American football is a better sport than soccer

I like to order my arguments so I’m going to organize my opponent's arguments (Round 2) numerically. 1. Complexity Yes I will concede that football does have more possibilities when it comes to play calling. The stereotypical football chalkboard, complete with X’s and O’s is rather accurate, as I played a couple years of football myself. And yes, football does tend to allow more complex plays such as the “Statue of Liberty”. However, I would like to point out that NFL players get up to 40 seconds (realistically around 30 though) to decide and call plays. Added to that, many NFL plays aren’t decided on by the players itself but a coach sitting up in a box, radioing in plays. Soccer on the other hand doesn’t have these breaks in between every play. Rather, it is a pretty constant game. However, during those few breaks such as corner kicks, play-calling does emerge [1], and it can be just as complicated as football, but unlike football, te defense reacts along with the offense. “In contrast, soccer has a rather predictable formula - if you have the ball, try to get it into the goal, and if you don't, try to get it.” To a common observer (I’m not insulting my opponent’s intelligence) this would seem so. But, as a 13 year veteran of organized soccer, I can tell you this is not so. While football revolves around the use of hundreds predesigned plays, higher levels of soccer is played using several basic strategies. And unlike football where they have a coach to plan it all out for them, the players of a soccer game have to change things around while they play, adjusting for their opponent’s actions. A common strategy in a soccer game is “The Triangle” [2]. Just like I said before, this is exceedingly simple, one that kids learn. However, in the heat of a game, the offense must modify it, depending on the defense they are face with. The defense can be arranged in all sorts of patterns and so can the offense as this list shows [3]. Also, responding to my opponent’s that “Teamwork isn't nearly as vital, and one-on-one matchups such as striker on goalie are much more important.”, this is far from the truth. Only several men in the world can outmanuever an entire defense and even then, the defense has to make major mistakes or be awful for this to happen. Soccer is a game of passing and teamwork. In a game where the players get very few breaks, passing becomes key as it takes less effort to pass a ball to the center of the field than to dribble the ball there yourself. Rarely will a goal be scored by a breakaway down the entire field. Rather, the entire team is involved as the ball is slowly shifted downfield by a combination of forward, backward, and side-way passes. Added to that, everyone touches the ball and has a chance to score (except for the goalkeeper, they rarely score unless they are pulled or in a non-professional game manages to kick it across the field and score, I’ve had that happen to my team once before but it’s pretty rare) in soccer [4] [5]. Compared to football where the majority of plays involve only involve some of the team, this seems to support my argument that soccer does involve a lot of teamwork. 2. Time Management I think I covered this in my original argument but I will briefly go over it again. First off, allowing 40 seconds for an offense and defense to reset as well as call a play is ridiculous. I could understand if the quarterback or captain was trying to decide which play to do but he is simply passing on instructions, the play is decided upstairs. Also, the commercial breaks in a televised football game are out of control. There has even been suspicion that some coaches purposely extend a game by calling timeouts just so networks can get extra commercial breaks [6]. Also, the stoppage of time in football can be quite ridiculous as such as in the NCAA where in the last 2 minutes of the game, the clock is stopped after every single play [7]. It’s tedious enough already with both teams getting a free break with the 2 minute warning and with all the timeouts and spiking of the ball being called. There is no real flow in a football game unlike the constant ebb of a soccer match. 3. Tie Resolution I completely agree with the fact that PKs don’t determine the better team. However, PKs are a necessary evil because as you pointed on this round in your refutations, games can go 90 minutes without a goal being scored and with only 30 minutes of overtime, sometimes goals aren’t even scored there. A two hour game ending with a tie shows that the teams are practically the same skill level and there isn’t much alternative to PKs to decide a winner. Sure, they could go back to the golden goal rule and just have both teams play until the first goal is scored, but that could last awhile and would only prove which team as greater endurance. NFL football has been flawed in the past with their overtime system, as a team only needed to gain around 40 yards before kicking a field goal and winning it, before the opposing team even had an opportunity to touch the ball. However, they did fix this injustice recently. 4. Fans If you have ever seen the movie Eurotrip, the phrase “soccer hooligans” brings to mind the typical stereotype of a soccer fan that my opponent has brought up. However, there is nothing like attending a soccer game, especially in Europe. Fans are so much more passionate of a soccer game than their counterparts attending a football game. From an entire half of a stadium going doing the Poznan [8] to the constant buzz of a vuvuzuela. No football game can compare to the energy and passion exuded by soccer fans [10]. The fact that people can become so enthralled by this game is remarkable. I think this shows why soccer is better sport than football. However, my opponent does point out some nasty incidents that have erupted. While some riots can be atributed to the diplomatic situation between countries and other alcohol (not an excuse though), a chunk of them are because soccer fans are hugley passionate about their teams. This passion as I said before isn’t a bad thing but the lack of restraint on the part of fans isn’t and it tarnishes the reputation of soccer. However, the NFL causes riots of its own, as riots tend to break out after Super Bowls, as shown by this year [10] [1] http://www.suggestsoft.com... [2] http://www.soccer-academy.net... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org...(association_football) [4]http://3.bp.blogspot.com... [5] http://www.soccerbythenumbers.com... [6]http://sports.yahoo.com... [7] http://deadspin.com... [8]http://www.thesun.co.uk... [9] [10]http://bleacherreport.com... I look forward to the final round.