🇮🇹 ITALY VS AUSTRIA 🇦🇹 [I Love Real Football]

@BlueMetalChick Where is your enthusiasm

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJu2qSJ9zno]

@Kwek00 I get why it's so widespread. You don't need anything but a ball and a place to play. Unlike sports like baseball or hockey where you need a special playing surface and equipment.

@BlueMetalChick Equipment like goal posts, netting, shoes with studs (yeah, the studs matter, you need the right studs for the right surface), shin protectors and a pair of gloves for the goalie. The ball is also equipment, but I guess in Canada that doesn't count.

@Kwek00 You don't NEED that stuff to play soccer though. You can play soccer wearing regular gym shoes and using a pair of rocks or sticks as goal markers. For professional soccer you need all the fancy shit, yeah, but that's the difference. Even in amateur baseball, you need a diamond, bats, mitts, etc. Football you need all the clothing and protection, hockey you need ice, skates, sticks, helmets and visors, the goalie needs a full suit or body armor...

@BlueMetalChick [quote]It's soccer, of course it's boring.[/quote]
Hey, at least we don't get excited looking cars turning left for 3 hours.

@Elessar Yeah, auto racing is pretty bland too.

@BlueMetalChick I find it kinda strange that we are having this conversation. We literally played a softball type game in our youth organisation with a stick, a tennis ball and a bunch of plastic plates that we used for honks. 🤷‍♂️

Also... I watched an American that put a video on youtube, talking about "soccer" and explaining it to his fellow americans. I thought his video was pretty intresting, but I bring it up because he compares soccer with baseball, where you have periodes of nothingness but sudden explosions of excitment. He said soccer was more tense, because it's not turn based like baseball, and thus a viewer could never predict when the action was about to happen, while in baseball vieuwers have at least some idea when they can go to the toilet.

@Kwek00 That's softball, not soccer. Also, what are honks?

@BlueMetalChick On that general point I mostly agree, bikes are fun tho. 😌

@Elessar Oh I love riding my bike. I own a "rocket bike", it's a fixed gear, single-speed on an ultra light carbon fiber track bike frame with no brakes.

@Kwek00 [quote]Equipment like goal posts, netting, shoes with studs (yeah, the studs matter, you need the right studs for the right surface), shin protectors, and a pair of gloves for the goalie. The ball is also equipment, but I guess in Canada, that doesn't count.[/quote]

This is not the nature of football. In many South American or African countries, they don't even have a proper ball. Anything that can be kicked can be a ball for them. And, for example, look what players the favelas of Brazil have produced.
That is why Americans never understand football. They want to exaggerate everything. They want way too much equipment for everything.

@BlueMetalChick The word I should have used is "base". I just said it in dutch.

@LookingForTheSummer As I said, I can use these reductionist ideas for a lot of things. I also don't get why we are having this conversation about what material you use. Is a 100 meter sprint, less exciting because they only need some good shoes?

@Kwek00 I don't say which sport is exciting and which is not.
I am just saying this is what makes football the most popular sport in the world. That you don't need anything for it (except something to kick, lol), and it's a team game. This is not a reductionist idea. This is literally what is happening in many parts of the world. Many legends started from there. Maradona, Roberto Carlos, etc. Do you think they all had those things you mentioned? When they were kids, they would be lucky to fall asleep with a full belly. Not everywhere is like Europe, unfortunately.

@LookingForTheSummer Agreed. Professional soccer is boring af, but I also recognize why soccer itself is such a widespread and universal sport.

@LookingForTheSummer No, I understand that kids kick cans around. And we played football with pinecones. But we also hit pinescones with a stick.

@BlueMetalChick Yes, there can be some boring matches. I agree.
Professional football is much more than just a sport right now. It's very influential in many ways. It used to be better in the past when there was not this much money involved.