A sporting haiku

Tussle of strength, skill,
But more imagination:
The beautiful game!

God, I love football.

There really is no other team sport that even begins to compare with it.

There are few other games played on anything like such a broad space. There are no other games I can think of that allow for such complete freedom of distance and direction in passing. (Amongst the chiefest of rugby's many dismal flaws for me is that one only ever passes the ball just slightly backwards, and rarely more than a few yards. American football - another game I have a great fondness for - in theory allows short hand-offs and backward and lateral passes, but in practice a pass is almost invariably 20 or 30 yards straight downfield - and there's only one player that ever throws it.) In football, passes of 2 yards or of 80 are equally possible, both can be executed with exquisite delicacy, devastating accuracy, both can be catastrophic to a defence. The ball can be played fast or slow, in the air or on the ground; its path can be shaped to an astonishing degree by the spin a player imparts to it. I don't know of any other game that comes close to enabling such gorgeous variety in the play. And you can play the ball - whether to bring it under control beside you or to send it on its way - with any part of the body whatsoever (except the hand and the arm). That, I think, is the game's special greatness; having to control the ball with a stick or whatever is too limiting to the patterns of play; being able to use your hands is too damned easy.

And - though many, I know, disagree - I feel that the very difficulty of scoring is another mark of proud distinction. I have seen many, many low-scoring football matches - and even a fair few scoreless draws - that were absolutely riveting, breathtaking entertainment. Games where the scores easily rise into double-digits seem to me to be missing the point. Basketball (odious, odious game!), where there's a score every 20 or 30 seconds, fills me with ennui within minutes.

Pélé, probably football's greatest ever exponent, spoke with palpable passion when he dubbed it The Beautiful Game. As a child of 7 or 8, I saw exactly what he meant - and have adored watching ever since.

Fellow football nuts, a comment thread has evolved this week, over on The Barstool, devoted to the current European Championship. At present, it's just me and my surly college chum The British Cowboy shooting the shit. Do, please, feel free to join in - and raise the tone of the discussion.