Cup is the biggest show on earth. Plus, you don't really need to have a world beating domestic competition in order to come up with 20 decent players. Look at Brazil. Only a couple of their players actually play in Brazil. All the rest are over in Europe.

Not to make myself flame-bait or anything, but I don't think women's soccer is nearly as competative as men's (yet, at least!)... Certainly the US dominates women's soccer, but I think that just points to the US taking an early lead in promoting women's team sports.

There's probably a stage in setting up a team sport when even getting the basics worked out well is enough to be very successful. Once all your competitors are up to speed, however, then you have to turn things up a notch...

The US women's team have had some really good athletes (Mia Hamm in particular has been singled out for star treatment), but much like in men's soccer, I don't think they've produced anyone who will go down in the ages as 'brilliant.'

Many (though certainly not all) great atheletes have fixed on sport as the only way available to them to raise their social position. Which is to say, you need a lot of hunger. Boxing is a pretty good example: in the US, top-level boxers have almost always come from underprivileged classes and recent immigrants. When the Irish were among the poorest of the poor in the US, Irish-Americans were among the best boxers. Now that the Irish are completely assimilated, Irish-American boxers are much more rare, and the best boxers tend to be Black and Hispanic. A lot of it is who wants or needs it the most...

Even in Brazil, children of the middle and upper classes aren't nearly as obsessed with soccer as those from the lower classes (from where a lot of their players eventually come). It's one thing to do a sport as a hobby, realizing you can have a completely comfortable life without the sport, and to think of the sport as your one make-or-break chance.

Of course there are plenty of counter-examples to this...

With regard to the question of why we don't like soccer, I can only speak for myself and the few people that I have ever mustered the energy to talk to about this. We find the sport monotonous and boring.

I'm sure that there are all kinds of intricacies involved in the game that I am completely missing. To me, however, any game that can go on for 90 minutes of playing time with a greater expectation of no scoring than of, say, both sides scoring as few as five times, just doesn't cut it.

It's like watching the waves at the beach -- they flow, they ebb, but they rarely do anything interesting. Even golf (which is about as boring as you can get in terms of watching) has 18 separate scoring chances per person per round. Things happen that translate into instant changes in score, standings and potential results. In soccer, one team comes down with the ball, it gets kicked around a bit, maybe goes out for a throw in, maybe even (cue the excitement music) there's a corner kick where there is a slightly better than insignificant chance of a scoring opportunity, maybe someone shoots on goal. Whoopee - the ball just sailed over the post, or wide of the post, or whatever. I just can't muster up the interest. And the other team then runs down the field to do the same boring stuff at the other end.

And then there's the whole shoot-out concept in the tie game scenario. It's like baskeball scrapping overtime and going to a free throw shooting contest if the game is tied after the fourth quarter.

Compare that to baseball (which is pretty boring in my book but rarely is 0-0 and, guess what, there are no ties or shoot-outs), football, or basketball and there is just more appreciable action from my perspective.

I know that you all can come up with wonderful things to say about soccer and wax poetic about the joys of watching and playing. I acknowledge that most of the world loves the sport. I just think it sucks.

We find the sport monotonous and boring. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of your opinion, that does not explain why a whole nation of 300 million people should have a completely different opinion to every one else on the planet. Why doesn't anybody else share this opinion?

Shoot-outs are only used in tournaments of a cup nature ie World Cup, Continental championships and club championships. All national leagues (except the weird experimenting Dutch) uses straight series where over 40ish games the team that ends up on top wins. There are ties though but that is also part of the sport, football is a game with three possible outcomes, win, lose or draw. This is seen in the World Cup as well with the group stage, generally speaking the structure of football favours the more consistently good team than the team that happens to be lucky in one game.

I do think the social aspects brought up by other posters here play a big difference though. In the US football is the sport of choice of the middle class, for kids who have a pretty bright future and dont nurture the same fervent dream as the kids from th block shooting hoops. The opposite is true in the rest of the world, football is the working class game, the poor mans game all you need is a ball and a few mates and you are set to go. So all the kids with a lot of will but no assurance of a good education and a good job see football as a way out, to be someone.

In the US football is the sport of choice of the middle class ... The opposite is true in the rest of the world, football is the working class game, the poor mans game. I never looked at it that way, but there is probably a lot of truth in that. The game of the poor in the U.S. is basketball. Again, all you really need is a ball and a space to play. However, when you look at the really poor areas in the U.S., typically there's not a lot of free space, and a basketball court is a hell of a lot smaller than a soccer field.

I'm certainly not discounting the social aspect of it. Black athletes dominant a great many sports in the U.S., but one sport where they are notably absent is hockey. One of the reasons for this is that there is a relatively high cost for equipment. The same is true of golf. The clubs alone cost a few hundred dollars, not to mention it also includes a considerable investment to play on the different courses. Cheap courses are $20 per round, and courses that charge upwards of $50 per round are common. So poorer areas simply do not have the economic means to compete in these games.

However, you would think that the public school system would be the big equalizing factor. While I am sure there are exceptions for some very poor school systems, I have yet to hear of a high school that didn't have a soccer team. Sure, they have basketball and football teams too, but you would think that once it was made available to students, they would compete if there was a general interest.

That's one of the reasons why I keep coming back to potential salaries. Unless a student gets a soccer scholarship (if such even exist in the U.S.), chances are he isn't going to play soccer once he goes to college. It benefits him more to play the other sport, not only for the millions he can make when he gets out, but also for the immediate benefit of getting to go to school for free. (Note on scholarships: I'm sure soccer scholarships exist, but they are far fewer in number than the other sports. The sports that bring in the most revenue for the college are typically the ones where they give out the most scholarships, so that means there are more scholarship athletes in football and basketball than anything else.)

If we are talking money I am convinced that the top footballers in the world make at least as much money as the top basketballers/Am.Footballers/Baseballers they just dont make it in the US. Many if not most of the American players have gotten their "final polish" in Europe going to the Acadamies run by the clubs which are basically schools and training acadamies in one. The big European clubs comb the world for talent and tned to pick them up as early as the age or 12. A large amount of the American nationals were picked up like this and got their schooling in Europe while at the same tmie getting an education. The problem is that it is only the very best who get this kind of oppurtunity and there isnt much room for late bloomers. A club like the Dutch giants Ajax have a youth academy bigger than most colleges and high schools and quite a few Americans have gone there.

I have always found the big divide in sports between Europe and the US to be where the kids play, we dont have any such thing as school sports really. No school teams, everything is run by independent clubs separate from the schools. And there are a lot of clubs when it comes to football, every single little village have a club, every neighbourhood my middle sized city with a population of around 110k have more than 20 football clubs from the tiny club with only one team playing at the bottom of the series system to the big club of the city with one professional team and then several teams in each age group down to 5-6. The big beauty of the system as I see it is that all these clubs are basically in the same system. Teams move up and down in the system but if the big team have a bad season or two they are sent down a notch in the system and a tiny club can advance up and fight with the pros. This is the basic structure in all European countries, we dont have "closed" leagues, if you suck you are relegated and someone else will take your place and your position in the system is with few exception based solely on your perfomance on the pitch.

I have always found the big divide in sports between Europe and the US to be where the kids play, we dont have any such thing as school sports really. No school teams, everything is run by independent clubs separate from the schools. In the U.S. it really depends on what age group you're talking about. For pre-teens, yes, it's usual for it to be separate from the school. Things like little league for baseball, pee wee football, and youth soccer leagues are usually independent of the school. It isn't until you get to high school (or at least junior high/middle school) that you start seeing school teams.

Nobody has still come up with a real reason why soccer has the place it has in the USA. We can talk all we like about money and opportunities and lack of interest, but that's a circular argument. If soccer has the same popularity in the USA as the rest of the world then the money and the opportunities etc would follow. So, we come back to the question of what is the historical root cause for the USA taking a different direction from the whole rest of the world in the sports they have decided to get excited about.

We can talk all we like about money and opportunities and lack of interest, but that's a circular argument. It's just as circular as the arguement you are presenting. Sure, we can say that IF soccer was more popular, then the money paid to soccer stars would be similar to that in other sports. But that arguement could be made for just about any sport.

Two sports that have similar basic premises are cricket and baseball. Why is baseball far more popular throughout North America, Central America, South America, the Carribbean, and the Far East, and yet cricket is more popular in the UK, India, Australia and Southeast Asia? You could make the arguement that if the other sport was more popular, there would be more interest, more money to be made, etc.

So I don't think the situation of soccer in the U.S. is in any way unique. Yes, a sport would be more popular if it paid more money, and a sport that pays more money would become more popular. In that regard it's a circular argument. However, I think it is futile to ask specifically about why the U.S. doesn't find soccer more interesting. The same could be said of any sport that is popular in some countries, but not in others.

The situation with soccer IS different because soccer is so overwhelmingly popular across the whole world but not in North America. I agree that we are all arguing in circles so I think we need to look at history to find the answers that lead to the current situation.

Cricket and baseball don't have anything like the widespread appeal of soccer so are not really the same. The cricket world cup or baseball world championships are not watched in every country in the world like the soccer World Cup is.

Americans just need to give football the time of day. They'd love it then, everyone does.

The problem is with the US, and I'm being completely serious here; they don't take much interest at all in things that happen away from their shores. They've got their own interests and that's it as far as they are concerned.

Barmy - the only problem I see with that reasoning is that most Americans living here today can trace their roots to some foreign country. Moreover, it's not like a large percentage of people trace their roots back to the 1600s or 1700s prior to the time that soccer was a popular sport. There are far more people in the U.S. who have been here for less than 100 years, and presumably came from a country where soccer was the most popular sport. I don't have an explanation for why people would change their sporting interests upon moving to America, but apparently, that's exactly what happens.

They don't 'change their sporting interests' I reckon. The people who move to America will keep their old interests (although keeping a keen interest in a sport is hard when it's never shown on the local TV). But when these people has wee shavvies, and these kids are brougth up around American Football, Baseball and Basketball and football is treated as a sidenote, then they will obviously take on these interests. It doesnt matter if US people are from the US, Mexico, Britain or bloody Timbuktu, if they are brought up around certain sports and they are the only sports shown on the TV, and the ones the majority of people take interest in, then they are the ones they will play.

If football in the US had more media coverage, more games were shown on TV, more local leagues and teams would spring up and more people would play it.

And the MLS needs sorting. Wage caps and the clubs being central to the league don't help matters either.

OK, I see your point, but weren't the early immigrants also interested in soccer? I don't know if this is true, but earlier in this thread it said that modern soccer as we know it started growing in popularity throughout Europe in the 1800s. At the end of the Revolutionary War in the U.S., there were 3 million people living in the U.S. At the time of the Civil War, there were 31 million people in the U.S. Now unless the original population was reproducing like rabbits, a good chunk of the 31 million in 1860 were European immigrants who knew about soccer. They were clearly the majority - so why didn't soccer catch on?

There is something to your statement about the U.S. isolationist culture. Modern travel and ease of movement across continents is really a rather recent development. Before the development of the car, and definitely prior to the railroad, people didn't really travel that far in their own country - never mind across oceans. Except for occassional wars, the people of Europe and the U.S. pretty much did develop in isolation from one another until as recently as the last 60 or 70 years - basically when we started seeing commercial air travel.

I don't see as it matters where people are from. Did the native Americans play American football, basketball and baseball? I'm thinking not. It didn't come from them, just like football didn't seep into America from these immigrants. It's a culture thing.

Put footy on TV. Cover the match results more on the national news and local news. Promote the MLS and sort its bizarre rules out. Cover the glamorous European games alot. Football will get more popular from that. All this 'wages' crap is rubbish. All good footballers move to Europe because that's where the money is at. If you cover the European game there, you'll get more interest.

Actually part of it was overtly anti-British. While legend has it that Geo Washington played cricket with his troops during the revolutionary war, I think there was a serious attempt in america to distance itself from Brit pasttimes. One reason that baseball developed in the place of cricket, and that other homegrown sports have been preferred here...

Maybe it is an anti-British thing....

I can see how people can be anti-Scottish, Irish and Welsh, but surely the English are totally likeable chaps loved by all?

:shake:

Might have been something to do with all the shooting that happened around then between Englishmen and Americans.

The "anti-Brit" sentiment was also in part US cultural insecurity in comparing itself to Europe, very much like the insecurity felt by any colony or former colony; i.e., the local culture is seen as somewhat backward next to the older and more established culture of the colonizers. After breaking with the British Empire, the US went back and forth between pushing its own home-grown culture as a way of proclaiming its own identity, and defering to European culture as more sophisticated (for example it used to be the case that the cultural elite sent their kids to Europe to study)...

Maybe USA aren't actually that bad, after that Italy result. If they knock off Ghana they could go through.

I said they weren't a bad side ;) .
Blood, guts, determination and heart - that's what you expect to see from the USA 'soccer' team. What they lack in talent they make up for in damned hard work. Sam's Army were fantastic in that game as well it's worth noting. Over 70,000 US fans were in or around the ground yesterday.

If two teams are tied in points and differential, is the tie breaker more goals scored or fewer goals allowed?

Tiebreakers for advancement into the knockout round are, in order: goal differential (goals scored minus goals allowed), total goals, head-to-head results and drawing straws. You just have to love that last one.

Drawing straws? Where've you plucked that from? To the best of my knowledge, no game of football has ever been decided by drawing straws!!

The FIFA (http://www.fifa.com/en/regulations/regulation/0,1584,6,00.html) website has a pdf file with the rules for the tournament. On the bottom of page 40 and the top of page 41 you can find the rules for determining who advances to the knockout round.

To be exact the final criteria reads "g) drawing of lots by the Organising Committee for the FIFA World
Cup™."

Oh and it isn't the game that is deciding by drawing lots - it is deciding who makes it into the next round - which is quite a lot more important than just deciding a single game.

@Barmy - it may come as a surprise to you that it is theoretically possible to have two teams finish with the exact same record, same number of goals for, and same number of goals against. This is especially true in the case of a 4 team round-robin tournament, in which you only play 3 games. If both teams played to a draw in their head-to-head match, and all the other items listed were the same, how other than drawing straws, lots, or a coin toss would you expect them to determine a winner? To cite an extreme example, what if all 6 matches in given group ended in nil-nil draws?

In American football the same thing happens. They have a series of tie-breakers to determine who makes the playoffs, and while it has never been required to be done in the history of the NFL, if all six or seven tie breakers don't determine a winner, the final deciding factor is a coin flip. Gratned the possibility of being unable to break a tie with that many tie breakers over a 16 game schedule is much less than the same occuring over just a three game schedule.

EDIT: I also must say that I find the system of 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss unusual as well. In the few American sports that allow draws (like hockey until this past year), a draw was considered half a win and half a loss. Therefore a loss was 0 points, a win was 2 points, and a draw was 1 point - i.e., half as much as what a win is worth. It seem odd to me that team with 3 draws loses against a team that has one win, one draw and one loss, even though they both have a .500 winning percentage.

[ June 21, 2006, 20:01: Message edited by: Aldeth the Foppish Idiot ]

It's never happened and I doubt it ever will.

They would probably arrange a play-off game before they drew straws anyway...

I said it was an extreme example. For a little more realism how about this one:

Team A: 3-0-0
Team B: 1-1-1
Team C: 1-1-1
Team D: 0-3-0

Team A obviously advances, and Team D is eliminated. To further complicate matters, lets say that the draw happened when Team B and C played each other and that the one win and loss was by the same score? What do you do?

The rules are the rules so if it actually came to that the straws would come out and the loser would probably whine for the next four years that there should have been a play-off game of some sort.

As far as the 3-1-0 point split goes - it makes sense given the tendency that the sport has had for ties caused by teams playing conservatively. Without the greater incentive for winning you would probably see even more scoreless ties than you do now.

Trust me, FIFA would not draw straws to decide a countries advancement in the worlds greatest sports tournament. They wouldn't be allowed to, everyone would kick off. It would be a play-off match if that very, VERY unlikely event that 2 teams drew and scored exactly the same number of goals.

Barmy, you are really showing your ignorance of the rules of the game you claim to be a guru of. The rules are, and have always been, that drawing of lots are the final deadlock breaker.

As far as the 3-1-0 point split goes - it makes sense given the tendency that the sport has had for ties caused by teams playing conservatively. Without the greater incentive for winning you would probably see even more scoreless ties than you do now. Yes, the rule was introduced to stop the Italian style of play, i.e. shoot one goal and then shut the game of the oppenent down, while crowding the room in front of the own goal and delay the game whenever possible.

Someone please show me an instance in football where by a group has been decided by drawing straws :lol: .

The whole idea is laughable, has never happened and never will. It just doesn't come to that. Even if it did, in this day and age I seriously doubt that if the sitution did arise it would be dealt with in that way. It just wouldn't be stood for. But, it's absolutely pointless taling about it because it just doesn't happen.

Someone please show me an instance in football where by a group has been decided by drawing straws [laughing out loud] .Not drawing straws, but flipping coins. Italy vs. the Soviet Union EC '68, semifinals.

Semi-finals? I take it penalties did not exist in those times then... :lol:

Nope, it didn't. In the finals against Czecho-Slovakia, Italy and them had a 0-0 game, so it was replayed the day after, in which Italy won. No penalties back then either.

As I say, it wouldn't be allowed to happen these days.

Sorry, but they would NEVER change the rules in the middle of a tournament. NEVER. The lawyers would have a field day. The rules state what they state. If they couldn't resolve the deadlock via goal difference, goals scored etc, then they would draw lots. Nothing to do with penalties and extra time because we are talking about group results, not an individual game.

They would never schedule a playoff because the logistics would be a nightmare and, it's not in the rules. End of story. Nothing to do with 'this day and age'. In fact, in 'this day and age' it would be even more likely that they would stick to the rules because there is so much more legal action going around these days.

Haha no group since the World Cup started in 1930 has ever been decided by drawings lots. Can you imagine it if it did? The response would be huge.
To be honest dude, debating what would happen in the event of such an unlikely situation is a waste of everyones time.

Haha no group since the World Cup started in 1930 has ever been decided by drawings lots. Can you imagine it if it did? The response would be huge.I don't think they implented groups until '58, '50 at it's very earliest. :p 30, 34, and 38 were playoff only.

I'll be the first to admit that having a tie to the point of goal differential and goals scored is an unlikely scenario. Especially considering no one would care to break the tie between a 3rd and 4th place team in a group, as they are both eliminated anyway.

However, they only play three games, and given that the most common scores in soccer are things like 2-2, 2-1, 1-1, 1-0, 0-0 - it's not a stretch to say such a thing is possible. While there are certainly exceptions, most teams will neither score or give up more than 6 goals in the first round. Espcially in the example that I cited, where a team finishes the first round 1-1-1, in most of those cases the goal differential is going to be pretty darn close to zero. Maybe +/- 2 at most. Given the propensity of low scoring matches, I also don't think it's a stretch to say that two teams could also finish with the same number of goals. Is it so hard to imagine two teams playing to a draw against each other, and then each team winning and losing a game by a single goal - or even the same score - like 2-1?

I think that the fact that it hasn't happened yet is more surprising than if it had happened already. I think the biggest thing they have going for them is that they play three games. With three games, ties in record are unlikely, with it only being common with two teams finishing 2-1 (in which case you'd be trying to determine who's first and who's second) or in two teams finishing 1-1-1 (in which case you'd be determining who was finishing 2nd and 3rd. I suppose it's theoretically possible for all four teams to finish 1-1-1, but again, that's a long shot.

Ok, let's dispel the myth that football has a propencity for low amounts of goals. I can't think of many matches this WC that have ended 0-0 and there's been loads of goals.

The reason it hasn't happened yet, is if a team goes into the last match knowing it need a result ot go up, the match is RARELY a draw as the will top win for both teams in huge and the game is really open.

Um... I specifically said:

common scores are 2-2, 2-1, 1-1, 1-0, 0-0 So while I did mention 0-0 as a common score, I by no means said they all were like that. Or are you arguing that the others on that list are uncommon as well?

A 2-2 isn't exctly a low scoring game.

By the standards of most North American sports 2-2 is a low scoring game.

In NHL hockey the average is just over 6 goals per game.

In baseball it is much higher than that. The lowest run producing team in baseball is averaging 4 runs per game this season and the top nearly 6 runs per game - thus if you take average total runs in a game it would be somewhere between 8 and 12.

Lets not even start on basketball.

I don't know U.S. football well enough to comment on the average number of scoring plays per game but I am willing to bet that it would be much higher than four.

But we're not talking about North American sports.

The point is that it hardly helps to convince North Americans that low scoring in football is a myth if you are using 2-2 as an example. If you look at the World Cup so far the average number of goals per game is somewhere between two and three which most North Americans would consider strong evidence that football is a low scoring sport.

Well then you have to change your mindset and realise that football is different to your own sports.

I could say that your Ice Hockey isn't as good as rugby because you don't get 42-56 scores or more scores. You can't treat how many points/goals are scored in a game as indicative of how good it is...

I never said that high scoring is necessarily better. In fact if you take basketball for example - I can't stand the sport because there is way too much scoring for my taste.

The fact is that many North Americans don't like football and they commonly claim that it is because it is too low scoring for their taste. That does not mean that either they or the sport should change - just that football will likely not be as popular in North America as it is elsewhere at any time in the near future. I really don't see why everyone seems to get so fired up about this.

My point was that when dealing with scores that are generally 3 or less, it's more likely to get the same number of goals scored, especially when taking a very small sample size - like only 3 games per team. If teams averaged 4-6 goals a game, then there would be less likelihood of getting equal number of goals scored.

I wasn't in any way blasting soccer for being "low scoring". I was trying to say how it's possible to get teams tied in goal differential and goals scored. And when you're dealing with typical scores of 0, 1, or 2 there isn't as much variability in the results.

I got what you meant Aldeth, my post was a general one rather than straight at you dude.

I just don't understand Americans thought process. I don't mean to be funny by that, I'm just honestly confused. They say that football isn't for them because there aren't enough goals. Yet they're the first to admit that the amount of goals scored in a sport isn't any indication of how good it is. So there must be another reason why they don't think it's a good sport yet everyone else in the world does.
To me it's obviously because the Americans are pretty crap at it, and America is a country of winners. I remember some time ago with Ian Woosnam won the US open and about 80% of American papers didn't even cover it, and those that did give it an inch big column in the middle out of the way somewhere. America loves winners. If Team USA had more success on the international stage even more oeople would get interested in it and the MLS would prosper.

Which leads us nicely back to precisely why the US are crap at footie. The reason being that they're not too good at it, so it's a viscious cycle for you.

Viewing figures in the US for the WC are well up on the last one though. And the US did pretty well in 2002. That's a good sign.

I remember some time ago with Ian Woosnam won the US open and about 80% of American papers didn't even cover it Are you kidding? After the Masters the U.S. Open is the MOST POPULAR golfing event in America, and the winner gets tons of coverage no matter who it is. Geoff Ogilvy won it this year - he's Australian - and he was all over Sports Center and even on sport talk radio shows this past week. It's ridiculous to say that the American media outlets don't cover it when someone who isn't from America wins it.

If Team USA had more success on the international stage even more people would get interested in it and the MLS would prosper. I do not doubt that more people would watch the WC if the U.S. was better at it. I think most people are like that. I'm more likely to buy tickets to attend a sporting event in the years my team is doing good, as opposed to years they are doing bad. It's not as fun watching a baseball game when your team is 20 games out of 1st by the All-Star break.

I think the bigger problem is people don't understand soccer, because there is so little coverage of it. Most people don't know a damn thing about soccer other than when you kick the ball into the goal, you score 1. They don't know about the nuances of the game because it's never on TV. We don't "get" soccer like the rest of the world does. I'm sure most people in the world can't watch a baseball game and know, based on the situation, that the pitcher is more likely to throw a curve or breaking ball, as opposed to the fastball, given the count on the batter. Or most people can't predict times for a screen pass on a(n American) football field based on the down and distance. It's the intrcacies, subtleties, and nuances of the game that Americans don't understand with soccer that we do for other sports. I think we like other sports better because we understand them better.

It's most definitely a vicious cycle. That's also why NZ is crap at soccer, because we don't like it, which is why we are crap at it, etc. But it had to start somewhere, and for NZ, rugby union somehow became our main sport in the late 19th century, possibly because we managed to put together a half decent team that went to England and did well and captured the country's imagination. If we'd sent a soccer team to England, they'd have been destroyed (or more likely, ignored).

If it is a viscious cycle how come the US has become better and better at a tremendous pace the last two decades?

The argument of causation is a vicious cycle, not what happens in practice. We were trying to work out why a 300m population country was not awesome at the world's most popular sport and we kept going around in circles not getting anywhere. They've probably been getting better and better due to the improvements in communication and TV that mean that it can get more coverage and because it's easier for talented players to get noticed and picked up by overseas clubs where they can hone their talents.

supposedly this has been a historic WC in the US in terms of viewership... which means that interest is on the rise.

hopefully this increases interest in the US domestic leagues, which will build on itself... once kids start seeing 23-year old mugs with bad haircuts dating top models and making salaries approaching the big four (US football, basketball, baseball, hockey), we'll be off to the races...

Hey, that makes ME want to put on my soccer boots!

You shouldn't say that players in the U.S. don't play football because of the low wages. ALL the worlds best players move to play in Europe, where the players make stupid money. All they need to do is be good enough to make a name for themselves a big European club will come in for them. So that argument falls on its arse.

"Famous in Europe" doesn't quite cut it in the US, mate (and probably that's part of the problem).

Case in point: David Hasslehoff. :shake:

Probably every other boy in the US has a poster of LeBron James in their room. But I guarantee the McBride (or even Beckham) posters are limited to a small subset who actually play youth league soccer...

Hasslehoff is famous in Germany, not the rest of Europe. The rest of Europe would very much like to skewer him on a pike.

And the US not caring about things that happen in Europe is my whole point about you guys being only interested in yourselves ;) . You should give European footie a try, you'd love it!

"Famous in Europe" doesn't quite cut it in the US Exactly. Let's put it this way Barmy - you can probably identify more players on the U.S. squad than I can. If you can name more than two you got me beat. I think your comment about playing in Europe is correct. I'm sure there are many Europeans that know more about American players than most Americans do.

Hence why Americans should take more interest in European football! It's the elite of club football. It would be like an English person trying to take an interest in American Football but following the crappy local English stuff instead of watching the NFL.

The best wages and levels football are abroad, and all American football players know that. A few have actually sort of made it. A few more have tried to make it and failed. The more American football gets more popular, the more players slowly seep into the European leagues.

In fact, the big clubs in Europe are now setting up 'bases' so to speak in the USA, as they see it as a great untapped market. It's worked on teh Japanese and Koreans a treat. The Asians love their football now and did not really know it until recently.

Yeah, it's like how I can name just about every NFL team and NBA teams, but most Americans wouldn't be able to name all the English Premier League soccer teams. People overseas take more interest in American sports than Americans take of overseas sports.

I know the basic rules of soccer, like whe to give yellow and reds, what Offside is blabla.
But I have a question about being Offside.
Like in one of the last games (Japan - Brazil)

2 attackers are heading forward. 1 takes the ball with him beyond the defense-line and the other runs along with him. Now the 2 of them are only facing the goalkeeper. Attacker A plays the ball to attacker B. Is that Offside?
And, would it make a difference if Attacker B is standing behind attacker A when he recieves the ball (Attacker A playing the ball slightly away from the goal)?

So long as both players are behind the ball (i.e. the ball is between them and the goal) then they will not be offside. To be offside you have to be closer to the goal than the ball and the defence.

It's only offside if the ball is passed forward to a player who is closer to the goal than the last defender.

If a ball is passed backwards or level, regardless of where the players are on the pitch, it's not offside.

You also have to be actually doing something relevant to the game. You can stand in an offside position all day if the ball is down the other end of the field.

Well yeah, it's got to be passed to the player, or the player must be active in some other way.

If a ball is passed backwards or level, regardless of where the players are on the pitch, it's not offside.That was the information I was looking for.

Btw, did I say Brazil - Japan? :confused: I meant France - Togo, 14th minute: Henry and Ribery (iirc). One passing the ball to the other, then a goal, but it was called offside. That was what got me thinking and arguing with my roommate.
After all, I seemed right. And now I wonder why I doubted myself... :p

What is the criteria for calling an intentional handball - is it purely subjective?

I mean, some cases are obvious. If you jump up and knock the ball out of the air with your hands, that's intentional. Conversely, if someone behind you kicks the ball into the back of your arm, that cannot possibly be intentional. Is it left to the referee's discretion for stuff between the extremes?

It's only handball if the ref deems it intentional. What you've got to bear in mind is that a lot of players are skilled at handling the ball and making it look unintentional, the ref sometimes pulls a player up for handballing it when the ball just hit his arm. It's all down the refs discretion, although it's usually pretty obvious when a player just gets a ball blasted at him and he can't get his arms out of the way.