Feb 15
Derby Man Utd: Live!
Welcome! Follow us live, as we live blog today’s FA Cup.
Update: Leave your comments in the comments thread now that the game’s over.
Related items from Red Rants:
- Rooney Out For A Month
- Man Utd Blog 2007/2008 Home Kit
- West Ham v Man Utd: Live
- Derby County v Man Utd: Preview
- Will United deliver decisive blow in derby epic?
Tags: Manchester United News
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Moscow is my heaven (272)
@michael: Football leagues and culture has to emerge out of the Dark Ages. It’s stuck in some kind of Feudal stasis with no sign of common sense and reform in sight. God help us if we have to count on Michel Platini and Septic Bladder to become the game’s saviors. So many things have to be done and some would be looked upon as cruel and unfair but necessary. The Premier League must become what is advertised as, PREMIER. That means crap like Stoke and Reading Wovles and the rest of a sad lot of pretenders have got to be placed in a different league where they can evenly compete amongst each other. The Premier League must contain fewer teams and all those teams must have a pedigree and come from a city that has the population and resources to support a team of such high standards. And here is the thing, scrap the whole idea of relegation and promotion. You don’t see that kind of absolute nonsense in North America because American leagues consider themselves elite and prestigious. The teams that are allowed to enter such leagues do so because they are perceived to have the resources and a large enough fan base to warrant that standing. What gives the town of Durham North Carolina the bollocks or the perceived right to participate in a league with the New York Yankees? A town of 42,000 against a city of millions? Yet in England this kind of bullshit happens all the time and not just during FA Cup time. Why a city of 24,000 feels it belongs in any competition against a city of over 2 million is beyond me?
The problem with football leagues and their structure is the naive and rather stupid belief that a small community and relatively frugal team has the right to compete with a large team from a major city which has more supporters in the stands than the other town has in total population. Sure it’s romantic when a team like Hoffenheim can do what it has done in Germany this year. But it’s also a mirage, an aberration and a temporary freak of nature. One should not build a league with any substance and count on freakish events like that to happen regularly.
How on Earth is a league supposed to survive and prosper and have all it’s teams survive and prosper within it if it allows such disparity and unfairness to exist. How can Scotland as a nation possibly tolerate the injustice of a league where two teams have one the their league every year since 1985. That is comical and stands against everything that is fair about sports. This is not a knock on Rangers or Celtic. This is a knock on a League that allows this farce to go on year after year after year. It’s a disgrace and it’s an embarrassment. Why do the other teams even exist or why do they even bother to suit up every weekend? What is the point? They don’t have as good a players, enough money to compete nor the number of supporters to sustain revenue to make them more competitive.
If football cannot see that the time has come for major revisions and reform to take place and make the game more fair and basically more competitive, then the game will continue to be the laughing stock of millions of more intelligent people in the world who love competition, niot forgone conclusions. Spain needs a run where other teams other than Real and Barcelona win La Liga, Germany needs an era where Bayern is not the club that wins the league 8 out of 10 years. Italy needs to show that there are teams that play the game outside of Milan and Turin. The fact that teams from Rome have historically taken a back seat to these cities is a bit of an anomaly but then again, London hasn’t got too much to be proud of thanks to Manchester and Liverpool owning that dominance for the past 40 years.
It’s time for a salary cap, a spending cap and it’s time for teams to spend most of their money in player development. Build your dominance from the power of your youth system and scouting. I’m not for limiting the number of foreigners on a team, but I do believe that territorial limitations for youngsters is a joke. Limit the tv contracts and individual licensing agreements teams make. And if a Manchester United makes much more money than a Sunderland, that’s OK, as long as both teams are allocated the same rules for spending on players and staff. Play it even steven or get rid of the small teams. Perhaps the only solution is to have a league with only 10 or 12 big clubs. Manchester United, Man City, Liverpool, Everton, Aston Villa, Arsenal, Chelsea, Spurs, West Ham, Newcastle and a few others that historically have been financially solid and with a loyal and large fan base. Make this an elite league that stays the same every year. No relegation, no promotion. Let the Coca Cola League and all the others carry on as the are and reward them accordingly. For those teams, the ultimate is winning the Coca Cola League. They need not ever worry about playing in the Prem because that is a closed league for teams of solid financial support , fan support and municipal size.
It’s time to end the madness and this idiotic capitalist mentality thaty believes that a minnow has the right to compete with a giant despite the difference in quality and economic strength. It’s utterly ridiculous. It’s time for football to follow North American models for pro leagues and semi pro leagues. The teams in the American Hockey League do not suffer form the delusions or fantasy that one day they will be promoted to the NHL. They know their place and they know their role. It’s time that every team in England other than the ten or fifteen largest clubs got a the same grip on reality and realized that for them, the only competition that is and will ever be available to them where they play the elite, will be the FA Cup. REFORM and drastic REALITY is needed before football becomes a hinterland of empty seats and broken dreams.
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@Grognard: Well said, Grog!
It’s especially hard to fathom that when the season kicks off in August, 16 of the 20 teams really have nothing to play for!! Maybe they can elbow their way into a EUFA spot or shoot for the magic 40points that will allow then to begin their futile existence all over again the following year.
The cup competitions are scraps thrown their way by the FA so that some form hope can remain with their faithful supporters. This usually doesn’t work anymore either because the “big 4″ need to get ever bigger and when once the double was an amazing achievement, they now try for the treble and the quadruple.
I agree that the league is too large. Many of the smaller sides tend to bring down the standards and their short tenure only allows for 3 more also runs to sacrifice themselves the next season. You could make the argument that relegation and promotion should be an accumulative process, taking place over 2 or 3 seasons. If you’re consistently bad or consistently good then you deserve your respective fates.
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I’ve watched a lot of NFL. It’s boring. I’ve watched a lot of NHL. Unless they’re smacking the crap out of each other, boring. Baseball? fughedabahdit. I would gladly watch a game where Wigan 0 – 0 Hull and Newecastle 3 – 4 Liverpool are boring and exciting in equal amounts than the bland equilibrium the USA spews out.
All salary caps have done in ‘soccer’ is mean they can pay Beckham whatever he wants, and the subs are on so little money that one of them cleans his pool to make ends meet.
It’s pointless even talking about it. It can never happen. European Court of Human Rights would be all over it for restriction of trade.
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@Traverse: i agree, i dont rate american sports at all, thats why they’re only big in america!
NFL? give me wasps anyday!
NBA? stoke vs wimbeldon on bloody muddy field is my fetish!
MLB? i’ll take test cricket and be glad with it
NHL? if i wont to see a bunch of drunken idiots beat the hell out of eachother ill go down to my local pub thank you very much!
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I’ve not checked this blog for a few days, but I’m glad that many of you guys are finally starting to see the light: yep, I’m talking about the apache Tevez.
The guy plays well except when it comes to the point that he has to make a pass.
More often than not, his decision making lets him down. Simply put, the guy has absolutely devoid of a footballing brain. I’m not putting the guy down, but it amazes me how to many the guy can’t be faulted because of his “effort”.
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@Grognard: “Everything that’s fair about sports”. I gather we have different ideas on what is fair, which is understandable, really. Your view seems to be that it’s fair as long as all competing teams have the same advantages and disadvantages, especially financially. This makes sense; if one team can spend £100 million on players while another makes do with 10, who do you think will end up with the better side? So I see where you’re coming from.
But I think that your view of fair is only achievable if we take the drastic step of creating a European super league, closing membership permanently and assigning players to teams through a lottery. And that isn’t fair on all the teams that get shut out, or the fans whose players get taken to their rivals or the players who have to move house.
My view is that nothing will ever be fair, no matter how hard we try. Even if we make it perfectly equal and fair at the start, there will be distortions over time until it no longer seems fair. It isn’t fair that Barcelona get Lionel Messi, but they shouldn’t have to share. It isn’t fair that 76,000 come watch us, but we shouldn’t have to split the proceeds. The solution isn’t to impose regulations that attempt to level the playing field, but to make sure that the system we have gives everyone equal opportunity regardless of other factors. Things like the UEFA coefficient system that perpetuate success as part of the system should be eliminated and the Champions League should be reformatted. The top team from every UEFA league should qualify automatically, with 2nd going to qualifiers. Then 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th (and maybe more) should play a playoff for the third qualifying spot in major leagues (UK, Spain, Germany etc). That would help teams who are actually good in knockout formats get in, as well as adding a bit of unpredictability to it.
But the main issue here is money; it’s the money that allows clubs to compete and that solidifies the positions of the top teams. So what we need is a system that spreads the money around to the losers, allowing them to build on their previous efforts. The problem is that teams may be tempted to do poorly for the cash, which nobody wants. Even with a solid system in place to do this, there would still be the problem of successful teams getting better sponsorship deals than others, further unbalancing the scales, and even with this accounted for, there is still the problem of attendance money. Some clubs just have smaller stadiums, whether because they don’t need more or because the ground is older than the club. It seems to me that interfering to correct these issues is “unfair”, especially with regards to stadiums. As I said before, when I buy a United ticket, I’m not buying £30 worth of Barclays Premier League, I’m buying 90 minutes of United. I’ll come back to my proposals for this in a bit.
The system you’re proposing is pretty much the European Super League, run like the NFL, and to be honest I think it sounds terrible. At the halfway point, there will be teams that can’t win but won’t get relegated, just filling up space in matches with teams that are competing. What player dreams of that? And then there’d be a functioning “old-school” league in every country, with relegation and their best players bought every year without fail. The funny thing is that it was proposals like yours (“let’s get all the best teams playing all the time”) which lead to the current football league instead of irregular competition, but you distort it by removing any downside to failure.
In my opinion, the fairest league system is one in which any group of people that wants and has the space to play once a week form a team, and become part of their national FA. As they progress through their regional leagues they can eventually get promoted into the national system, and through that come up into the top few tiers of football in their country. Once they’re there, if they win the top league, they will enter a cup competition for the other champions across the continent. In other words, I like what we’ve got.
To make it fairer economically, I would eliminate prize money. There is already enough available to the winners from sponsors, tv etc, so the money used on this should be spent by FAs on grassroots football, referees, anything. There would be an exception for promotion teams, who would each be given a figure a bunch of economists could work out based on wage bills or turnover or attendance or something compared to the average in the league. Sponsorship money would go to the league and get split equally between clubs, perhaps compensating clubs who develop youth (especially local/national youth) more than those who don’t. Gates would be kept by clubs, as would shirt sales.
This way, teams who do well will be rewarded, through kids buying the kit and standing at the ground singing their hearts out for a fair sum, but the huge amounts of cash generated by clubs like United and Real from adverts won’t help them get ahead and won’t compromise their interest. So there’ll be no need for a salary cap that stops players earning and prevents small clubs from signing big players because they can offer crazy wages.
I see why you want an American style system, but I honestly think it would drain a lot of the life from football, especially regional derbies, and the eventual likelihood of a world league of 6 clubs doesn’t mean we should hasten towards it. Money has been responsible for a lot of boredom in sport, but we shouldn’t stop a team dominating a league for a decade just because they might have been able to buy it. Fairness is for everybody, not just those who make it into an elite league.
I’ve just seen how much I wrote. Mental. Sorry.
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Grognard, i gotta say i agree 100% with what you said about the quality of the teams in the league. Teams like the stokes of this world really annoy me, they have absolutely no flair players, no one who is above an average championship player, no one who will ever be a somebody in the world of football, but a team who get praised for their brave displays when they sit back for 90mins and get a draw against liverpool or a last gasp goal we scored against them, why the hell do they get credit for sitting back all the game, its pathetic and its not what football is about. I really love football these days but despite not being that old i have to say from what i remember i much preferred football in the 90s. Just from watching old dvds from those days and the occassional premiership years i can see in those days the league as a whole in my opinion was to a much greater standard, i dont know for sure so maybe you can give your opinion but thats what i think anyway. In those days i saw 4-3s on a much more regular basis, i saw relegation teams getting big 3-2s against a top team when their own form was terrible. Top teams would regularly buy players from lesser teams because they were good enough. I ask you, apart from spurs, how many low level premiership players would ever be good enough to play for us. Even villa would probably only have ashley young and he would probably cost over £30million. I love us this decade but i cant help but feel the 90s with a more sportmanship attacking approach, free of crap defensive teams and players without a bloody sugar daddy making crap teams full of their wild ideas. Those were the days in my opinion even though i dont remember those days too well.
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@Dan: “MLB? i’ll take test cricket and be glad with it
”
You couldnt be more biased. i am an american and I hate everything about baseball. But there is no way you could convince me that cricket is a better sport. There is a reeason only former british colonies play cricket, and thats because the sport sucks so bad people would only play it when they had guns pointed at them forcing them to play.
as for the rest of the list, it is all just different strokes for different folks. I will say this though, If you want to see the best athletes on earth watch the NBA, guys like Lebron James and Dwight Howard arent even human. Lebron for example is 6’8″ and 270 lbs! yet he moves like he is 200 lbs.
As for the NFL I would be the first to admit that the games take waaaaayyyyyy tttttoooooo llloooonnnggggg. they have a commercial virtually every play. But if you can make thru the commercials you will find that the NFL is the Greatest freakshow on earth. they have 330 lbs lineman who could beat most of you in a sprint.
agree with me or disagree with me regarding basketball and the nfl, but what I said about cricket is FACT! That game absolutely sucks more than baseball.
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With all this talk of fair or not is not really the point. The PL has gone unchecked since its conception and we are now left with only 4 teams that could win it on any given year. The result is that the “big 4″ are getting bigger and the rest are getting smaller, the competition is getting weaker and a lot of games are, frankly, getting harder to watch. How to fix this should be the point of any discussion. Whether its a smaller league, a more thoughtful promotion/relegation process, a salary/spending cap, the introduction of strongly financed expansion teams or whatever you can come up with, something surely needs to be done about it!!
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@johnsom33: And how many countries play Baseball, and uh “Football”. You don’t like Cricket because you don’t understand it and if you live in the US, I just know how you could.
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@Traverse: It’s attitudes like that which keep reform from happening. Giving up before you even started. As for the NFL and the NHL, unless you are from North America and have grown up with these sports, I’d suggest you think about things before calling them boring. It’s like me saying cricket is boring because I’ve watched a few test matches. They aren’t your sports so you really aren’t in any position to put them down now are you mate?
The court of public opinion and basic supply and demand has ruled politics and law for centuries. If the sports begin to fail and and stumble financially, trust me, the European courts will wake up to the fact. Already Platini has gone in front of them this week trying to get a European wide salary cap implemented. So don’t tell me it’s impossible. Nothing is impossible when the re is a will and a way. That narrow vie is what keeps the game from ever developing into something truly special. It’s like the idiot who is so used to eating Kraft Dinner, the thought of a nice juicy steak is foreign to him. Sorry but I just don’t get that kind of thinking. Rome wasn’t built in a day nor will the game of football be changed for the better in a day. But doing nothing will just keep the game from evolving and that is criminal.
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@Dan: Unfuckingbelievable!!
I don’t believe you just made those comments. I never thought you were that ignorant. I’ve got news for you Dan, America is the center of the civilized world whether you want to agree with that or not. And the fact it doesn’t waste it’s time playing third world sports and has evolved into something bigger and better than you can fathom says a lot about your tastes and your tolerance bro. I give a rats ass if NFL football or NHL hockey isn’t big in Mogadishu, Khartoum or Katmandu. When you put down North American sports and call it bad you show your onw close minded and narrow views in your own special Dan-like way. All you are doing is just pointing a finger at your own intolerance and ignorance. I am not a cricket or rugby fan but I respect the sports and I don’t put them down without knowing jack shit about them. Most fans who don’t like US football or hockey don’t understand it and in most cases aren’t man enough to play it yet alone get into fight while playing it. So I’ll leave you to your handbags and nail polish and you can watch all the footy you like with all the girlymen and drama queens that millions of Man City and Chelsea pounds can buy my friend. Just think twice next time you decide putting down the sports of my culture. Sorry for the rant mate but that was just wrong. 
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@NicoQB: One of the big problem with many of the faster and quicker players in the game today is that their speed often betrays their heads and their skills at passing and shooting. Slower and more controlled players often look like the better shooters and passers because their bodies are in better control for the moment of impact. Tevez often runs and hustles to sat and too furious for his own good. This cause his whole body top tense up and lack the calmness and finesse that is needed to hit it a ball properly and to make a touch pass. Too much speed and hustle I feel is the reason we see so many terrible shots in the game today. If the game was a touch slower and calmer, the quality of the shooting and the quality of passing would be much better.
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@michael: The bottom line Michael is that professional sports need to adopt socialist ideologies if they are to survive in a future that will be financially more volatile than we have ever seen before. The days of supporters accepting the status quo are coming to an end. People are having to work twice as hard for their dollar and they can no longer afford to spend their money on a waste of time and forlorn hope. Unless League’s adopt measures to even the playing field between the haves and the have nots, the gap will widen even more and will actually mimic the world economy which is systematically destroying the middle class. You either will have lots of money or no money at all. The majority will not have any money and they will not tolerate this for long. Revolution in the world will be rampant and it will happen in sports too. Nobody wants to be the bitch of somebody more powerful and richer.
The EPL will have no choice but to impose a salary cap and spending restrictions in order to make things fair, or the league will implode. And for those who think the European legal system won’t allow it, think twice. Look back at Europe’s history and you will see numerous times when the system has broken down and succumbed to the will of the people. Nazi Germany grew out of the ashes of a frustrated race of people who were forced to pay unfair reparations for a war they never started. The Great Depression hit everyone in the 30′s because nobody took the warning signs seriously. Lets not forget the revolt of the people in the French Revolution. Anarchy is a scary thing and this New World Order that is taking over the planet will not survive without the will of the people.
The multi billionaires who are buying up the Chelsea’s and the Man City’s will be forced to sell and get a kick onto the first boat from where they came from. Economics will force it’s hand and these investors will soon get bored with their new hobby. It’s already showing with Abramovich at Chelsea and the Man City group will lose interest after a few futile seasons where they have failed to lure the players they want to their team and after their team fails to win anything. These rich individuals are playing with the hearts and souls of the fans of these two teams. It’s only a tax shelter and a hobby for them and they will get bored if things don’t work out for them. Then those teams will suffer a mighty crash.
What I am trying to say is that the game needs to get it’s shit in order before it loses everything. I am not a socialist but I am a liberal. I do not believe that football can continue to succeed and survive with it’s current capitalist right wing mantra. It may be ten years before things implode, it might be two years, but something has got to give. Escalating player salaries and transfer fees and the high cost of tickets are taking the game down a very dangerous path to destruction. And for those of you who disagree, fine, be that way. Trust me, when it happens I’ll be the loudest on the block stating that I told all of you so. I have studied economics and marketing for many years and I see the economic trends and mistakes that are being made by stupid people under the name of sheer greed. And it will blow up in all their faces. Apathy is rampant amongst those with the money as well as many followers who sit and do nothing and say nothing. Meanwhile their club is being systematically destroyed from within. Europe will be the first to fall along with North American sports that haven’t gotten their house in proper order like Major League Baseball.
I don’t begrudge a team like the NY Yankees the right to spend 250 million dollars on their team roster, but that still speaks of tremendous irresponsibility towards the game and sends a terrible message at a time when people are losing their jobs and their homes due to the greed and mismanagement of Wall street and the big banks that were entrusted to protect them. Meanwhile the Yankees increase their ticket sales and are moving into a new stadium whole everyone around them crashes and burns. What is wrong with that picture?
Sports need to move into a period where they use fiscal responsibility and common sense. Where they do the right thing and the politically correct thing. Where they give back to their supporters instead of steal from them by charging them to download a wallpaper or ring tone from their fucking web site. The greed and money grab has to stop because frankly, very few of us can afford it anymore. I want to see a league with teams that compete on a even playing field and who compete on the field because one team has done a better job recruiting and scouting players than the other and that may possess a better manager and strategist. What fun is it when one knows that Celtic and Rangers always win because they have more money than Hearts and Partick Thistle? It’s heading for total madness unless a man of reason and common sense steps in with the help of the European legal community to put an end to this fascist way of running sports leagues. Enough already.
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@michael: Thers only so much room in an elite league. It is not the right of every team to feel they should be able to fight for entry in that league. Frankly an elite league should only have teams from large cities and large grounds. So the small teams need not apply. There are league for them. Delusions of grandeur are epidemic in world football because of this relegation/promotion thing. Scrap it, it’s antiquated and ridiculous. It serves no purpose but to humiliate teams moving up ans well as moving down.
Some of your ideas have great merit but only if great reform takes place first. Baby steps do not work. Drastic tactics and sever measures must be incorporated so that fairness and justice is served. Don’t knock North American sports. They have survived and prospered much greater than world football over the past five decades and especially the past decade since most of them invoked salary cap and spending measures to create parity. In the NFL there has not been a repeat winner two years in a row of the Super Bowl since 1994 No team has ever won the championship three years in a row. In hockey there has not been a repeat champion in over 15 years. These leagues are not without trouble but they are much more stable due to the fairness in their class structure. Last year the New England Patriot s and Dallas Cowboys had the best records in the league. This year both teams missed the playoffs. When was the last time you saw that happen in soccer? Pretty easy to pick a winner in Scotland. England, Spain, Germany, France, Holland and Italy. There are no more than two or three teams in each league that are legit contenders every year. In North America that would be perceived as a poor product.
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@Matthew: If you think football in the 90′s was good, you should have checked leagues like the Bundesliga in the 70′s and early 80′s. 6-4, 5-4, 4-3, 6-3, were common scores and back then Bayern Munich was a great team but there was also greatness coming out of Moenchengladbach, Hamburg, Cologne and several other teams. The league was not a forgone conclusion and it was not unheard of to see the great Bayern occasionally get trounced by a team like Schalke back in 1975 by a score of 1-7 at home. And tha year Bayern won their second European Cup.
The game was open and attack oriented and not bogged down by the petty politics and economics that the game suffers from today. An 18th place team would never park the bus and defend for 90 minutes. They would have the courage to face their opponent and try to beat them by outscoring them. Imagine that!
It’s a shame to have lived as long as I have and see the game steadily deteriorate like it has over the past 40 years. And then to have some 17 or 18 year old or whatever tell me that I’m full of shit and that what I am saying would never happen. As if they have lived long enough to see what I already have seen in the changing landscape of world football. It’s frankly easy too predict the upcoming implosion and destruction of the pro game. Greed can’t help itself. Long gone are the days of “Total Football” and have been replaced with total stupidity and greed.
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@Redrich: @Redrich: “And how many countries play Baseball, and uh “Football”
nobody else plays “american football” because quite frankly no other country has the athletes to do so. sorry to say but only freaks of nature can play in the NFL. skill really isnt required, its 90% raw athleticism. from what I have seen from around the world, no other country can consistently produce the athletes to play all the different positions.
as for baseball? Like I said before I hate everything about baseball, it sucks balls, but cricket is by far worse. how many countries play baseball? Im glad you asked… how about all central and south america, Canada, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan. none of which the US controlled.
who plays cricket? India, Australia, West indies… notice a pattern there?
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@johnsom33: Johnson, I recently was introduced to a bit of cricket from Red Ranter of all people and I must say that the sport is not bad at all. It’s just hat unless you played it or have been rable to relate to it from childhood, it’s difficult to pick up and totally appreciate it as an uninitiated adult. But i will no tlisten Europeans or Asians or anybody for that matter put down the greatness and majesty that is North American sports. They know nothing of these sports and the culture around them yet we know quite a bit about football (soccer) culture because we were open minded enough to adopt a sport that wasn’t featured or promoted in North America. So I chose to call myself enlightened as opposed to those who comment from sheer ignorance.
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@johnsom33: Nope I don’t see the pattern!! Only 2 countries play “Football” and by your count 5 play Baseball. Hardly a massive adoption of these majestic sports. And you’re right, pure athleticism, not much skill – just unadulterated, steroid induced, testosterone. Wow, now that’s special!!
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@Grognard: “And the fact it doesn’t waste it’s time playing third world sports”.says it all really
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@sunny: Yep, doesn’t have much time for the Third World anymore!
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@Redrich: well the pattern is that ecery counrty that plays cricket is a former british colony. as for baseball, if you didnt realize, central and south america is more than 2 countries. I would only expect an american to be that ignorant to suspect they were only 2 countries.
As for NFL being a bunch roided out freaks… your right. They are on steriods, but thats also why i love it, cause they put everything on the line(of course im not serious.)
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@Redrich: A great sport is not defined by how many countries adopt it.
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@johnsom33: Lets not forget Japan, Taiwan and other countries in Asia that also play baseball. In fact, baseball is more popular in those Asian countries than soccer. Trust me, America loses no sleep if Europe does not adopt one of it’s sports and still, US football leagues have existed, hockey is big in Europe and basketball is massive in many European countries. So the argument that no Norht American sports are adopted elsewhere is weak. As for countries that get by kicking cans in the alley and and committing genocide or something horrific, do I care if they don’t care our sports. America or Canada is not concerned that every third world shit hole picks up one of their sports. Soccer is popular in those countries because it costs nothing to buy a ball or make one with garbage and a little bit of tape. It really is a sport for everyone regardless of their economic standing. Unfortunately US football, hockey and baseball require equipment that costs a lot of money. That has more to do with many countries not buying in to it as well, hockey is a cold weather sport so only Northern and Eastern Europe and Japan can really take it seriously enough to attempt it.
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Dan, Redrich, johnsom33 and everyone who thinks one sport superior to the other:
We can argue ourselves silly, dismissing certain sports as extremely dull in comparison to certain other. But it’s one thing dismissing it off hand, and an entirely different issue dismissing it after having understood a that sport’s finer aspects.
For me, I watch college American football because I can relate to it because of my emotional investment in my alma mater. Despite the fact they aren’t beating sides to pulp, I can support them, and of course, since my understanding of American football is much better now than the days I thought it was just a set of helmet covered elephants colliding into each other. There is plenty of tactical nous involved in the game that makes me appreciate that sport. Of course, I can’t wrap myself around the spectacle that’s the NFL which doesn’t allow me to appreciate professional american football. But the sport as such is something I don’t mind watching.
Basketball is fun to watch, but I tend to prefer it in the last 5 minutes.
Which brings me to Baseball v Cricket.
Groggy may have mentioned my interest in cricket, which I admit, I am big fan of. So I make that disclaimer in advance. But I made countless genuine attempts at understanding baseball. I actually watched tons of baseball games in a genuine effort at trying to get it’s finer aspects. I appreciate the role of the pitcher in baseball, and it’s love of stats is something akin to that of cricket too. But the finer aspects of the game some how never rubbed onto me.
johnsom33, I can actually see where you are coming from when you call cricket boring. But then you may be comparing a three-five hour baseball game with cricket’s five day version which, if you ask me, is unfair. Cricket is one game that has shown the greatest willingness to evolve with the times (and it has three different versions to it). I could argue that a three hour cricket game (yes there is a three hour version of the game too) is infinitely more engaging than a baseball match. But that’s my opinion and will be besides the point. So what’s my point?
In short, flippant dismissal of sports without a clue of the way it works is extremely juvenile. We can argue about a sport’s inadequacies after having a good idea of its finer aspects rather than calling it even before knowing what an LBW is.
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And btw, I have a new post up.
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LOL
i was going to put at the end, “im only joking, but in reality i prefer these sports” but instead i chose to leave it out to see how many of you think i was being serious. jeez grognard, ignorant? 
shame of the lot of ya! to think i was being serious! still quite funny looking at your reactions 
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@Dan: Dan if you were joking, I couldn’t tell. There was no way to indicate that you were joking. So I responded based on the information I was offered. So if indeed you were just having a laugh, you should have no problem disregarding my comments as irrelevant seeing as you were not being serious. In that case, nothing I said applies to you.
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