The gauntlet is being thrown down. The time is long overdue for a debate on the merits of football and being a football supporter. We're talking about English football in particular, but many points raised here will relate to football in general. Not American football, mind you, just football. I will be representing the pro-football side; the side of light, progress, and good. Representing the anti-football forces of darkness and evil, I give you Croftina.
For those of you who don't know Croftina, let's pause for a brief introduction. Croftina is pretty much your average white guy from Connecticut. He lives in the boonies with a bunch of other white people, works on his biodiesel car, and has a fundamentally solid pick-up hoops game. OK, enough with the pleasantries, let's get down to business. I'll begin and then we'll turn things over to Croftina.
The question before us today is why we should or shouldn't support English football. Let's start with why we support sports at all. The first and most compelling reason is the social one. Watching sports on tv, going to sporting events, or following a sports team gives us a great avenue to socially interact with our fellow human beings. You like the Sox? Hey, I like the Sox too, let's discuss. You know what I mean. Of course, for this to happen we need other people who are watching the same games, going to the same events, and supporting the same teams. That's no problem for most major American sports - does it hold true for English football? We'll address this in a moment.
The second reason why we follow sports, I would submit, is that we like to see greatness, the pinancle of a profession. Almost everyone played some kind of sports growing up with varying degrees of success. We know these games and we know how hard it is to be truly great at them. I don't particularly care to see video of Me, Croftina, Arnold and Eisenberg playing two-on-two in my driveway (except for the time Arnold dunked over Croftina on our 8 ft rim and broke the garage window), but I do like to watch college and NBA hoops because those guys are the best of the best. By watching the NBA I get to see what greatness is in a sport that I have played. Athletes aren't brain surgeons, in terms of what they contribute to society, but we can still admire the pros for the hard work, talent and dedication that took them to the top of their particular profession.
Now, this can't be all there is to enjoying sports, because even if everyone that I knew followed tiddily winks and I got chance to go see Joe Schmoe the twiddily winks champion, I don't think I be that fired up. A sport has to have a few certain characteristics to make it worth following. The best sports, in my opinion, require some combination of skill, athleticism, and endurance. Golf is ok because it requires so such skill, but it is sorely lacking in the other departments. Something like cycling is at the other extreme - great endurance, only a little skill or athleticism. Baseball, basketball, hockey and American football all have a great mix of the three. They all require time and practice to acquire the necessary skills, plus the dedication and hard work to acquire the fitness, plus the natural gifts of athleticism that separate the best from the rest. Sports also need some degree of drama and tension. Baseball is awesome in this regard. Not only do you get the tension of the late innings of close game, you also get the day-to-day drama of a pennant race. All sports have games that are blow outs, or games that are decided in the early stages. That cannot be avoided, the key here is that a sport should be designed so that there is at least the possibility of a close, tense finish.
So now that we agree on the reasons why it is worthwhile to follow sports and what characteristics make certain sports more enjoyable to follow than other ones, let's see how football, and English Football in particular, stacks up.
1. The social part.
First, we need to recognize that with emerging technology it is getting easier and easier to watch and follow English football. There's a whole cable channel, Fox Soccer Channel, dedicated to football, and through the internet you can get all of the news and updates that you need. There is no doubt that in a few years it will be even easier to find broadcasts of entire games on the web. So, the fact that football is not yet widely shown in the US is not an excuse for not following.
Now, of course it is true that not many of our fellow Americans follow the sport yet. I think the English Premier League (EPL) is growing in popularity over here. It's the most popular league in the entire world, and with the points mentioned in the paragraph above it is only a matter of time before it spreads to the US. I'm not saying it will overtake MLB, NFL or NBA, but I could easily see it catching the NHL in 5-10 years. This means that current supporters of the EPL get to be the early adaptors of a trend. Being on the front edge of an emerging trend carries many benefits. You may not know many people who follow the sport, but you have a special bond with those that do. Would I still be friends with Satish if we both didn't like football? Hells no, I wouldn't. But we have that shared special interest that gives us something in common. So the socail aspect of following football comes out even - less people follow it, but there is a tighter connection to the few people that do follow it.
2. The quality of the sport.
The biggest misconception out there is that football is boring. This is particularly infuriating because so many Americans who played the sport growing up should know better. If you played the sport, as our main man Croftina did, then at the very least you should be able to appreciate the tremendous skill that is on display in every game. The 40 yd cross field pass that lands on a teammates foot; the chest trap of a 60 yd punted ball that settles exactly where intended; the finger tip save; the perfectly curled shot; etc.... This alone should make the EPL worth watching. But wait - it also turns out that EPL games are tremendously exciting and tense, right down the end of the game. Here's why. The league is decided on accumulated points - 3 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss. So there's a huge difference between winning and drawing, and a pretty big difference between losing a drawing. That means that any game where the teams are separated by a goal or less going into the final stages is going to be very tense and exciting. For an example, Manchester United and Sunderland are tied 1-1 in the 58th minute as I am writing this. I guarantee that over the next 30 minutes Man U are going to throw everything into the attack b/c a draw is not good enough for them. Exciting. And many games are won (or tied) at the death. Just last weekend, both Man U and Liverpool got crucial wins by scoring in stoppage time. It is not unusual for a game to be decided in the last 10 minutes - not any more unusual than an American Football game is won in the last minutes of the 4th quarter.
Alright, this post is already too long. I'll save the reasons why the season itself is exciting for the next post.
Croftina, I turn the floor over to you.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
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