Today’s Google Doodle is a short animation of the World Cup, beginning with a bouncing ball. Click on the screenshot below to see it:
Google touts the World Cup
June 12, 2014 • 10:00 am
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
One has to appreciate any endeavor in which the United States are the upstarts and Ghana are the kings of the hill. Ghana is 2-0 vs the US and they sent the Yanks packing from Johannesburg in 2010. The United States so frequently dominates in international athletic competition that I think it’s refeshing to cheer for the side every four years in a tournament in which we still have so much to prove as a soccer playing nation.
Also, for those of us who have had to enable certain mute functions on certain hashtags on certain social media platforms:
http://kirabudge.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/9/4/12941108/302217182.gif
Yes, I will be watching my grass grow in-between soccer goals.
Always amazes me that people who claim or imply that soccer is dull/boring. Especially those who will spend hours watching extremely dull sports like baseball, American football, and car racing.
Soccer has constant action: in a little over 90 minutes the average player will cover about 7 miles of turf, usually at a significant pace. One really needs to study the game to understand the subtleties of defensive and offensive tactics and strategies.
Football lasts over 3 hours on average for a single 60 minute game where there is an average of 11 minutes of action. The only players likely to run significant distances in this 3+ hours are running backs and receivers, who MIGHT run about 1 mile per game. Even this eclipses baseball where the average distance per player is a little over 240 feet per each interminable game (Avg 3 hours with 18 minutes of action).
Some stats from: http://www.runnersworld.com/fun/distance-run-per-game-in-various-sports
I don’t disagree with all your comments, but because one finds soccer dull/boring doesn’t automatically mean that they don’t find any of the other sports you mentioned to be the same. I never watch MLB, NHL, nor NBA, even though my home town has them all, AND an auto racetrack that hosts NASCAR and Indycar. I watch our NFL team, but on DVR an hour or so after it starts so I can skip the non-action. I watch only the first and last few laps of NASCAR, and even though oval racing is my least favorite auto racing, I do watch IndyCars here because I follow the sport at the road and street courses.
Sorry, but my interest in a sport isn’t determined by the cumulative distance that the players run around the field.
Trouble with soccer is the scores are so small and often flukey that the result can be a lottery. That is, where the typical score for each team is between 0 and 3, one lucky goal can have a quite disproportionate effect on the result. And also (why I can’t be bothered watching) two sides can be battling it out for 90 minutes and end up with a 0-0 draw.
If the rules were tweaked (maybe just make the goals 10% larger) so there was, typically, a goal every five minutes or so, that would make it worth my watching.
As it is, for spectacle, I’ll settle for volleyball or tennis.
Don’t forget about corners and safeties, they have to run right along with the backs and receivers, not that I disagree with your point, in regards to football. I haven’t played competitively in 20 years and as time has passed, my interest in football has waned. I don’t think the comparison is necessarily valid in regards to baseball though a constant action is not at all the point. It is a pastoral game.
Damn it, Jerry! How can you even think of soccer when the Stanley Cup finals are on? 🙂
Go KINGS!!!