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Aaron’s over soccer already – Central Queensland Today

Liam says it’s the passion and tight-nature of soccer that makes it the best sport in the world. Photo of Welsh supporters in tears after bowing out of the World Cup on Wednesday. Photo: David Davies/AAP.

Let’s Talk Sport with Aaron Stevens and Liam Emerton

In this week’s edition of Let’s Talk Sport 4RO’s Aaron Stevens joins CQ Today and Gladstone Today journalist Liam Emerton to talk about why soccer is boring to Aaron and the best sport in the world to Liam.

Aaron: Liam I just wanted to preface this week’s column by saying that I love sports.

We both love sports, I enjoy my league, cricket, gridiron. I like watching horse racing, bowls, but I’ve never been able to get into soccer.

I’ll flick over the channel to see if the Roar are still losing, if it’s half time in whatever else I’m watching I’ll linger for a moment.

I’ve even been known to have the A-League on in the background.

Now with the World Cup on I’ve been making an effort. I gave you a bit of stick when you wouldn’t wake up early for the rugby league World Cup.

I got up early anyway so I was watching the other morning and I almost saw a goal!

But you’re really going to have to sell me on it. It’s the only sport I’ve never really been able to get into.

I’ll tell you what soccer is to me. Remember when you were young and some of your mates would kick the ball back and forth, that’s soccer, that’s where it should have stopped.

I can appreciate the skill of the sport when a player can weave in and out, and flick the ball up or behind them, it’s very impressive.

When a player winds up and blasts that ball towards the goal, that’s incredible.

If the ball went into the back of the net just a little more often, that would be better.

From watching the World Cup it seems to me that teams spend the better part of 80 minutes defending, making sure the other team scores.

And by chance, if by accident one team scores, then there’s a mad rush in injury time to get a goal.

So why not just play injury time? Soccer would be so much better if it was six or seven minutes long.

That last 15 minutes of the Australia match against Tunisia was fantastic. The rest of it? Completely forgettable.

I’m not trying to belittle the sport but there are better sports out there.

The one where the cheese rolls down the hill? Better than soccer.

We’re so sports starved that we’re turning to soccer.

Liam, I’ve seen the videos that you sent me after the Socceroos win, you should have been wearing clothes! But I appreciate the passion, it’s obvious that soccer fans and non-soccer fans see the game differently.

When I watch it, it’s like I’m watching pong, the old video game, that’s what it looks like.

Liam: Sure mate I can see what you’re saying but there’s a ton of sports that you don’t know why they became so popular or how they could become so interesting.

The biggest example of this is test match cricket, why is it so enjoyable to watch?

Well it’s not really. If you sat around for five whole days at test match cricket, I would be completely over it by the end of it.

There can be 0-0 draws in soccer that can be extremely boring and I get that.

Honestly, it’s the passion. That’s why it’s the best sport.

It might not be the most thrilling sport all of the time, but those big moments, those things that happen make everything so massive.

But I’ve got a list of reasons why soccer is so interesting, and I’m going to compare it to the other World Cups we’ve had this year.

Soccer is the best sport, it’s the most enjoyable to watch because of the drama.

No sport matches the drama that soccer brings to the forefront especially when a World Cup is on the line.

If you don’t mind Aaron, I’ll start with the dramas of the upset.

When massive upsets happen in the big games on the biggest stage.

Japan beating Germany and Saudi Arabia beating Argentina were both massive results in the opening round.

The drama to finish it all, to see the passion of Japan’s fans, who afterwards cleaned up the entire stadium which is something you would never see in any other sport, was amazing.

You don’t get that very often in the World Cup across any other sport, we didn’t get that in the rugby league world cup that’s for sure.

It was too predictable, that’s why soccer is so good because it’s unpredictable, you never know who’s going to win.

I wonder how many people saw Australia winning the World Cup in rugby league from the $1.30 favorites position…

Teams like Leicester City can win an English Premier League title from $501 odds. Have you ever seen a wooden spoon favorite win the NRL?

Do you want to rebut that mate? That’s where it starts.

Aaron: OK, I’ll give you that. The moment where Japan scored that winning goal was incredible. I got goosebumps.

But you get upset in tiddly winks! A kid at school who was bad at tiddlywinks beat me one day, congratulations that’s fantastic.

There are upsets in games, who would have thought Samoa would have made the final?

And for Australia to be knocked out in the T20 World Cup was a massive upset.

There were several exciting upsets in the T20 World Cup.

But day-to-day, game-to-game, I haven’t been thrilled.

You talk about test cricket but every time the ball gets sent down the pitch something can happen.

That doesn’t happen in soccer, you get situations where players just pass it back and forward to each other for long periods of time and you think why am I watching this?

Liam: I get that but there can be whole days of test match cricket where nothing happens.

Also, Samoa was the fourth favorite to win the World Cup so I wouldn’t exactly call that an upset!

The group stages haven’t been all great games, I’ll admit that but we’ve seen it start to come alive in the last couple of games.

Cameroon and Serbia played out a 3-3 draw the other morning, that’s a good result.

It’s starting to come alive because things have to happen.

After the completion of gameweek two, after every team had played twice, 30 teams were still alive in the competition.

So it’s still the drama and overall tightness of soccer that makes it great.

When you go back and look at the tight games, I’ve done my statistical work.

Out of 45 games of the T20 World Cup, I’d argue that only nine games were close.

Out of the 61 Rugby League World Cup games, only seven were remotely tight.

Where’s the excitement in that if a team is flogging all the others all the time?

I think soccer consistently gives you tight results where one goal can change the whole complexion of the match.

The tightness of soccer really makes up for what you say is unenjoyable content to watch.

Aaron: No question, you’re right about the Rugby League World Cup and the blowouts.

But I actually watch rugby league for a different reason, I watch it for the tries.

I know there are not a lot of people who agree with me on that front, they want to go back to games that are 10-8.

That can be a great game of rugby league but I have no problem watching a team put on 50 points in a free-flowing game.

I’d prefer to watch three or four great tries in a thrashing than I would have a 10-8 scoreline that’s not a great game of football.

Granted that 3-3 draw we saw the other day was amazing but maybe there’s an answer here.

Maybe there are too many players on the field? Maybe they need to make the goals bigger.

Maybe they take a page out of AFL’s book and give you a point for missing and earning a goal kick?

It is the World Game, it’s the most popular game and I respect that and all the skills.

But maybe there’s something they can do to the game to add more scoring opportunities.

It’s just never appealed to me.