Brazil v Croatia

[poliphilo]

I actually watched a football match last night. All the way through.

I think this was the first time since 1966.

It was dull. The Brazilians played like butterflies and the Croatians played like breeze blocks. 

I was hoping to be entranced by the magical footballing skills I've heard so much about. The one goal was pretty amazing, but one goal in 90 minutes? That's a very high ratio of bread to butter.

Mainly the Brazilians tootled about in midfield. Yes, very pretty. Flicking the ball around like street entertainers.

And  the clodhopping Croatians were the ones to watch. They played with heart. They just couldn't get the ball past the Brazilian goalie.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It was dull. The Brazilians played like butterflies and the Croatians played like breeze blocks.

That doesn't sound dull at all! What a wonderful description!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

What is a breeze block?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's another name for a cinder block

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I was hoping to be entranced by the magical footballing skills I've heard so much about. The one goal was pretty amazing, but one goal in 90 minutes? That's a very high ratio of bread to butter.

One of the reasons so many Yanks can't deal with this sport. I admit it - I find it interesting when an Irish or UK team is playing but otherwise football puts me to sleep. We've a hard enough time accepting hockey, with scores like 3-2. We're an odd lot that way - basketball and American football have spoiled us to see a score every 45 seconds in the former, and scoring worth 1, 2, 3, or 6 points in the latter.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i'm an american, and i find basketball to be just as boring as soccer. to use poliphilo's metaphor, there's too much butter in basketball. it's all butter. no team's lead is ever safe. the last five minutes of the game are the only ones that matter. there's no drama to it. you can't point to any specific plays during first 50 minutes of the game and say "that's where they won the game, with that play right there", the way you can in baseball and american football. soccer has the opposite problem; there are definate game-winning plays, but they are too rare. i watched the Netherlands vs Serbia/Montenegro, and the Netherlands team scored at minute 18, and then there were 72 minutes of nothing happening. i think for a game to be interesting to me, the scoring has to be rare enough that a single goal, basket, run, touchdown, etc has a sizable effect towards the outcome of the game, but common enough that the other team has a good chance to even things out or pull ahead. i also think that soccer and basketball tend to be games of endurance moreso than football and baseball, which i think are more about strategy, and more strategy makes for a more interesting game.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

The "too much butter" analogy is a good way of looking at it, to be sure. Maybe that's got something to do with my preference for American football over basketball, from a purely spectative point of view.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's always puzzled me how the USA has wound up playing sports that most of the rest of the world ignores.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

I don't know basketball's international popularity is pretty strong. Now American football, I'll give you. Seems to be something that's only appreciated on this continent.

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

the US invented its own sports: basketball, baseball, american football-- instead of playing sports imported from other countries. or, in the case of lacrosse, we co-opted them from the native americans.

i don't know if this should be considered reactionary or innovative.

but-- baseball is getting pretty popular in the world. a lot of the best players here now come from central america or asia, and lots of good american players leave to play in the japanese league.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I supect baseball and cricket and football and soccer are actually near contemporaries- cases of parallel development, if you like- and were all of them organised and professionalised and codified at around about the same time in the 19th century.

Cricket got spread by the British empire. I'm not so sure about soccer- though I believe some of the great South American football teams were started by British ex-pats.