Can't take soccer (football) seriously

I use to play soccer (football), and I actually do like watching it from time to time. Still, you really can't take soccer seriously when the players are doing this,

Though I must say that it is much more believable than this,

The top one is actually pretty funny.

The 81 seconds in those two clips are probably the most soccer I ever watched. From that I don't think I've missed anything.

We did play "soccer" (or at least our rougher brand of it) in junior high school. We picked the ball up and ran with it quite a bit, and that was legal, and it was also legal to tackle the guy running with it.

After only a few broken bones the school administrators made us quit.

They also made us quit playing tackle basketball.

Took away all of our fun.

Every sport has it's bad eggs. I try not to judge soccer based on those few.

The flopping and acting does give it a bad name, but I still enjoy it.

I know the NBA is notorious for having some really bad acting on flops. It can get really hard to tell with the NFL since it is a contact sport. Like lets say a guy just gets touched a bit going OB, but then purposely lets his own momentum loose balance. With the speed of the game, that is hard to even tell if he just tripped, was pushed or flopped.

Yea kickers are really known for flopping in the NFL.

I believe the other player was making crude and vulgar remarks about Zidane's sister. People loose their temper, it happens. At least he head butted him in the chest and not the face.

Oh NFL is nasty business back in the day. If there was a tackle pile, there has been know incidence of people gauging at people eyes, trying to break fingers.

Heck some players today will try to twist a person's ankle at the end of a tackle. A Bengal's player has been accused of doing that  to a few Panther's players in their last game.

I see lots of soccer and have to say, most of the cheating goes on at the more professional level, whereas most of the fouling goes on at the levels below! Soccer ain't what it used to be! There is so much money at stake nowadays it's become a different game and not as good to see, whereas in the older days it was about sport and passion, it was a lot rougher and physical, and that part of the sport was accepted! Today it's about sponsorship deals, merchandise and TV rights, and I can't be arsed with it anymore! Still, it's better than hand egg!

Now that my son is playing soccer, and I'm coaching, I've started watching the Barclay's Premier League pretty heavily this season.  And at that level, it's an amazing game.  The speed and precision at which they pass, and the ease with which they receive passes and change directions, and then some of the goals they score.  Sheesh, I get goosebumps ...

Also, the quantity of diving and acting in the BPL is considerably lower than, say, during the World Cup.  I'm not sure what it's like in some of the other European leagues or South American Leagues, but in England it's not that bad at all.  Certainly no worse than NBA flopping and NFL wide receivers whining for PI flags after every single incompletion.

This. Flopping is a scourge on soccer as it is on basketball and football, but for me it's not worth it to throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

Yes, and, they are trying to work on it. They will especially in the Premier League give yellow cards to players who obviously flop. In addition the league office will likely apply a fine to diver as in the NFL when you have an illegal hit. I think since these have been instituted there is far less diving then before.

The challenge remains that scoring a goal is really really hard. So the strikers have learned they can get an easy goal by flopping.

I've only started watching English football in the past few years, so I don't have all the historical context. Was there a particular time period when you felt things changed? Was it roughly when the Premier League came into being? Were there other factors besides the gobs of money that played a role?

Remembering back to childhood, they used to never call fouls in our rec leagues. I was a slow, clumsy central defender and would simply swing through ball and legs (or legs and ball) on a routine basis. Wouldn't have lasted half a match under these sort of rules.

It's not the flopping, it's everything. Watching a bunch of guys jog back and forth for 3 hours and end in a 0-0 tie isn't exactly exciting for me. It's like watching fishing...except they occasionally catch a fish...

With that said, it's fun to play.