The fun behind watching soccer has been a controversial topic. While some people love to watch soccer games and do not miss any major games, others just don’t think that soccer is fun to watch.
As a soccer fan for 10 years myself, I’d love to take a side with those people who think watching soccer is extremely fun, and I hope that you’ll share the same opinion as me after reading this article.
Here are 11 reasons why soccer is fun to watch.
1- Soccer is a team work game.
Watching a group of people compete against another group of people can most of the time be more entertaining than watching exactly 2 people competing against each other.
The reasons behind that is because there is so much more happening when a group of people compete against each other instead of just 2 people.
Take tennis vs soccer as an example. Watching tennis can be really fun, however, there isn’t a lot going on. You watch two people hitting a ball with their rackets.
Soccer on the other hand is different since it’s a group sport. There are a lot of possibilities when it comes to who is going to kick or steal the ball next, because there are a lot of players on the field.
During a professional soccer match, there’ll be 22 players on the field with each team consisting of 11 players. These players will spread across the whole field and will work together to score goals and secure a victory.
The ways soccer team players can collaborate with each other to score a goal can be endless, which makes the game much more fun to watch. Which brings me to the next point.
2- Soccer tactics on the field.
There’s something that you need to know about soccer. No matter how good the players of a team are, if they don’t have a proper plan for the game, then there’s a high chance that they will lose the game.
Team managers play a huge role when it comes to winning or losing soccer games. The tactics that these managers decide to use are capable of shocking the audience of the match. Small teams have won against big teams by using the right tactics and strategies.
In soccer, a bad team with a good tactic can beat a good team with a bad tactic. With that said, even small teams have a chance against the biggest teams in the sport, which makes the game much more competitive and fun to watch.
3- Soccer matches are unpredictable
There’s a saying about soccer that goes like this: “A soccer game doesn’t end until the referee blows the last whistle”. This saying has been proven to be true in many soccer games.
Take Barcelona vs PSG in the champions league 2017 match as an example.
At the minute 87 of the game, the score was 3-1 for Barcelona. However, Barcelona needed 3 more goals to advance to the next stage because they lost 4-0 to PSG in the first leg match (learn more about 2-legged matches in soccer from this article that I have written).
3 goals in a few minutes seemed impossible and Barcelona fans were already giving up. Some of the fans have already left the stadium because they knew a comeback was nearly impossible.
Can you guess what happened next? Barcelona scored 3 goals in a few minutes and advanced to the next level.
Barcelona lost their second leg the next year with great combat from AC Roma. Roma won 3-0 and kicked Barcelona out of the competition.
With that said, you can predict nothing when it comes to watching a soccer match. In 2017, no one expected Barcelona to win, and they did. In 2018, no one expected Barcelona to lose against Roma, and they did.
This level of unpredictability makes the game much more interesting and increases the suspense among the soccer fans who are watching the games.
4- World wide soccer competitions
There’s no way you haven’t heard of the soccer world cup (aka THE world cup) competition. Every 4 years, a country hosts the world cup competition where 32 countries from all over the world compete to win one of the most prestigious titles in the history of sports.
The FIFA world cup in Russia in 2018 have gotten more than 3.5 Billion viewers. This can very easily indicate that the world cup soccer competition is bringing together nearly half of the publication of the world.
It feels better when you know that the sport that you love to watch is also watched by half of earth’s population during the time of this writing.
5- Soccer brings people together.
Soccer is one of those sports that are fun to watch with other friends and family members. I used to watch a soccer match with more than 20 of my relatives in a tiny room.
A soccer game united me with most of my family members on a weekly basis, and that was enough for me to love watching soccer and enjoy it.
Soccer doesn’t only bring you close to relatives who love soccer, but also to strangers whom you’ve never met before.
You can join soccer communities online and be an active supporter for your favorite team. You can go watch soccer matches live which brings the sense of community among all the fans that are supporting the same team.
You don’t just become friends with people who support the team that you support, but also you become friends with people who support the rival teams too.
Believe me when I tell you, there’s nothing better than watching a soccer match with a friend who supports the rival team.
Every single goal scored will trigger extra celebrations and happiness because you feel that you’ve beaten your friend yourself although all of what you’re really doing is sitting while watching a soccer game.
In short, watching soccer matches is a way to bring people together.
6- A draw is allowed in a match.
Unlike many other sports, a soccer match can end with a draw, But how can this be more fun?
Usually, a club wants to win so badly and they almost always favor a win over a draw. With that said, if there are a few minutes left to the game, and the score is a tie, then both teams will do their best to score the winning goal before the match ends and the result is a great show.
In soccer, that extra time doesn’t exist in many of the soccer games. With that said, both of the competing teams will give it their all in order to score a goal in the last minutes of the game and this raises the level of competition between the 2 teams at the end of the game and makes watching them much more enjoyable.
It’s worth noting that not all soccer games can end in a tie. In case you want to learn more about what happens after a tie, you can read this article.
7- There is a lot of variety in a soccer game
The only limitation that soccer players have is that they are not allowed to touch the ball with their hands. That’s it.
Soccer players can use literally any part of their body to score a goal except their hands. This adds so much variety and possibilities to the game.
Some soccer players score using their legs, others score with their heads, others score with their shoulders and so on.
Soccer players can shoot from any distance and they are allowed to score a goal from anywhere. Given that the soccer field is very long, the players have so many options when it comes to scoring a goal.
This ensures that during a soccer match, each goal is unique, and each goal requires a different set of skills to achieve.
Such a variety can make watching a professional soccer match much more interesting.
8- Rivalry between big soccer teams
The rivalry among some soccer teams can be one of the best things that have ever happened in soccer.
Both teams will put everything they have on the line to win the game. Such games are hyper competitive and almost never get boring. Every few minutes there’s a new attempt to score a goal, a great save, a brilliant goal, an awesome kick and so on.
A lot happens during the 90 minutes of a match between two rival opponents. You almost never want to miss one of these matches.
Examples of such rivalry can be Barcelona vs Real Madrid, Liverpool vs Manchester City, PSG vs BVB and the list is endless. You can learn more about derby matches in soccer from this article.
9- Rivalry between big soccer players.
Although soccer is a group sport, individual players can add so much value to a team. Watching 2 of the biggest soccer players in the history of the game play against each other is so much fun.
Some people just watch a soccer match because a famous player is in the game and not because they care about the competing teams.
Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi is one of the best examples that I can give here. There’s a never ending debate when it comes to whom of these players is truly the best in the world.
Such a controversy makes watching these 2 players compete against each over a great experience for every soccer fan.
10- Rivalry between big soccer managers.
As mentioned before, managers play a huge role in the success of the failure of a soccer team. A manager can lift a soccer team to the top without changing any of its players if they know what they are doing.
Watching the teams that are managed by legendary coaches compete against each other can also bring so much fun to a soccer game.
11- low number of goals per match
Soccer is one of those games where you see a very few goals scored during a match. Unlike basketball for example.
While some people think that this makes soccer boring, I think that it’s totally the opposite. Since there aren’t a lot of goals scored during a normal soccer match, it means that every single goal scored is extremely valuable and is appreciated by every fan.
If a game ends with a 1-0 victory for team A, then every team A fan will appreciate the single goal and the players who contributed in scoring it.
If the game ended with a score of 120-145 however, then nobody will care about each individual goal and people will only care about the overall result.
With that said, part of what makes soccer enjoyable is that every single goal matters, and every single attempt to score a goal also matters because there aren’t a lot of goals scored during a professional soccer match.
That concludes the list of 11 reasons why soccer is fun. Have fun watching soccer.