How to make soccer more exciting?

The whole world calls it football, or soccer, or fútbol, Fussball, futebol, calcio...

 

nogomet; which translates to foot-target as opposed to football, coincidentally.

 

Ok, brain reloaded.

Oh they did that, those little bastards ?!?

 

^^^ I think in one part of the history of the development of the game it was actually called "goal ball" (no relationship to the sport for the blind, of course).

 

So every country in the world apart from the USA loves Football (or soccer as the Americans put it ).

Well, I've thought about it and I can live with that percentage.

 

Landmines, roving packs of rabid dogs, and possibly legalizing body-checking. Frankly, I'm not really interested in a sport unless there's a real possibility of catastrophic injury. If I want artistry and grace, I'll go to the ballet.

The pads allow and encourage them to hit harder. This is a good thing.

Oh, they have guns. I gather you don't really know much about football.

 

Canadians love hockey more than they love soccer. China is rapidly becoming a basketball-first nation. Baseball is the most popular sport in Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. They prefer cricket in India and Pakistan, and Australia and New Zealand prefer rugby.

 

I haven't read the whole thread, but has anyone imagined a goalie-less football yet?

 

Sort of. I think the name "calcio" is a reference to a specific medieval game that is kind of similar to modern football Calcio Fiorentino, although it has no direct connection. As in most countries the sport was brought to Italy by English expatriates- in this case sailors I think. For example the oldest club in Italy is called "Genoa CFC" and the CFC doesn't stand for "calcio something" but for "Cricket and Football Club". I think it was a deliberate decision to change the name to calcio, to italianise it.

You don't know what you're talking about, there are gruesome injuries happening all the time in soccer, why don't you google a bit before you talk such nonsense. When grown men smash their legs and heads together with full force blood and broken bones are frequent results.

Here just a taste:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaaOzWoM5EM[/yt]

 

This is actually a very popular modification to soccer in the new york area. It's played with smaller nets and no goalie

 

It gets exciting when the police come and arrest a player mid-game for GBH.

 

Clearly you've never seen Rugby Union.

 

I'm not sure it was a deliberate decision, more about extending an already existing term (calcio, kick) to a new sport (football translated in Italian would be "pallapiede"). Attempts to "italianize" foreign names were common during the 20s and 30s, but since football was deemed an intrinsically English sport, it was suppressed altogether (didn't work very well, tho ). Funnily enough, calcio fiorentino was much more similar to rugby that football, making it all more confusing!

 

Clearly you've never seen Rugby Union.

 

Is there an echo in here?

 

One of our servers is down so everything's going slow. It didn't look my previous post had made it, then it turns out it had, as well as the new one. Grrrrr!

 

Clearly you've never seen Rugby Union.

 

If you get rid of the girly body armour and cut the commercial breaks, it sort of becomes rugby, doesn't it?