SPORTS: Football vs. soccer

A readable article in the Wall Street Journal by Gerard Baker compares the NFL with soccer. Of especial note is this comment by Robert Bennett:

Football isn't command and control because the first casualty in any battle is the plan, and every play is a battle. The plan can put players out of position with disastrous results. But regardless of where any given player starts a play or what he's supposed to do in a play, he has to adjust to the battle as it rapidly unfolds.

I've played European and American football both. In European football, I was a left back. My job was to prevent fast advance on the wing, prevent passes into the middle from the wing, and protect the left post when the ball was in the penalty box. Not a lot to have to know, really. The best trick the offense could throw at me was to send the winger dribbling toward the middle and send a midfielder in behind me along the sideline. Seen it once, and it never works again. Yawn ... lots of running, not much thinking, and the best defender on the field - the sideline - was always nearby. No ESP required.

In American football, I was a defensive end. It's one of the easiest positions to learn but much more complicated than any in European football. I had to know 8 different defensive sets, including the Nickel, when I dropped back to outside linebacker - a whole new position. In each set, I had different responsibilities. Regardless, I had to read the play as it developed, and there was much subterfuge. For example, If I'm in a 4-3 set and get sucked inside on a trap fake with a pitch outside to a sweeping back to the strong side, then I just failed my team miserably. It's no excuse that I've got less than half a second to recognize the fake by keeping the pulling guard in the corner of my eye while fighting like heck to keep my feet so I won't get flattened. If the guard continues to sweep rather than dive, then I've got to disengage the tight end, fight my way through the guard, then the fullback, and then guess correctly whether to pursue the quarterback or take the pitch away by driving down on the wingback. Guess wrong, and I risk the quarterback cutting up behind me for big gain, but I can't look behind me to see if my teammates have pursuit because there's no time. This is just one of hundreds of different situations that many years of study, practice and battle experience throw at a defensive end.

See the difference? So how about this, then? My ball technique in European football stunk, but I was a fearsome left back because I was bigger and faster and more physical than anyone else on the field, and all that I had to do to cover for my defects was to never touch the ball more than three times in a row. Not so in American football, where I was undersized and had to rely on footwork, handwork (akin to Jujitsu), lightning quick reads and a ferocious will to prevail just to do my job adequately. I played both games at the same level of competition, but American football was by far the most challenging mentally and physically, required the most knowledge, skill and experience, was far more physically taxing and injurious, and therefore far more ecstatic to play. And to watch because I know what goes into both.

Gerard is spot on.