Who can hold a decent conversation about world football ??

So i moved here recently and i can only say the general standard of football knowledge is woefull :-(

So far my two main conversation were:

1: I think ronaldo is the best player in the world because blah blah blah

2: I think that James (!!!!!) Terry at chelski is great

Can anyone in downtown toronto actually hold a decent disscussion ??

disclaimer: I am not slamming people who do not know much about football and want to learn i just miss actually having an in-depth disscussion on the flat 4-4-2 vs 4-1-2-1-2 and so on........

Sounds like you ran into some new fan of football and the Premiership

Yeah its just too common to run into 'mr soccer' and find out he still couldnt explain the offside trap with a pint, a packet of crisps and a salt shaker

I guess that is why they have these forums to talk about football

Yeah but its a bit too easy for people hiding behind a username to flame you sensless for an opinion, at least in person you have to back things up without copying stats from wikipedia

Canada takes a bit of getting used to. You probably need to start playing the game to meet people who know the game inside out.

You ran into the wrong people. Considering it's Toronto, you should try your luck again, it's bound to change.

May I should go to Britain, and berate the people there for not being able to explain to me what a suicide squeeze is in baseball, or the difference between touch and no-touch icing is in hockey?

Honestly there are plenty of people in this country that can talk for days on soccer. However if you ask the random person on the street, most likely they will only know about Manchester United and Chelsea.

The analogy you use is a bit uncalled for given he wasn't talking about the general population with no interest in the sport but the committed fan. I was genuinely taken aback two summers ago by the way people acted when I gave my honest assessment of Andy Welsh and also with the level of incredulity as it slowly became clear that Mo Johnston shared it so his post doesn't surprise me very much. What I would say though is that the change over twenty years from when I first arrived and watched the Blizzard etc in the old CSL is breathtaking in many ways. In another twenty or thirty years Canadians might be the ones writing this sort of stuff on Scottish messageboards.

Yeah. If I may add to that, studies have been done and concluded that the most soccer on TV anywhere in the world is in Toronto. You'll find more soccer on TV in this city than any other city in the world.

Unlike the prats from the UK who come here with their vast knowledge of the game and have done so much for us bewildered colonials in developing soccer here.

Bit of an over-reaction to a question about where to find the people who actually do know about the game. The implication being that he does actually expect people on here to be able to point him in the right direction. Beyond that it tends to be Italian-Canadians who run the CSA nowadays and London, Ont. where I tend to live in a Canadian context is not exactly a good advertisement for the influence of the German community given London City started off as the London German-Canadians and are still based at the main German social club. Plenty of blame to go around for the current state of Canadian soccer.

Well excuse me, apart from the fact that the colonisation was mainly England and we were just swept along for the ride, but i certainly did not intend to cause offence.

I was simply asking where people who actually know about soccer go to watch and disscuss it because I want to meet like minded people because i can only chat to my mates from back home at the weekend over X-Box live. So now that I have fully explained myself (hopefully that will sort that out).

What pubs do you guys actually go to ?

After TFC games, I'd recommend Shoeless Joe's at King and Dufferin. Quite a few people who grew up in Scotland drink there as well as people who grew up in a variety of other European and Latin American countries. You'll also run into people who have followed the game in Canada since as far back as the 70s and didn't just jump on the bandwagon in 2007. Beyond that don't know too much about pubs in Toronto as I'm usually based well over 100 miles away.

I will deffinetly check those places out in the coming weeks, specially when the champs league comes back.

Cheers guys and anyone else who has good advice feel free to keep posting here.

Oh and if you wana add me on the 360 im RossToronto (very original i know )

if only those brits knew how to manifest that vast footy knowledge into something tangible they'd probably have more than 1 WC to show for. just kidding boys!!!

on a serious note, one reoccuring theme i find with "james" but moreso with ronaldo is that they both seem to flop in pressure-cooker situations. actually, i heard one of the commentators make mention of that for "james" when they played manure a couple of weeks back--i haven't watched "james" enough to pass that judgement but i hope that notion didn't derive from moscow.

that said STB, if you ever want to talk world footy over a pint or 2 i'd be more than happy to. just make sure:

a) you don't ask me about the J/A-leagues respectively
b) the pub serves kilkenny

cheers

I heard the one they won, the ball didn't even go in the net.

The beauty of the world game lies in it's simplicity, where a phenom can run, control, kick the ball like a magician, without knowing a dam thing about the finer elements within the 4 4 2 formations. That stuff, is boring. Just enjoy watching the game, for what it is. I have been playing, coaching, and watching hockey all my life, and I have never had a discussion with anybody on the merits of the left wing trap. It is like commenting on whether you should hold a bat with your elbow up, or down. How fascinating is that after 150 years of debate?

Sorry, don't mean to stifle your thread, but my "understanding of football" is just fine thankyou.

^ props.

Well that great for you but i was just using the formation aspect as an example. Just like in hockey if you know what a left wing trap is then im sure you can hold a conversation past "so that sundin eh' "

So is anybody up for a pint mid week downtown and a chin wag about the best sport in the world ??

Anybody welcome even if you dont know the difference between a right back and a right wing back (thats most of the managers in the EPL welcome then !! )