re: Amazingly, American Football is not in Europe... why?

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Of course you know choreography mandates pre-determined orchestration. You are describing spatially-informed improvisation which is not near choreography.

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This is the most try hard post I’ve seen this year.

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This is the most try hard post I’ve seen this year.

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Perhaps you should try harder to contribute to the discussion instead of shitting out a throw-away response that’s irrelevant.

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Perhaps you should gain a better understanding of the sport being discussed before arguing the semantics of words best used to describe musical performances, physics, and figure skating/ballet.

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I recommend owning your responses, not changing the subject each time you get stuck. There is no debate about the meaning of the words “choreography“ or “improvisation“. Football is certainly choreographed. Other sports that center around reacting to the movement of the ball are less so. For instance, baseball is very cerebral but not choreographed.

I contended the poster was manipulating these meanings and equating antonyms as synonyms. You resorted to saying I “tried too hard” which was a poor characterization of someone using direct language to further a stimulating debate of which there is no definite answer.

I’m being a Neanderthal because I’m not showing bias? Watch a hits video of 2019 for each sport. You can’t downplay pads/protection rules. a simple butt pad protects your tailbone. Not to mention the rest of the gear. They play with none of that. Their biggest guys are running downfield crushing people. Our biggest guys are usually have 5 steps to get their tackle. Even then the way they hit is regulated.

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Sorry you couldn't come up with something to say.

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Soccer defenders use the same principles football players use to react to how the offense is attacking them. So do basketball players. So do many other sports.

Almost all team sports try to take advantage of mismatches in numbers and space. You're trying to make distinctions between the two, but you're making a distinction without a difference. And you sound like Steven A. Smith with this bullshite...

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choreography mandates pre-determined orchestration

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And then you follow that up with this...

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You are describing spatially-informed improvisation

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Which is an excellent, if not pompous, description of a run-pass option. And the pick-and-roll.

If you look at how soccer teams try to attack different defensive formations, you'll find many of the same concepts used by football teams when scheming against a 3-4 vs a 4-3. It really isn't that complicated.

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Also, America is almost unique in its wildly varying array of body types. Herman Johnson and Trindon Holliday, for example. The only other countries that could adequately fill the positions would be the UK and maybe France. Sure, Japan could have a football team. But the Japanese national football team would get beat by Vandy every time.

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I've always thought that for this reason it might get bigger in Mexico. Lots of big fellas and they're our neighbors. It probably wouldn't replace soccer but it could go to the level of baseball there maybe.

One criticism I've heard foreigners make of football is also related to the body type thing. In soccer and basketball, generally every position has to do everything (they all have to know how to pass, rebound, play defense, even if in a way suited to that position). Even in rugby, everyone plays defense, everyone tackles, anyone can get the ball, etc. With our football it's different obviously. Some positions can't even touch the ball no less score touchdowns. Too many specialist (for lack of a better word) positions for a lot of foreign fans.

Same reasons baseball isn't big in areas where it's not native -- complicated rules, expensive equipment, the existence of various modes of the same sport (rugby, cricket).

Basketball is much easier to pick up and play.

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Of course you know choreography mandates pre-determined orchestration

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I know exactly what it means.

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You are describing spatially-informed improvisation which is not near choreography.

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A team's defensive shape in soccer, is in no way, improvisational. I honestly have no idea how you got this notion. The spacing between the defenders, the choices defenders make, who covers for those choices, and the pressing system teams choose to use are all pre-determined orchestration. None of it is improvised.

You have coaches who develop their own grids of the field to emphasis particular qualities, whether philosophical or tailored to an individual team or player. It is incredibly hard to develop an extremely successful defensive team in soccer, and usually takes a whole philosophical approach. The best defensive coaches are famous for drilling their units in the offensive expected movements, and where they are supposed to be in what situations. The reaction to individual players 1v1 might be categorized as improvisational, but I wouldn't categorize a solo tackle made by a defender on an offensive player in American football as improvisational, because its usually based on reads, film-study, offensive tendencies, etc. What I'm saying here is that it is the result of a systematic approach. The same is true of soccer. Players at the top level get iPads (or something similar) with game film of the opposition and their tendencies that each player has to review before every game, and the same sorts of read-based reactions and decision-making is at play there as well. There is no team in modern soccer who simply improvises a defense. It's all structured, drilled, with players given very specific instructions. You know that soccer teams have formations too? It's hard to discuss this with you because you have no frame of reference, but soccer players work within units too, and while it is reacting to the offense, the reaction itself makes it no more improvisational than a defense in American football reacting to what the offense does. Maybe that's what you meant, but I don't know how else to tell you that nothing on the field is improvisational.

All this is true of the offensive phase of the game too. You don't have set mapped out plays, but individual players favor certain movements, teams have certain tendencies, and players are drilled with where they should be without the ball. Certain coaches might have specific ideas, like Guardiola's rule where no more than two players can be in a 180 degrees from one another, which gives the ball-carrier options for the pass. Other coaches favor small-sided games where the field becomes smaller, so players know how to work together. Other coaches set up conditionals, such as if we win the ball in this particular area of the field, you should immediately look to play a forward pass to another area of the field, where another player will have been drilled to run in the event that opportunity arises. Those conditionals can be set up all over the field, and would be extremely low-yield if it was all improvisational. In other words, in order to maximize the chances of winning the game, both offense shape and defensive shape are the result of the exact "pre-determined" coordination you referred to earlier. Any notion that all of it is improvisational isn't based on reality, and I'm begging you to disabuse yourself of that notion. There's far too much money in the sport that any of these players or coaches would risk improvising whole offensive and defensive structures. Honestly, it's nonsense on its face, and you only say it because you don't have any familiarity with the game.

There are improvisational aspects of the game, just like in football. When CEH made someone miss at the second level, I'd count that as improvisation, the same way a player like Messi could dribble past defenders. But again, both of those moments of improvisation were the result of structural choices coaches made. The inside zone play that CEH mastered was both a philosophical choice, as the coaches had confidence that CEH could make the correct read, and one tailored to his talents, which is his lateral quickness. The same choices exist in soccer. When Pep in the late noughties decided to move Messi from a Right Winger/Inside-Forward position to a position called a false 9, he did so because he wanted to make Messi the centerpiece of the team. Typically when faced with a single-striker system like the 4-3-3, opposition CB's will mark the striker if he is shaded toward their side of the field, with the other CB acting as either a covering defender or a stopper. Pep decided to play Messi between the midfield and defensive line, with the wingers pinned high in the right and left half-channels. This allowed Messi to be unmarked, free to receive the ball, turn, and run at defenders, who were still occupied by the wide forwards, and thus were forced to make a difficult decision to step up to press or drop back. This system allowed Messi to produce a record-breaking season, but again it was the result of choices made by a manager.

I could go on and on, but I hope I've elucidated why "choreography" is exactly the correct term for what occurs in soccer.

Is the strategy of soccer more like basketball than football????...

What you describing seems more akin to basketball... not a big soccer fan at all... but I would have thought most of the defense in soccer would have to be improvisation... I could be wrong but seems like too many variables to formulate a competent strategy to defend... wouldn’t the best strategy be “see ball get ball”???

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then you wouldn't see the exact same teams in the college football playoffs every single year, the Loyola Ramblers would never make it to the final four, and Brazil would perform much better at the world cup.

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Wait why???