How Excited About the Upcoming World Cup?

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On a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 represents complete disinterest with no intention of watching, and 5 represents the most watchable sporting event in existence, how would you rank your interest in the upcoming World Cup?

 

1 - Soccer is a bore... I prefer real Football.

 

By "real football", i'm assuming you mean fake Rugby?

 

I play in a Rugby league here in Rockford/Northern Illinois area. I'm the smallest guy on my team, by at least 3 inches and 20 lbs. Now Rugby is an awesome sport, though I still prefer football. But soccer? Not for me. I think it is boring to play and as a spectator. Played it as a kid, but never felt like it was a lot of fun. I prefer most other physical sports over soccer.

 

That's it, i'm making a stand here. Stop calling it "soccer", it's not called soccer, it's called Football. If I go invent a new game now and call it Golf, do we rename the actual game of Golf to accomodate me? No, we don't. Come up with your own name for your crappy sport, and stop trying to rename ours. Since the majority of the game is played with your hands, how about.. And here's a revolutionary idea... Handball?

And i'm sure the blahblah will start about how yank football is a better game than real football, but at least in proper football the players don't have to stop for a beer and a burger every 3 minutes.

</rant>

 

You're probably correct Cap'n. In the states, it's called soccer. It probably should be called football, giving the rules. It would make sense. I don't know who started it, but it's too late now. What can you do? It's pretty much set in stone over here in the US on what you call it. And to be honest, if I started calling soccer "football", they would look at me like I'm a loony. You guys call fries "chips". We call them fries. They taste great either way. "Football" or soccer, it sucks either way.

 

Soccer is soccer and football is football. The two sports started formally within a few years of each other -- one in America and one in England -- I think both can lay claim to the name.

 

For once and for all!! We call it Soccer, because that is short for 'Association Football" which is the full name of the sport, to distinguish it from (there are more than TWO):

- Rugby Union Football
- Rugby League Football
- Australian Rules Football
- Gaelic Football
- American Football

In different part of the world, the term "footy" or "football" means different things, so get used to it.

Anyway, back on topic, I am quite excited about the upcoming FIFA World Cup, partly because I like sports in general, and this is a big deal in the world of sport, and partly because New Zealand has made it to the finals for only the second time ever. Go the All Whites!!!!

 

I'm with Cap'n CJ on that one, real football is what Americans call soccer. The fact that people all over the planet call it "football" should be enough -and I've read Harbourboy's post (by the way, La Soule and the Knattleikr are missing from that list anyhow).

Brazilians call it "futebol" so rest my case.

 

I ranked myself as a three, but as the tournament goes on, I'll probably start leaning towards four . Brazil has always been my favorite, as I like their playing style, but I hope there will be some underdog shocking the big teams.

I don't mind if someone calls the game soccer. For me, and the majority of Europeans it is called football. Is football interesting in general? Usually yes, but I admit I've seen matches I definitely would describe boring - but for me those were still more interesting than a regular american football match. If you don't know much about the game, it's hard to get excited.

edit: and Germans call it Fußball, pronounced like foosball .

 

Definitely! I ranked myself as a 1 because I'm so annoyed at the way the French team got qualified against Ireland that I'll be rooting for any team that plays against us.

Apart from that I just want Brazil to win and Italy to lose.

We French call it... "Football" It's not very original but it is definitely the most common occurence worldwide (not in Italian although it works in Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Dutch and many other languages with very minor variations as far as pronunciation is concerned).

FIFA stands for "Fédération Internationale de Football Association" and despite the fact that the word soccer actually comes from the English (a slang word used in England in the late 19th century) it is only used in countries were they have a more popular "football" game. Among English speaking FIFA affiliates, only American, Canadian and Samoan organizations use the term soccer in their official designation.

 

I'm a 4. I'm looking forward to it, but the Superbowl is my only #5

 

In Finland its "jalkapallo". Sounds different, but means football. Many languages use some variation of football, but the words foot and ball may be totally different.

Everytime Italy loses, football wins .

 

10,000,000. If free I'll be watching all of the major games and I'll probably end up watching a heap of minor games as well.

I haven't been watching them myself but you may be in for a shock. By all accounts Dunga's team is much more defensive and functional than past Brazilian teams. Granted this is relative but I expect Spain to be the best to watch this summer.

 

I haven't seen any recent Brazil matches either but I figured that they're going for something different when they dropped Ronaldinho from the final squad. I agree on Spain - they finally got the monkey off their backs in Euro Championship 2008 and certainly have the quality to win. Very balanced team.

 

I might have just upgraded to a 5, after New Zealand (ranked 78th) upset Serbia (ranked 15th) last night. Sure it was just a friendly, but the Serbian fans were pretty upset.

Go the All Whites!

 

You can say that again, Harbs. Our (Serbia) team selector is an idiot.

P.S. The behaviour of that audience was shameful. As horrible as the average audience is here, it still has some level...

My interest (thanks to my brother mostly) was 5 until the selector changed half the bloody team that qualified to the damn thing! It's always the same thing - we play good to qualify, then someone with money decides that some players need to get sold or worse yet, need to "play", kicks out the guys that actually got the team qualified and brings along players that make most people want to hit their heads at stop signs over, then we go and embarrass ourselves in front of everybody...

... or our squad just starts thinking that they are doing good and stop playing the game! Disaster follows.

So, my interest now is 3. Mostly because I'm a sucker for international sport events.

I hope NZ does great in the cup, just so we can kick our useless squad over it.

Once, just once, I'd like us to go there and play well.

Oh and it's fudbal here too. It's a sport we generally suck at (Red Star 1991. season aside and some old, old good teams) but it's still the number 1 sport in the country, by far.

 

3 right now, but when it actually starts happening and I can watch it, a 4 or 5. The World Cup is far more interesting than MLS (which is as boring as watching a stationary banana peel).

And it may be played with the feet, but they all wear socks when playing! Socker it is.