[Football] Americans and 'Soccer'

[RexCathedra]

Portugal v. Mexico friendly at Foxboro's Gilette Stadium, home of the NE Patriots, seems to have drawn quite well last night.

It helps that E. Massachusetts has a significant Portuguese (& Brazilian) immigrant tradition -- the schools in Fall River and New Bedford teach the langugage as a matter of course.

 

[willyfantastic]

There are some aspects of the way that the big sports in the US are run that I would love to see in football here - salary caps and a draft system to name but two.

They have salary caps because most are on obscene wages that would pay of the debts of most countries anyway, so dont need a cap.

salary cap would have to be global though - which won't be agreed on, otherwise we will just be destroyed in europe

i love the idea of the draft in terms of both excitement, and the fact it gets more athletes into university, so that (some) of them will be able to do something meaningful if they dont make it in the pro game. i dont think it would work here though due to the academys already set up, and the lack of university numbers, and lack of interest in university sports - however it might go some way to improving that - in a perfect world, you would have a domestic draft at least, and id love to have interest in university teams so i could watch the mighty kent uni tear it up


not gonna happen though

 

[symyjym]

The problem is with the Americans calling their adulterated version of rugby football. Just doesn't make any sense and should be called American Rugby really.

 

[RexCathedra]

You'll see ruminations here in the US about replacing the corrupt NCAA system, where (mostly) publicly-funded state colleges and universities have been suborned into providing the NFL and NBA, at no cost to themselves, with their development leagues with something more like the multi-division professional system usually found in football. Perhaps promotion and relegation, too.

The young players under development would actually be paid actual money, the colleges and universities would be out of the sports-management racket, and a whole lot of under-the table shenanigans would cease.

When I was at UNC in the early eighties, Chapel Hill on football Saturdays was the the third-largest city in the state -- for six hours. Why is that a core mission of a university?

 

[Washie]

The problem is with the Americans calling their adulterated version of rugby football. Just doesn't make any sense and should be called American Rugby really.

So that would make it American rugby football?

 

[symyjym]

So that would make it American rugby football?

Not specifically American anything, if they thought about it properly they could have just called it something else like Rugerball.

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

A very good article in today’s New York Times by Jurgen Klinsman - "Klinsmann plans to turn US team into force to be recknoned with - Step 1 make them less American”. Klinsmann is very honest and realistic about the US national side's chances in the World Cup. I think they’ll do OK

 

[pastafarian]

Thank Christ American's aren't into "soccer" yet .

Thank the Devil you are absolutely clueless.

 

[melias shoes]

Thank Christ American's aren't into "soccer" yet - if you think the beautiful game has been ruined by money, it's nothing compared to what it'll be like when the yanks get into it.

This is true.

 

[teamstats]

American Football is called Football because the ball is a foot long. Seems to make sense to me...

 

[symyjym]

American Football is called Football because the ball is a foot long. Seems to make sense to me...

Could make sense if it is true, but cannot find anything on the net to back this up.

I have found this though; An official NFL football is slightly larger than high school or other professional leagues. The length should measure about 11 inches from tip to tip, and the in circumference at the center of the football should measure about 22 inches.

Maybe it should be called an American roughlyish a foot ball.