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Total Members Voted: 5

[Drygioni]

A can to Judy for snide references to girly games.

Good wasn't it?

(I don't have a fuck*ng clue what I did)

Judy's thoughts on the Turkey-Germany match this evening

moterhfucksing german wanekrss lcuky abastatds theyr shit adn don't desevrf the honuro of getygijgtothe fucing fuinal! whayt a fuck*ng liberty byebye tuekry yuve made me yhart sing

To summarise:

Quarter Finals

Portugall     2-3   Germany
                                                   Germany 3-2 Turkey                                       
Croatia       1-1    Turkey(p)
         
------------------------------------------------------------------------------ FINAL Germany vs Spain or Russia

Holland       1-3     Russia(aet)
                                                    Russia   ?-?  Spain
(p)Spain    0-0    Italy     


This my friends has been one tasty tournament, considered the best international tournament in around 20 years for some.         

[jaydub]

Good wasn't it?

(I don't have a fuck*ng clue what I did)

"American Rounders", ftw

[Lister]

I have a friend who just returned from a trip in Austria and Germany playing club football.  He had thought he would get to go see one of the games live, but tickets were going for 500 Euros or so.  I did the math and that comes out to $8261498234604 dollars!  That's crazy.

He apparently was not killed in a gigantic fan brawl, or at least not killed badly.  So that's good.

[Arachno-capitalist]

I have a friend who just returned from a trip in Austria and Germany playing club football.  He had thought he would get to go see one of the games live, but tickets were going for 500 Euros or so.  I did the math and that comes out to $780 dollars! That's crazy.

He apparently was not killed in a gigantic fan brawl, or at least not killed badly.  So that's good.

[Drygioni]

"American Rounders", ftw

Aww shucks, it's just common parlance here with us snooty English.

Lister, that is a shame about your friend.

[littlefallsmets]

As a thought experiment on a day off from work, I just watched ten minutes of the European Soccer Championship semi-final and ten minutes of some sort of minor women's golf tour stop.

I am left with the feeling that... while the women's golf match was very boring, as least it was boring in a fashion that formed some sort of rudimentary narrative wherein concrete things that can be statistically analyzed occured.

The Asian lady with the nice butt hit the ball into the hole in three hits of the ball when the standard for the course was four and the white lady who looked like she prefers the company of other ladies hit her ball in with four hits... so the Asian lady was one point ahead of the white lady.

Whereas, in soccer, a bunch of sweaty guys kicked a ball around on their side for a while... something seemed like it was almost happening, someone kicked the ball hard... but then the other sweaty guys kicked it around on their side for a while.

Eventually, it almost looked like one guy was gonna take a shot on the other guy's goal but I guess he sort of slipped or something and it just dribbled into the goalie's hands whereupon he threw it nonchalantly back to his guys...

Whereupon, like, they kicked it around on their side for a while and I proceded to put on the Dodgers game before I clawed my goddamned eyes out.

I even played soccer for a few years as a child, you know, and I have never played golf on a full course in my life and...

I still have some kind of metric for what happened in the golf match and no such metric for the soccer match. The mildly attractive Korean lady is beating the lesbian by one point. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING goddamned happened in the soccer game at all.

[Drygioni]

pish and tish

You evidently missed the three goals then.

Seriously, this is such a fundamental difference in our appreciation of sports. I have watched American football, golf, Baseball, tennis, and find no enjoyment in any of them for exactly the reasons you do find enjoyment. Everything is split into little bite-sized chunks of action, which for me ruins any essence of the game having a narrative. Without meaning to make an overly favourable comparison, football and similar sports are like a good novel, or film; it is impossible to sum it up satisfyingly with statistics, bullet points and 'events'. You can't see it, and will understandably label me Monsieur Pretentious but football fans see a good game as a bildungsroman of sorts. If the game is the protagonist, things develop slowly, not always deliberately, but subtle changes in tempo, possession, etc. mean each game develops into something different and unique. But at times it can be hard to see what has happened concretely. You are of course an avid reader so you will probably HATE me for saying that. 

A football fan would appreciate the build-up, the creation of half-chances, the brilliant creative pass that JUST didn't quite come off; to you this would just seem like aimless milling around. I'm sure baseball fans appreciate similarly subtle aspects of the sport that I do not, but in short I cannot enjoy something where you can learn EVERYTHING about the match from statistics. Feel free to counter-argument that point, but I cannot see how any form of 'narrative' can be applied to a baseball, or indeed, a golf game. It is bullet points.

OR: We have fundamental, cultural differences in our enjoyment of sport and I should let it lie. Cool?

[Drygioni]

Oh and:

Spain beat Russia 3-0! Who'd a think that.

Germany-Spain final.

If Spain bottle this my enjoyment of what has been an amazing tournament will be diminished somewhat.

[KeithHernandez]

Man, baseball has a great narrative, you just don't get it in a way that LFM doesn't get football.  Those other sports suck, you're right about that.

[Drygioni]

Man, baseball has a great narrative, you just don't get it in a way that LFM doesn't get football.  Those other sports suck, you're right about that.

Yeah, that's fair to say, I had to go off on one a little bit because LFM is my sports nemesis and it wouldn't be sport without blinkered, unfounded generalisations and an attempt to wind up the opposition.

Hah, university class needed, the cultural literacy of sport.

Yes!

Your point about the almosteses is the crux of it really. Baseball = guaranteed lots of good hits/catches etc. Basketball and Rugby/American Football = ridiculously high scoring. Golf = ALWAYS results in someone 'scoring'.

Football? Most of the time an average of two 'better-than-almosteses' (goals) are scored over 90 minutes. I can understand the frustration when you've grown up with more 'eventful' (not sarcastic) games in your blood.

[littlefallsmets]

I missed the three goals... exactly because they came out of nowhere... is what I'm saying.

All I ask for, really, is a sense of progression, a sense of continuity.

There's no signifiers for progress in soccer... or hockey... and in basketball, scoring happens so often that the dial is kind of spun around that none of it means anything until the goddamned free throw shooting contest in the last two minutes.

But... okay.

I can turn a baseball game on and... there's two men on, one man out... it's the sixth so the starting pitcher isn't gonna be around much longer, a power hitter's coming up, it's a tight score, etc.

Similarly, football... it's 21-10 but the team that's losing is on the other team's 30 yard line, its 2nd and 3, they have a passing configuration on the field... etc.

There are markers between "scoring" and "not-scoring".

In soccer, there's a bunch of guys passing the ball around. Everyone once in a while, somebody slips or has a brain fart or there's a penalty of some sort and a guy actually has an open shot... most of which are still caught by the goalie... but then you quickly go back to a bunch of guys passing the thing around again.

There's no... definable steps between when something briefly very awesome happens and the 89 minutes and 45 seconds of a bunch of guys just passing the thing back and forth, waiting for the other team to briefly screw up.

And I just can't get my head around that being watchable.

I mean... "half-chances"? What does that even mean? A shot on goal where they really didn't have any chance of scoring but they kicked it anyway so that... uhm, like... there's another one of a small handful of stats to follow?

It kind of lays out exactly why I can't enjoy it all that much.

[Drygioni]

In soccer, there's a bunch of guys passing the ball around. Everyone once in a while, somebody slips or has a brain fart or there's a penalty of some sort and a guy actually has an open shot... most of which are still caught by the goalie... but then you quickly go back to a bunch of guys passing the thing around again.

But the passing is very enjoyable to watch when done right, it's not just the goals/fights/brain farts (has that officially replaced brainstorm?) that are exciting. Though, I think playing football helps here because then it is easier to understand the difficulty of what they're doing.

There's no... definable steps between when something briefly very awesome happens and the 89 minutes and 45 seconds of a bunch of guys just passing the thing back and forth, waiting for the other team to briefly screw up.

Well football isn't about waiting for the other team to mess up. These guys are paid millions a year, any mistakes they make are mostly caused by how brilliant/creative/battering-ram like the other team are. The reason Spain are through to the final is because their players are brilliant at keeping the ball (which is a joy to watch) while making the other team run around in circles trying to catch them. The Germans are through because of the (mostly) exemplary professional, ruthless attitude of the players when losing or winning. (And luck). Though I can see why you don't view it that way, as none of these things can be measured.

And I just can't get my head around that being watchable.

I would bring out the 'most popular sport' in the world chestnut, but there are plenty of popular things that are bad.

I mean... "half-chances"? What does that even mean? A shot on goal where they really didn't have any chance of scoring but they kicked it anyway so that... uhm, like... there's another one of a small handful of stats to follow?

Half-chances are generally ones which could only be put away by an ingenious piece of skill, and seeing that done is ecstasy. BUT a missed one shows that one team is getting in the positions to create these chances, and hence can be determined to be the better team at the time. It's all about the perceived ebb and flow, objectivity and interpretation, the beauty of football is the fact that the final score/possession stats/shots on goal mean nothing as to who was the better team.

That is of course your kryptonite, but it's my blowjob.

It kind of lays out exactly why I can't enjoy it all that much.

Then it is all in vain

[littlefallsmets]

I don't know, though.

I certainly saw a bunch of guys passing back... and forth... and back... and forth. Sometimes passing up the field wherein you think they're going to try and score a goal and then... they're just kind of passing it back and forth in a different spot on the field.

What you're saying is that Spain passed the ball to each other so much that it confused Russia somehow and then they were finally able to kick a goal?

I've put it this way before but it is apt:

You are basically describing the act of watching two people who are very good at Pong play each other for an hour and a half... you don't even get a game controller just... booop... boop... boooop... boop... boop...

And then three times, in that hour and a half, a dude messes up and the other one scores.

Soccer is fun as all hell to play, don't get me wrong! I remember it fondly.

Maybe part of the problem is that they ARE so good at soccer and so... there's no mismatches to make things exciting, just immovable objects against unstoppable forces grinding away at each other except for three brief exciting slip-ups.

[CortJstr]

Not watching any unscripted sports I find this very amusing. Especially because 5-star/Match of the Year Contender wrestling matches are always described as "telling a story." Being somewhere between 10 and 100% scripted, depending on the partici#####' personal preferences, helps.

Also, for no particular reason, Shaolin Soccer was a badass soccer movie.

I don't know, though.

I certainly saw a bunch of guys passing back... and forth... and back... and forth. Sometimes passing up the field wherein you think they're going to try and score a goal and then... they're just kind of passing it back and forth in a different spot on the field.

What you're saying is that Spain passed the ball to each other so much that it confused Russia somehow and then they were finally able to kick a goal?

I think you just accidentally described pre-shot-clock basketball.

[Drygioni]

I don't know, though.

I certainly saw a bunch of guys passing back... and forth... and back... and forth. Sometimes passing up the field wherein you think they're going to try and score a goal and then... they're just kind of passing it back and forth in a different spot on the field.

I've put it this way before but it is apt:

You are basically describing the act of watching two people who are very good at Pong play each other for an hour and a half... you don't even get a game controller just... booop... boop... boooop... boop... boop...

The Pong thing is apt on a very basic level, I agree. Imagine Pong but with 11 players on each side, trying to look for openings in what is a very congested space and you can kind of see football.

But you could just say Baseball is the same. One paddle on a team hits it to the other, and this paddle has to to hit it back at a place the other paddles can't reach.

Basically, Pong is the square root of everything.

What you're saying is that Spain passed the ball to each other so much that it confused Russia somehow and then they were finally able to kick a goal?

Again, yes but no. Spain were constantly stretching the oppositions defenders by passing it, and if you do that enough you will fashion enough 'chances' to 'kick a goal'. It's more complex than that but I see where you are coming from.

Maybe part of the problem is that they ARE so good at soccer and so... there's no mismatches to make things exciting, just immovable objects against unstoppable forces grinding away at each other except for three brief exciting slip-ups.

It can apply, but not to the match today. Unless the teams are VERY evenly-matched, which is a rarity, one team tends to give way/get complacent and then things happen, as it did today when Spain finally got their asses in gear. And your point about mismatches is (I can for once safely say) inaccurate, nearly 90 percent of games a team plays are against opponents marginally stronger or weaker than it.

And, as Turkey have evidenced this tournament, football is surprisingly full of upsets.