Stereotype much?

Appears to have several referees. What do they do?

And soccer? Football please.

SMFS: so wrong on many counts.

Italian rugby is forward dominated, for example. Italians were the hard men of soccer for many years. It’s a very macho culture.

They don’t do *collective* things like dying for a recently invented nation quite the way the Germans do, but that’s a different thing entirely.

It pays not to confuse individual and collective behaviour.

@ENLB

Posh Brits used to call it “soccer”, it’s where the term comes from. C.f. “rugger” (for rugby), “Twickers” (Twickenham), “Singers” (Singapore), the naval game of “uckers“. In fact quite a lot of naval slang does the -er or -ers thing (icers, roughers, shippers, four [or nine] O’clockers, sippers, gulpers, homeward bounders, limers, snorkers) though someone like SE would be needed to say how many of those are still in common use.

Having said that, it’s been ages since I heard a Brit use “soccer” in anything other than the ironic sense – either poking fun at the Yanks, or poking fun at people who poke fun at the Yanks and have forgotten it was originally a British affectation.

Chester Draws – “so wrong on many counts. Italian rugby is forward dominated, for example.”

Oh come on. I love Italian rugby, I really do. I hope for them to improve almost as much as I do for Argentina. But if they are trying forward dominated rugby it is not working:

In O’Shea’s first Six Nations Championship, Italy lost all five games and failed to pick up a single point for the table. Despite leading Wales 7–3 in the opening round, they conceded 30 points in the second half to lose 33–7. This was followed by a loss to Ireland 63–10 and a loss to England despite also leading England at Twickenham 10–5 at half time and still within a score to win at the 60th minute. A loss to France 40–18 meant it was guaranteed Italy would finish bottom. The last week saw Italy fail to score any points against Scotland, losing 29–0.
….
The 2018 Six Nations Championship saw Italy gain their first table point since 2015, with a losers bonus point being earned in the final round when Italy lost to Scotland 29–27. The other matches, saw Italy not only fail to gain a victory, but were also denied a losers and try bonus point, losing 46–15 to England, 56–19 to Ireland, 34–17 to France and 38–14 to Wales.

“Italians were the hard men of soccer for many years. It’s a very macho culture.”

The hard men of soccer being right up there with the hard men of musical theatre. It is macho. A culture of diving, crying and cheating.

“It pays not to confuse individual and collective behaviour.”

I never do. The Italians, and the Argentinians, were capable of extreme acts of bravery as long as they did not have to do it in a group. But that is kind of the point.

Only the yanks call it soccer. The rest of the world calls it football.

That’s only because the rest of the world is full of wogs too dim to watch a college football game on Saturday afternoon. If they did, they’d call soccer, soccer… as God intended.

I love Premier League soccer, but to try to argue it’s football, especially when there’s Ohio State vs. Michigan, only invites mockery.

Up to the 90’s the Italians always fielded a player of the Vinnie Jones mentality (but generally rather better at football) in their national and club sides. Men who hurt people for a living if they touched one of their important players the wrong way.

Franco Baresi. What a filthy bastard.

Anyway, I insist on calling it football as it seems to irritate the rugby crowd who insist on calling it soccer to irritate the football crowd. Actually, I call it football because about 97% of the British population call it that.

Common use:
roughers, shippers, four o’clockers, snorkers

Dead due to Black Tot Day:
sippers, gulpers

Never heard used:
icers, homeward bounders, limers, nine o’clockers.

Monsieur le Pensant

I knew I could rely on you 😉

DtP:

I love Premier League soccer, but to try to argue it’s football, especially when there’s Ohio State vs. Michigan, only invites mockery.

Rupert Giles:

I just think it’s rather odd that a nation that prides itself on its virility should feel compelled to strap on forty pounds of protective gear just in order to play rugby.

Firstly, there are hard men in lots of sports and there are cheats in some – grabbing Gazza’s balls is not the action of a hard man, it is the action of a cheat.
I went from a school that played soccer to one that played rugger – both used the same language so it’s not just how posh you are.
@ Tom J – many thanks: I can visually it but can’t get the quote right.
But rugger isn’t *that* tough – Alf used to recruit one of the Varsity forwards if he was short of a decent heavyweight to fight Cambridge and they (apart from one who virtually never talked to me) reckoned they needed to be *much* fitter to box than to play rugger.
Footnote: sixty years ago we played football (of either kind) with leather balls that absorbed water when it rained and/or from the ground after it rained and their impact was significant, often painful: I can remember one of my schoolfriends being felled and concussed by a failed attempt at a conversion. Soccer is a lot softer than it was (unless you are playing against Vinnie Jones).

SE, if you’ve never heard of nine o’clockers you must be a WAFU.

I just think it’s rather odd that a nation that prides itself on its virility should feel compelled to strap on forty pounds of protective gear just in order to play rugby.

Wog thinking in all its glory… Quoting a fictional character from a shitty TV show written by Grade A cunt Josh Whedon. Take a look at Whedon and tell me he’s ever played anything more physically demanding and dangerous than lawn darts.

‘Mericans wear of protection in football because when they hit someone, those who get hit aren’t getting back up unless they had that protection. Put a bunch of rugby wogs on a playing field – protected or no – with the likes of Ronnie Lott, Jack Lambert or Reggie White and what you’ll end up with is a bunch of hospitalized rugby wogs.