with the World Cup action at full swing right now, who else is watching? i just watched my first football game in like 4 years on TV tonight. quite exciting. but i can't help to notice the lack of action in a football game. i mean, honestly, there are a lot of trial and errors, a lot of tactical and formation buildup, and then more trial and error. and then a leak is found, or perhaps a little bit of luck, a goal get scored. and then half of the foul calls were not justified. basically when someone go next to you, just pretend and fall down, 1 out of 2 it will get fouled. i didn't remember football to be like that. the ref usually is more sharp than that! but despite all these, football still managed to attract crowds of thousands, where is the attraction? being such a non football fan, i just sat down for nearly 2 hours watching that game. and afterwards, i didn't have a empty feeling. i felt that i watched some action. but still, i can't say why. anybody? ps. i still find exchanging jerseys at the end of the game a strange tradition. why would i want to wear a jersey completely soaked with sweat from the opponent? even for that short minute or two trip back to the changing room. yucks.
hmm, it was also my first viewing of an entire soccer game ( us vs kor) ever. I also watch 60% of the Jap vs Rus game too. I kind of enjoyed since i ususally enjoyed tense games between countries rather than leagues from the same countries (like basketball, baseball, hockey which players basically trained the same way, same culture). For ex., i enjoyed the US vs Canada olympic hockey but i don't watch NHL games. I guess soccer appeals to a lot of people because the game play is attracted to our primal or tribal instinct where a group of warrior plan up and execute their war plan - gang warfare, the civilized way so to speak. The result is part skill and part luck. As for badminton, win or lose is mostly defined by skill and less on luck. Unless one played or understand the game of badminton, the general public is less likely to enjoy watching badminton, IMO. on the jersey swapping, i think it is a good way to hold onto a momento to reflex upon later in player's life. Imagine the value of an official jersey worn by a player, even if it smell
right after i came into work this morning, i was surprising find out that the topic of discussion was last night's soccer game. ok, it was just one guy telling the others what happened during the game to all other others in the office who could not be bothered to stay up and watch, and apparently some of them couldn't be too bother to listen to this guy talk about the game either. but hey, what the heck, if after the TC/UC, i started describing the badminton games to my co-workers, i am sure they will think i am some sort of weirdo.
As you know football (soccer) stirs a lot of passion in many countries. A whole nation could be paralyzed during the world cup. One of the reasons according to experts, is that the team has to work hard to win. The team have to work intelligently, everybody work as one to achieve the objective. No personal glory, everyone for the team, no exception. The point is no matter how hard you work success is not guaranteed. You can see teams dominate the other but there's no guarantee it will win. It could end up losing. This is where it stirs one's passion. Like life, you try your best but no guarantee of success. That's about what I remember from an interview of a famous player in a Spanish newspaper. I don't know much about football but learnt a bit during the last 2 years watching my sons practice with a professional coach. For us, the untrained many things go unnoticed during games: how a player receives a pass, how he delivers a pass, how the player spot an opening among the crowd of players, etc. There is a lot of skills involved as controlling a ball with your feet is not like controlling it with your hands. Try juggling the ball with your feet and you'll know what I mean. The game is quite complex. Especially the players who have the duty of controlling the game - how to direct your team mates to move, reading the flow of the game, interpreting your team mates moves and anticipating your opponents positioning, etc. The game is truly beautiful when played by good teams: in this World Cup - Argentina vs Nigeria is a good example. Skillful players and game played in a frenetic pace. I for myself did not notice the time passing until the ref whistle for half time.
I think that this a case point of having to be really 'into' a game to appreciate it fully. I have watched some truly entrtaining 0-0 draws and some truly dull 4-3 victories. I think that this is why the game does not appeal to many people who enjoy high scoring games. If you guys thought that football was lacking in action and involved too many strange decisions on the part of the officials then you should definitely try to watch a cricket test match. That is five days of play that often results in a draw. It is, however, a great game and full of tactical analysis.
football Before commencing with the footie, i'll agree with kwun that more matches from the tc uc should have been transmitted worldwide. That was also the world championships with exiting games and top players. But nowadays money is the name and football is the game. The crowd loves football thus attracts sponsors. It is a simple game or, you could say, a modern war between tribes(countries) It is huge(emphasize huge), really huge in europe, southamerica and africa. Asia is getting better and northern america(USA since Mexico in terms of football belongs to S. America)is slowly progressing in despite of lack of spectators and sponsorship. Badminton, on the other side, is dominated by Asia and Europe(say England, Denmark, Sweden and Germany....well not in this order but anyway...) After the collaps of the tiger economy/asian economical bubblegum badminton has suffered from lack of money from sponsors. Various attempts have been made to improve our bad image thus trying to create more exiting rallies and important points. The classic style won and leaves badminton in a hole, perhaps. IOC has announced the removal of "less interesting sports/less audience-attracting sports" from 2004 in Greece. Badminton will not risk being removed, properly fatilitated by China hosting the 2008 games. But for how long can it go on? Winning prizes have been dropping for some years now, making it harder for the second best players to make a living(second best players being below top 15 ms, 10 ls, 10 md, 5ld, 5 mixd. What can be done to help badminton in its strugling years? maybe this should be put in another place, kwun? feel free! this is an important issue. phew, i got caught in the prospects of badminton......happens a lot! Football. Well, first i got to say that till now, this tournament has had tons of surprises, including the goodbye to reigning champs, France and the favorites from Argentina. The Danes caught many by surprise and won their group. They'll now face England. What a line up! Sweden will make the end of Senegal, i hope - good luck to our neighbours from Sweden! The next two days will decide who'll make it to the last sixteen. I 'll bring comments in a couple of days. They might be colored by me being danish....haha. Later,
i guess i wasn't making my point too succinctly. i was not doubting football's value at all. in fact, i think there are a lot in soccer. as viver has described, there are a lot of skills involved. what i was wondering is that, how is it that even such an ignorant football audience like me, without much prior knowledge of it, can sit down watching a football game, and came out without feeling cheated? where in the game does it appeal to the general public? why did i managed to sit my chair (erm... bed, actually) instead of flipping the channel feeling, man, this is so boring? that was so despite the apparent lack of fast of action. perhaps that is something that we can learn from football, and apply to badminton. i concur though, that nationalism is one of them. everybody would love to support their own country and feel the spirit of the people behind their team. but besides that? but i was rooting for neither USA nor Korea. yet...
I believe this apllies to every sport. If you are an enthusiast you'll have to make a little effort to understand the game. I remember one match in HK Open back in the 80's between Han Jian and Icuk Sugiarto. It took over a minute to finish the rally of clears. None of them dare to smash, just clears to baseline. Imagine you going with a friend who knows nothing about badminton and explaining to him this 'is the fastest racquet sport on earth'? Exciting sport with both players considered among the best at that time exchanging clears over a minute? I myself considered that match boring, but good to analyze strategies. Both players were good at defence, so finding flaws in each other game was the interesting point. In comparison with badminton, football is more unexpected in terms of results. Not always the team with better skills or tactics win. In this aspect badminton is much fairer, I think.
