I just can't understand how fellow badminton fans can be soccer fans in light of the contrasts. Badminton: exciting, lots of points scored. Soccer: 0-0 tie in overtime considered "brilliant." Badminton: shots designed either to score or set up winning point on next shot Soccer: Man plays with self, ball, until others come to play with selves, ball. Repeat for 80 minutes. Badminton: Score point, move on to next point until match is won, then smile or grin politely, maybe lightly pump fist, shake hands with opponents and if applicable, doubles partner. Act courteously to opponent and fans Soccer: Score point. Scorer runs frantically around field, acting like Roberto Benigni trying to find bathroom. Teammates run frantically around field chasing down pompous, goofy-ass teammate, jump on him because rare, once in fortnight chance to score has occured. Badminton: fans and players act like normal people, enjoy matches, spend too much time on badminton website talking about racquets. Soccer: Fans and players, regardless of country or continent of origin, pretend to be British, say things like "Super!," "Terrifically Smashing!" and "Righto!" Refer, [pseudo] knowledgeably to Manchester United or Arsenal every three minutes. In normal conversations, scream "GGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL!" for no reason whatsoever. This comparison was inspired by Adel's recent soccer comments.
I'm actually one of those people who love badminton and soccer a lot (these are probably two of my favorite sports actually). I love playing both badminton and soccer; however I almost never watch badminton on TV, while would jump at every chance to watch a soccer game on TV! In my opinion, far from there being so many contrasts like you mentioned, these two games can't really be compared. For one badminton involves a racket, while soccer involves using your feet, legs (i.e. parts of human body). True, you do need a hand to hold a badminton racket, but I hope you understand what I'm getting at Badminton involves 2 to 4 players, while most soccer games involve 22! Crowds of more than 50,000 attend most big soccer games, and more people in the world tune into TV to watch soccer more than any other sport!!! Soccer is on a class of its own...undoubtedly the world's favorite sport...well, at least the world outside of the US ...the passion, and joy soccer brings to people can probably not be parallelled by many sports. You only have to look at the World Cup, the world's biggest single sporting event! There is absolutely nothing unusual with liking both these wonderful games though. They may be vastly different, but if everything in life was similar wouldn't that be boring? So, with all due to respect to you Brett, what you said is certainly something interesting, but really, as much as I love badminton, I'll have to say soccer has no equal!!!
Oh, sorry I forgot to mention a few things in my earlier posting... comparing soccer to badminton is like trying to compare apples to oranges, or rock music to jazz music...there is absolutely nothing unusual about people liking both apples and oranges (two very different fruits), nor is it unusual to like both rock and jazz (two very different kinds of music)...hence nothing unusual about liking both soccer and badminton cheers! Tycho
I love both the games. i actually started off as a football (soccer) player. Forgive, those of you who know it as soccer. I find that football is more of a game that will really test your understanding of your team mates. This allows you to know your team mates better and be able to understand the tactics better. When you win a game, its the best feeling in the world. Badminton too has its greats but the feeling of team spirit is almost not there at all. When we won the SEASAC tournament here in Singapore. It felt great to win but it never felt as good as win the league championships back in Indonesia when we played football. Anyhow, their sports and different forms of entertainment will suit different people. Besides like in football, its simply a game of 22 men running around trying to kick a ball into 2 nets......
