Not gonna lie. This is where I fall

by Regular Joseph , Friday, July 03, 2026, 11:12 (20 days ago) @ HCE

Soccer is a nice game. The rules are what they are. Somehow it's captured the imagination of the world. I would argue it's because a ball and some space is easy to come by, not because it's so great. If somehow the rules could be massaged so everything looked more like this Cup's France I think most would agree that would be an improvement. Apparently only Messi and Mbappe are capable of making the game consistently interesting, but that's a flaw. That's probably Philistinism to a real fan, but I'm never gonna get passionate about a game that's filled with so much dead time and decided so arbitrarily.

On the above terms, American football is no great shakes either. Barry Sanders and Randy Moss only come along sometimes. It does help that the action is linear though.

I used to argue watching American world cup teams of recent decades that at least we were trying to pursue the ball and move it forward. Was it smart football? No. But at least we were trying as opposed to European clubs playing some cowardly rope a dope with us.

In basketball, if you're playing better, you're ahead. The ball changes ends. Shots are taken. You can't just stand around the goal and kill the game action. There's no need to result to shootouts to end games. It's reasonable to argue that the physical limits of basketball distort the game further at the elite level due to the way humans fit on the court, but yeah soccer is relatively boring.

The world Cup is a spectacle that brings the world together in a neat way, but the actual game makes it hard for me.