The Rec.Sports.Soccer Statistics Foundation
September 6, 2002 2:04 PM   Subscribe

The Rec.Sports.Soccer Statistics Foundation is heaven for all football buffs (attention: proper football). For example, what is the worst football team in the world? Or when did the most ridiculous penalty shootout happen?
posted by edsousa (14 comments total)
 
GO SEAHAWKS.

err...
posted by xmutex at 2:09 PM on September 6, 2002


Real Men Play Rugby
posted by Grod at 2:14 PM on September 6, 2002


See, you confused me there when you asked about the worst football team in the world. I thought you meant...y'know...football, in which case it's quite clearly the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

But you meant soccer. So I typed this all for nothing.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:19 PM on September 6, 2002


Why don't people take stuff like this to sportsfilter?
posted by nyxxxx at 2:28 PM on September 6, 2002


Who gives a wet turd about a sport where ten out of eleven players aren't allowed to use their hands?
posted by flatlander at 2:46 PM on September 6, 2002


As long as edsousa derailed his own thread with his subtle jab at American football, I give you the etymology of the word "soccer":

The term "soccer" came from Association Football --> Assoc. --> socca --> soccer. This was in 19th century England as a result of the split developing between those who wanted to be able to carry the ball (rugby) and those who didn't (association football / soccer.)

Here's a little more. And here's the long history of the game of socc...er, I mean football itself (and incidentally, a soccer ball played a part in the invention of basketball.)
posted by pitchblende at 2:51 PM on September 6, 2002


I hate to rerail a thread ... but I'm going to say a big fat "thanks" to edsousa for pointing out this excellent resource.

A great candidate for cross-pollination on SpoFi (um, thanks for the idea, nyxxx).

Those with American football tastes (you know, the sport in which said foot is rarely used) might be suprised at the history of "soccer" in the USA-- a mighty colorful one which dates back to the late 1800's.
posted by footballrabi at 3:02 PM on September 6, 2002


Y'know. Football. The game played with the foot & the ball.

Cheers for the link edsousa.

Grod: More men lose the use of one or more of their testes playing Rugby than any other sport so it would seem not. Here, here, &c...

pitchblende: Of course but you've missed the point that it is a word coined by the upper class-types in the UK to describe an essentially working class sport and so the term 'soccer', despite being of British invention, has never really been accepted by most UK footie fans.
posted by i_cola at 3:02 PM on September 6, 2002


What I meant with the 'proper football' jab was to point out that it is actually played with feet and a ball. American (NFL) football might be an interesting sport (although as popular in Europe as field hockey, maybe less), but 'rugged handball' seems a more appropriate name to me.

BTW, it seems that the rugby term 'try' comes from the start of the game, when a young football player grabbed the ball with his hands and ran past the opposition. Obviously the other players said "nice try but no goal".
posted by edsousa at 7:31 PM on September 6, 2002


flatlander: Who gives a wet turd what you think?

edsousa: The word 'try' in rugby comes from the fact that it used to score no points. All a try allowed was an attempt at a conversion. Over the years, a try became worth more ponts than the conversion.

I was a regular contributor to rec.sport.soccer for many years until finally, I couldn't cope with the volume of posts to that group.
posted by salmacis at 12:52 AM on September 7, 2002


Strange as it may seem, it's nice to see that "association" football supporters in the US have similar problems with supporters of NFL as we have in Australia with AFL and Rugby supporters.

The question needs to be asked, why is it that soccer is the most popular code of football in every nation other than the former British colonies, especially considering the sports popularity in the UK.

It's a "class" issue. British workers introduced the sport to the world in the late 1800's, but in the former British colonies, the upper class Brits could kept the peoples game oppressed.
posted by keks at 4:13 AM on September 7, 2002


Hence cricket, the complicated sport from hell.
posted by edsousa at 5:21 AM on September 7, 2002


But cricket has never been popular in the US or Canada. Sure there are pockets of cricket playing north americans, but unlike the other former British colonies of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India and Pakistan, it's never become popular in north america. This is possibly because of the existance of the alternative summer sport, baseball... but this is a whole different issue and one that is unrelated to the efforts to keep football down in former British colonies.

The role of the British upper class has been championed by the local media and the rich, influential WASP communities that still remain in these countries, years after any direct British influence has left. The only time association football makes it into the media spotlight in Australia is when there's a significant event ie Australia attempting to qualify for a World Cup, or when there's a negative story that can be used to turn the locals off the sport ie riots or stadium disasters.
posted by keks at 4:14 PM on September 7, 2002


But cricket has never been popular in the US or Canada.
keks: It's understandable why you might think that, but it's not true. Cricket was very popular here in the 19th century. Check out the history of cricket in America site; here's a sample:

"Cricket declined in the USA in the 20th century because in the late 1800s it had remained a strictly amateur elite sport at the same time that England, then Australia, were developing a professional system that allowed full-time players to participate. In the halcyon days of amateur cricket, talented North Americans could sometimes hold their own on the field with the best the world had to offer. But as cricket standards improved elsewhere in the world by becoming semi-professional and then fully professional, many North American cricket clubs stayed stubbornly elitist…abandoning cricket, they converted their facilities to recreations like golf and tennis.

"Then, there was this urban (and local) recreation originally called "townball", which had developed out of cricket. Unlike cricket, townball could be played in small city squares and compact urban spaces, rather than spacious cricket parks. Some city cricket clubs, viewing it as an auxiliary entertainment, had even sponsored the first "baseball" teams, as they came to be called (see How baseball REALLY developed in America for a full report). After 1900, baseball took over the American scene, created its independent mythology, and obviated the sport that gave it birth. In a few decades, cricket in America had become only a memory."
posted by languagehat at 8:56 AM on September 9, 2002


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