Surprise secret to soccer appeal

BBC News ^ | January 4, 2006 | BBC News

[Ignatz]

The reason is its element of surprise, claim researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, US.

Only if you consider that one of the players on the women's team might take her shirt off after a victory.....

[Free_in_Alabama]

I have some experience with soccer, since I have a kid that a play Soccer, Football, Baseball, Basketball, and is a black belt in karate and another that plays Soccer, baseball, basketball, and getting ready for a black belt test in karate.

Each sport offers different and varying degrees of skill and fitness. The pure skill and intense focus of baseball, the power and toughness of football, quickness and coordination of basketball, quickness and control of karate, and speed and agility of soccer each teach different and varying skills. My kids are not the best in our area at any one of these sports.

They are good to be constantly one of the best at all these sports, so I get to see that each build where the other left off. The star football player would be useless in a competitive soccer match. The star basketball player would look ridiculous in a competitive baseball game, ...

My oldest played football for the first time this fall in a youth league and loved it. Tailback, receiver, corner, safety. He has also plays competitive baseball playing 60+ games a season. He is not a sissy or lacks talent.

He loves soccer.

What soccer brings is continuous play, no stopping, pure speed, agility and having the thrill of finishing a kill. Soccer provides the best recreation and requires the greatest level of fitness of all the sports played. Football and Karate required the greatest toughness (my kids karate requires pads and alot of fighting). Baseball required the greatest event skill (a split second to either make the catch or hit the ball).

Out of all of them, I hate watching basketball the most and he is a point guard on his team. Soccer/baseball/football are all fun to watch. Karate when they are full contact sparing(in light pads) is the most fun to watch.

So those that write off soccer as not a real sport probably couldn't run for 90 minutes strait while trying to either produce and offense or counter one.