Dave’s Football Blog

Apparently, “soccer” has become a dirty word down under…

It has been widely reported that if Australia is to host soccer’s major event, then the only stadia capable of holding adequate crowds across the various states will be AFL and NRL venues. Ironically that is because soccer has not had sufficient success to build large stadia for itself. Yet now it has re-branded itself as simply “football” and increasingly journalists are abused if they dare to refer to it as soccer (its original nickname to distinguish it from the other codes of football). Some of kind of reverse-racism is in play - where once soccer was considered a game for ethnic minorities, now to even call it by that name is seen as discriminatory, yet its supporters and administrators claim the name football for themselves. Sadly, Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC, has fallen into line.

And the sport’s peak body will almost certainly succeed in gaining access to the major venues of Australia, if it does secure the soccer World Cup. That’s because bodies such as the AFL and NRL would be seen as, that ugly term, “un-Australian” if they didn’t support the country’s bid, and no doubt there would also be government pressure to fall into line.

Read the rest at World Footy News. The football wars never end in Australia, do they?

If you’re looking for the one thing that separates American sports from sports in other countries, it’s this — in America, someone has to win every single game.

Is that baseball game tied after 9 innings? Play another inning. Is that basketball game tied at the end of regulation? Play another five minutes. Still not decided? Keep playing until we have a winner. Even hockey games, which used to end in draws all the time, now have overtime and shootouts in the regular season. We demand winners in this country, dammit.

It’s the same with football. Yesterday, when the Philadelphia Eagles and the Cincinnati Bengals got to the end of the sudden death overtime period and it was still tied at 13-13 — the first tie game in the NFL in 6 years — everyone dragged out the old kissing-your-sister analogy. Draws are that unsatisfying to the American sports psyche. Hell, Donovan McNabb didn’t even think it was possible for an NFL game to end in a tie.

A question for all you Premier League fans out there — were you so unsatisfied by the outcome of the Hull City v. Manchester City match yesterday? Yes, it ended in a 2-2 draw, and at times, it was an instructional video on how not to play defense, but ultimately, it was a fine result. Both teams got a point, and perhaps that point will decide whether Hull and Man City maintain their league status at the end of the season.

Of course, league status is not a concern in the NFL. The Cincinnati Bengals aren’t going to get relegated to a lower league, much as some of us would love to see it happen. The idea that every game must have a winner, though, is unique here. Rugby matches end in draws. We usually get a draw or two in the AFL every year. Do they keep playing until someone wins? No, they accept the outcome and move on with their lives. If it were a playoff game or a cup tie, then sure, you have to play until there’s a winner. A regular season game? Nah, screw it. We’ll just split the points and move on.

Ah, but there are no points on offer in American football. There are only wins and losses. Perhaps that’s why the NCAA abolished ties and introduced its overtime system in 1996. That system eliminates all possibility of a tie. The NFL sudden-death OT system? Close, but not quite.

Perhaps if the NFL created a points system like the AFL has — 4 points for a win, 2 points for a draw — we wouldn’t worry about whether OT is necessary in a regular season game. We’ll just look at the points and determine who goes to the playoffs from that, and if certain teams have the same number of points, we’ll give them a extra point for a tiebreaker and move on.

This sort of system comes with a side benefit — the ability to dock teams points if they break the rules. What’s that? More than three of your players have been popped for using performance-enhancing drugs? WHAM! 5-point deduction. Oh, what’s this? You’ve been illegally videotaping your opponents for the last 5 years? WHAM! 25-point deduction. Now you have to go 16-0 just to get a Wild Card spot. Suddenly, the Hammer of Goodell doesn’t seem quite so Nerf-like, is it?

Will the NFL ever go in this direction? Don’t hold your breath. If anything, that Bengals-Eagles game will be an excuse for the NFL to reconsider the college overtime policy and ensure that there will never be a draw in the NFL ever again. Americans demand victors. It’s just how we are.

There’s been a lot of focus this year on violence in the NFL — hard hits, horrific injuries, past players looking for ways to prevent future concussions, bounties on players, new rules that may or may not be “pansying up” the game, and so on.

It’s all quite absurd, really. Those who prattle on about the violence of the gridiron game seem to forget that it is violence. It’s a brutal tactical war game that requires players to collide into each other at the fastest possible speed to stop an opponent — something players learn at a very young age.

For as bad as it looks now, though, American football was much worse a century ago. There was no padding, very little forward passing, and far more brutal battles in the trenches.

That might be one reason why the New York Times took a look at the state of American football and thought, hey, maybe those Aussies have a better idea.

“Practically a similar summing up as that of the major’s is the consensus among the Californians who have seen the game as demonstrated as it is now being taught on the coast. Its general absorption of most of the other types of contests with the leather spheroid has proved the rule whenever the issue was football”, wrote the Times.

“If we Americans want a safe and sane game of football we can do no better than to emulate the Australian style of game”, Major Peixotto says. “It is almost as open as lacrosse, as changeable as basketball, presents almost as many dribbling chances as the association game (soccer), and admits of no such close formations as exist under our college rules, and which, because of their tendency toward injuries, have raised such a hue and cry against the game”

Sure, it was published in 1910, and the old Major had something to sell people back then, but still, it makes you wonder just how many people would be more than happy to make the same arguments today. Perhaps the only difference is the number of deaf ears on which those arguments would fall. For all its faults, we’re still committed to the gridiron game around here. It’s enough to make you think we might be having too much fun with all this violence.

You can read the full Times article here. Nobody writes like that anymore. I wonder why.

Remember this story? Fuggedaboudit. AIG pulled out of the deal, apparently deciding it was time to cut back on negative publicity.

Gee, what could have made them think that? Maybe this?

You know what the real problem is with International Rules Football? They only play it twice a year.

Some folks will disagree with me on this — particuarly this guy and this guy — but that’s because they only see this game through the filter of their own football code. If they stopped and looked at this from a neutral viewpoint, though, they might see a football code that has much more potential than is on display in this Australia v. Ireland test matches. International Rules requires a rare combination of speed, strength, agility and creativity that you don’t usually see in other codes. Yes, the play looked sloppy at times on Friday, but that’s because we’re dealing with two teams playing this particular brand of football for the first time in two years — and the rules have changed yet again, so even now it’s not the same.

If these two nations played this particular football code year-round, however, International Rules might develop into a uniquely entertaining game. We could see coaches come up with game plans and see players execute clever moves that would excite the fans to no end. We could see a form of football that would blossom into something new and exciting.

Imagine for a moment if this were the dominant football code on the planet. Imagine someone like Wayne Rooney was running around up front, taking marks and nailing overs like he used to nail middle-aged hookers. Imagine if Troy Polamalu were darting around the midfield, tackling any ball carrier coming his way. Imagine what Bryan Habana could do with a round ball and a little bit of space on the sideline.

We’ll never get to see that. Australia has its code, Ireland has its code, everyone else has their codes, and that’s that. We already have two truly international football games — soccer and rugby — and nobody really wants to explore the possibilities of any new codes. Why inject a bunch of new rules into football when the old rules seem to work just fine for everyone?

That’s a shame. Given a little bit of room to breathe, I think International Rules could be a great football game. I guess I’m alone alone in that regard.

Apparently, when International Rules Football was played in Croke Park in 2004, it wasn’t just a competition between two nations, but two species. Football is more fun when there’s a dog in the game, isn’t it? We should have canine pitch invaders in the Premier League every week.

I’ll have more to say about last Friday’s International Rules test match a bit later, but suffice to say, I feel a bit differently about it than this guy.

Do you enjoy a good sports brawl? Do you mark your calendar for days when Ron Artest returns to Detroit? Are you slightly melancholy about the bankrupcy of EliteXC? You’re in luck! The International Rules Football Series resumes tomorrow!

Yes, the hybrid of Australian Football and Gaelic Football — which could have been something interesting if it hadn’t degenerated into an on-the-pitch brawl every year — will be played in Perth tomorrow and in Melbourne next week, and the Irish team is already vowing to get physical with the Aussies. The Australian side, meanwhile, is saying it plans to tackle within the rules, but it’s damn near impossible to know what those rules are by now. This could just be Gaelic Football with marking and behind posts. It makes you wonder how many times the AFL and GAA can restart this party before people just get annoyed by it.

If you want to watch this spectacle in the US, it’ll be on Setanta Sports live early Friday morning, with a replay at 6:00 PM ET. Same goes for next weekend. Given the Premier League slate this weekend — most of the interesting games are on Sunday, thanks to the Champions League and European N.I.T. schedule — it might be worth saving for Saturday morning. Nothing like waking up to a little cartoon violence on Saturday, no?

I suppose you could say that these Melbourne Victory supporters got their wish, except there was no fire. The Telstra Dome in Melbourne is no longer the Telstra Dome. A new naming rights deal with UAE-based Etihad Airlines has made this building Etihad Stadium.

Come to think of it, all the stadium management has done is ruin a perfectly good protest chant. Bastards.