I was sickened by the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game two weeks ago, which ended not in athletic theatrics, but a 15-minute vigil on the field for Baltimore's Willis McGahee, who'd been left crumpled by a helmet-to-helmet hit, a vigil followed in the days after by the usual b.s. about how he was fine and dandy. The rise of soccer as a world game has everything to do with football's violence, which destroys superb athletes.
That's another reason I so enjoyed yesterday's Super Bowl, one of the greatest games this fan has ever seen: there was little violence on the field, and the game was distinguished not by hits but by balletic catches. Yes the refs surely called too many personal fouls (and the tilt went from Pittsburgh's favor in the first 3 quarters to Arizona near the end), but it was an athletic game not a pugilistic one. (And Steeler James Harrison's bid to be the standout player of the game was demolished in the fourth quarter by the mugging he performed on Aaron Francisco.) About time; and it shows that just as baseball changed following the beanings of Tony Conigliaro and Paul Blair, the league has a lot of control over how much violence there is on the field. (Phil Weiss)
Interesting take. American football has only gotten more violent as the protective technology has improved. Australian rules is just as rough, sometimes even more insane (no fair catch), but the players have less protection and are still mostly human-sized.
But the Americacentrism shows when you suggest soccer might be catching up to American football in some way. American football has a tiny fraction of the attention that soccer has, around the world, and an even much tinier fraction of participants. And it's always been that way, and always will.
Cricket, anyone?
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By ALAN FARAGO @ counterpunch.org
The American version of football proceeds by fits and starts. There is very little foot in it, except after the fourth play by a team on the offense that has “possession” of the ball or when the team that has scored a touchdown gains an additional point for a set play where a kicker propels the bar through crossbars. Compared to “the beautiful game”, a game of two halves and nearly continuous movement of a round ball propelled by anything but arms or hands of the field players, American football is quartered with teams rotating sides of the field like dueling combatants using anything but feet except during the aforementioned prescribed occasions.
The game proceeds by one set piece after another performed by enormous athletes prized for power, nimbleness, speed and coordination. Each series of four plays, called downs, is calibrated by 10 yard increments measured by referees in pin striped uniforms. For the twenty four men in opposing teams of twelve, American football is a dance of pain and sacrifice to move the ball that rested on the field before the play commenced and ends when the ball again touches ground. A play may last a second, or, a few seconds. A college friend who later played professional football and the Superbowl, too, once told me the difference between the college version of the game was violence…..
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to counterpunch.org
The rise of soccer as a world game has everything to do with football's violence
Soccer is notorious for the riots and hooliganry associated with it.
Non-violent? Even the announcers were complaining that the game was getting "chippy."