/mild threadjack, but I'm dropping a deuce and need something to do...
of course anyone can kick a moving ball into an open net at 20 yards...well, actually you'd be surprised how often some people miss that, but still - of course that's not hard. and it's not just the conditioning that's hard. it's the skill, plus the conditioning, plus having the entire field change around you constantly. you're not just kicking a ball into a net...you're having to hold the ball against someone, having to get your angle open, having to decide to shield, feint for a shot, or lay it off. you're having to calculate what defensive position your team will be in if you go for the shot and lose the ball, or how much space to lead the guy who's looking to make a run, giving you the possibility of threading the ball between the defenders, and where you need to be 10 seconds after you lay it off. you have to recognize certain shapes on the fly, and decide how to exploit them for your team's strategic advantage.
simply put, you can have relatively low-level game of either sport, and regular people will be just fine. if you play a sport at a high level, it requires a lot of skill. for me, soccer is much more entertaining to play and watch, and it's precisely because of the level of nuance required to play it. i think this is why so many people think it so boring - we're so geared towards the "big play" - the homerun, throwing a guy out at home, scoring a touchdown, hitting a three...that it's hard to adjust to the subtle, yet incredibly important, things that constantly happen in a soccer match. whether that requires a higher level of thinking, well... :P
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