not being able to use your hands is stupid as fuck. other than the brain, humans’ extreme forelimb prehensility is probably their defining physical characteristic. while every sport has some arbitrary rules limiting the range of human capability, negating that trait entirely is off-puttingly unnatural and inherently gimmicky.
Date: June 29th, 2026 8:52 PM Author: Beta spectacular locale
it's an affront to human handedness.
when you compare human beings to the other four great apes, the major differences are brain size, upright bipedalism, opposable thumbs, and a series of adaptations that enable us (and only us) to throw things with speed and accuracy. scientists have found baseball and tennis ball sized stones used as weapons dating back at least two millions years.
still, it's an elegant sport and a visual delight. plus it's once of the few sports that athletes of ordinary size can dominate.
this is cr- humans are exceptional at THROWING objects - literally the best species on the planet not flame. this is why football hits in all the right ways.
as a general hypothesis, a sport is better the closer it gets to utilizing full human capacity with the least artificiality in the achievement of its ends. hence, mma>boxing, 100m dash>pole vault, freestyle swim>diving, etc. the restrictions in soccer are so backwards and affected as to remove it from serious consideration altogether.
And at the pro level this inherent aspect of the game is mitigated by it being extremely defensive and risk adverse, so you wind up with two teams jogging 99% of the time and shooting for a 1-0 win or 0-0 tie.
No hands doesn't bother me. Being able to hold the ball makes defense nearly impossible. Which is why you have to dribble in basketball and rugby and football are extremely brutal.
The worst thing about soccer is that it's competitive jogging, flopping is pathetic and feminine, and there's no scoring. If they did something like the XFL with a smaller field and more contact it might be interesting. But that would basically be hocky on grass.