The answer is yes, reducing time and making the game more dynamic adds to the complexity. But that is not the only difference between football and soccer that affects the complexity. One sport is played with hands, while the other is played with feet and other body parts. The variety in skills needed is greater in soccer. Everyone is "QB" and everyone is a "receiver" at any given time. The movement and positioning of the players is continuously adjusted. In soccer, all players participate constantly in attack and defense, as well as in transition phase from one to the other, often on the fly. All those things add to the complexity.
If that were true I'd go discuss this on a multi-sport forum where I'm more likely to find someone to agree. I like being challenged and learning new things. For whatever reason, that's not happening in our exchanges. I tried to bow out gracefully, but you felt the need to insult me. So fine. On we go.. Yes, you did. I agree with that. I just don't think that's a very high threshold. Okay, you want me to believe that you're incapable of seeing the difference between... a youth sports organization run by part-time volunteers, with unpaid parent coaches, which charges players just enough to cover uniforms purchased from a third party (yes, a business) and rent field time (or in many cases just borrow local governments), and a youth sports organization run by a full-time paid staff, which collects thousands of dollars a year from hundreds of kids with no soccer future in order to fund professional coaches for the few that may eventually play college or pro soccer. Come on. You're just being obstinate, right? I mean, you seem to know how to work a computer and form complete sentences. You must be able to see this. If you knew football, you would know why it is more complex game than soccer. (I'm not actually saying that. It was just for illustration. Did you find it compelling?) Ha ha. Well, I've essentially entered a Jewish discussion forum and suggested that the New Testament is just as valid as the Old Testament. What do you expect?
Okay, so you've made an assertion. What I'm looking for is support for that assertion, not a restatement of the assertion. For example, How does reducing the time to think about something result in a more complex result? How does playing with feet and other body parts increase complexity over playing with hands and feet and other body parts? Can you perform more complex tasks with your hands or your feet? Why do players take the time to huddle and/or assume particular formations for set pieces, if all this does is reduce complexity for their opponent? (I would refute your contention that all players are participating constantly, but that would probably get me banned from the forum!)
I get the impression that you do not play soccer or chess. "Speed chess" is the same game. You just don't have to wait as long for your opponent to concede. A losing situation doesn't change no matter how long you think about it. An experienced player is thinking 3 to 6 moves ahead so you don't need time to "ponder" before you move. You are ignoring the point I made. In soccer the players make up the "plays" during the run of play. The point about there being no huddles and a running clock was that there is no way for a coach to call plays in soccer. And any development coach that tries to establish set plays and tell his players what to do in a match is a horrible coach. I don't care if he is a former professional player and has an A license. That is not how you develop players. What attracted me to soccer when I was young was the challenge of the sport: no substitutes, no timeouts, and no coaching from the sidelines. It was a better sport then.
I don't know what you're referring to here. This is what I'm talking about. These are two grandmasters playing speed chess. The increased speed impacts the entire game, not just the end. Sorry. I didn't realize that was a significant point to you. I assume you're not talking about a simple give-and-go or overlapping run. Can you give me an example of a play? Maybe then it was more complex than football. (That's a joke. Please don't fly off the handle.)
You still don't seem to be understanding the difference between difficult and complex. I will assume that your question is not rhetorical. Here is a 3-person combination. Now here is the current best club at combination passing --Barca Tiki-Taki This last clip has a pretty good graphic explanation of why the particular positioning chosen is good. You don't teach "plays" to players. You teach players how to create plays. It requires vision, skill, and mentality to be succesful. Because its so complex, we don't teach team tactics until after the players master the fundamentals. If a player has no ball mastery, he won't be able to look up while on the ball. If he can't look up, he can't see the situation. If he can't see the situation, he won't develop his soccer brain.
Maybe you are not learning because you are not keeping an open mind. Or are you gonna take that as insult also? I do not see how I've insulted you. I just think that you are a little confused and unclear about certain things based on incomplete info that's out there. And you disagree with that, didn't you? Why? Didn't you say yourself that you didn't play unorganized sports on the playground while growing up? How would you know then how much one can learn from playing sports on the playground? When I talk about this and express my opinion, I do it from experience in unorganized and organized sports activities. I know what I've learned from playing without supervision and I know what I've learned from my coaches when I've played an organized sport. Why you don't think the threshold is very high? Maybe in your environment is not, but in mine is. There are still plenty of parents and plenty of difference in their knowledge between soccer/coaching soccer and football/baseball/coaching either one. I didn't want you to believe I'm incapable of seeing the difference. I know the difference. But either way, youth sports are business. It just varies in what degree and at what cost - low or high. Just to calm you down, I will tell you the difference is that one is more expensive business than the other one. I can't take that seriously because you do not claim that football is more complex than soccer. But I do know enough about football to know that soccer is the more complex game. I've spoken to football coaches and parents who have played both sports. Ha ha, nice analogy, but I'm afraid that it's more like you entered here and said that the Earth is flat.
Where is the insult here? I've just said that articles like that mislead people like you, meaning people who are not very clear on certain things. You said you want to be challenged and learn in discussion/arguments with other posters. Try to learn then, instead of such for insults where they do not exist. Don't be sensitive, dude.
1. Because the player has less time to analyze the situation, think about decisions and potential outcomes, choose the best decision possible and execute technically correct the decision made. 2. In general, for humans hand coordination is more natural than foot coordination. Hand skills such as throwing, catching and pushing are easier and more natural, also less in variety. Foot skills are harder and less natural, because humans mainly use their feet to walk, run and balance. The difficulty increases when humans are asked to perform additional tasks with the feet such as controlling the ball, manipulating the ball and kicking the ball with different parts of the foot (inside, outside, instep, sole, back heel, inside instep, outside instep). In addition to manipulating the ball with the feet, other parts include the thigh, chest and head. Just think about how many variations there are in manipulating the ball in soccer when using feet, thigh, chest and head. 3. Are you seriously asking this question? They do that because I believe that is how football is played, these are the rules of the game. I didn't make them up. Regarding your last comment.....I don't know why would you get banned from the forum for trying to refute my comment about soccer players participating constantly in attack, defense and transition. I'm not even sure how you can refute it anyway unless you really do not know the game of soccer.
Removing the condescension, you're suggesting that we may be using different definitions of difficult and complex, and that may be true. When I say complex I mean that the system is intricate and involves difficult decisions. When I say difficult I mean that even if you know what you want to do, it's not easy to get it done. When I look at Barca, I see a system that is being copied by all of the better youth clubs in my area. The kids don't seem to have problems grasping the ideas, at least in a somewhat simplified version. Where they struggle is that they don't have the skills to pass where they want, receive cleanly, etc. The best teams of these don't lose because they make the wrong decisions, but rather because they don't have the skills to complete 15-20 passes to set up a goal. They will lose the ball due to a bad first touch after 12 passes, and the other team will kick over the top and score.
What does this have to with the difference in complexity between soccer and football? Regular chess or speed chess, it is still a chess game. These grandmasters know how to play the game either way. Soccer and football are two different sports, dude. You've used this poor chess analogy in a few posts already. What is the point?
I've explained why. Nope. Because US parents, for the most part, know nothing about soccer. To say that parents are better at coaching other sports doesn't say much. So I should conclude from this that you can't see the difference in the focus and motivation between the two sample organizations? That explains a lot about your tone.
It was argued that the speed of play increases complexity. My point is that if you take any game that requires thought, and increase the speed of play, the time for thought is reduced and the game is less complex because less thought goes into it.
I think we're using different definitions of complex and difficult as well, so let's clarify. Here are the definitions I'm using (the first applicable definition of each word at dictionary.com)... Complex - so complicated or intricate as to be hard to understand or deal with Difficult - not easily or readily done These seem fairly straightforward to me, but this does seem to be causing confusion. There are definitions of "difficult" further down the list under which "difficult" is a synonym for "complex." Is that what you guys are thinking? Anyway, my point with the above questions is that if you limit the ways in which a player can introduce complexity (giving him less time to think, forcing him to use feet instead of hands), you may make the game more difficult, but you don't make it more complex. Football doesn't have anything called set pieces.
GK, How were you able to manage having your son in both football and travel soccer? My son and I are starting through the multi-sport journey and tackle football seems to require total commitment as do all the travel teams of whatever sport. Around here tackle football starts at 7 years old with required summer camp (and I believe daily August practice) and two 2 hour practices a week in season and game on Saturdays. With that schedule it sounds like it would be very difficult to fit in Rec Soccer let alone travel. By the way I have agreed with almost all your points and observations over the last few pages - doesn't mean we are right but you are not completely out there.
In retrospect, it was mostly luck. His soccer coach had multiple teams so he practiced early, and his football team practiced late. He was able to make both practices on the nights he had football practice. For games, his soccer coach always tried to schedule their games at 8:00 AM on Saturday or Sunday. His earliest football games were at around 11:00. He missed one football game due to a soccer tournament. Another tournament weekend he played an early soccer game, then a football game, then another soccer game that same day. It helped that he was (and is) a goalkeeper, so he didn't have any issues with stamina during the heavy game days. I wish I could be more help, but I don't think I had anything to do with how well it worked out. I appreciate you saying so.
That explanation is not enough to prove you are right. Didn't you asked me earlier at what distant past sports were played in unorganized form? And then you said sports were played in organized form since you can remember. Anyway....for someone to claim that kids don't learn much about a sport from playing on the playground, it sounds like you haven't played. Doesn't say much? But that was exactly my point (which btw you prove more and more with each post), most US parents know nothing about soccer. But they know a lot more about football and baseball, because they grew up playing one or the other or even both. What this says is the fact that most US parents are more likely to do a good job volunteering to coach their son's baseball team or football team, than their son's soccer team. Are you serious? What does focus and motivation have to do with this? Business is business, regardless if it's at low cost or higher cost organizations. The way sports are organized in any form of organization, playing youth sports is a business. Stop being childish.
Wrong. It is not that less thought goes into it, but rather there is less time to assess the situation and calculate the right/best decision. There is also less time to execute technically the decision made to solve the situation. Less time, means that the player is forced to go through the whole process much quicker and in turn that complicates things. Just because there is less time, it doesn't mean one thinks less. It just means that one has to think and act quicker.
It is both, more difficult and more complex, when you give someone less time to think and act as well as use his feet instead of his hands. Soccer doesn't have huddles and formations on set pieces. Therefore, I assumed you were talking about football.