When my son was about seven he was somewhat interested in soccer. He and I watched a FIFA (junior level) game Denmark VS somebody on TV.
At one point, one of the players got fouled somehow, pretended to get tripped, and rolled an impossible number of times before stopping and grabbing his knee in agony. In due course some guys ran out and stretchered him off. As soon as the bad guy got carded, the supposedly injured guy jumped off the stretcher and ran back on.
That was the end of my son's interest in soccer.
It's these players who give it a bad rep. I quite like "football" but the South American and some (mostly Mediterranean?) European players are just ridiculous.
It shows the cultural differences. In Australia, you have to be almost dead to show any pain, yet these guys think it is 'crafty' to milk a penalty.
Seriously, the way some go on I'd be so embarrassed. I used to watch the premier league a lot - when I lived in UK (can't avoid it!) And when it was on fox sports - but it wasn't bad in that regard. Even the A-League started giving 'cynical' yellow cards. Although how they came up with cynical I don't know...?
But I digress. As stated, simply because a sport is more international doesn't make it better; it's completely subjective and how many millions of these people have never even seen rugby league?
I grew up playing Aussie rules until I did my Doueihi. I mean, my acl. When I came back I played league, and it was so fun being allowed to hit and get hit as hard as possible again.
In my opinion, league has the perfect amount of scoring and skills to appreciate; there's no other sport with anything as exciting as a line break and the sprint to score or even to catch that guy.
I also put mma and boxing as favourites. So much courage and skill in both, and yeh, it can be brutal, but the chance your guy is going to get knocked out makes the stakes high; you're not only hoping they win, you're also really really hoping they don't lose badly.
