@Samifumi: What Jesus Diaz meant, I am assuming, is that the UK is a state as in: "A state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area." (From Wikipedia).

To use an example, Kosovo is a new state, while Kosovars have always been a nation. Nation refers to people, state refers to institutions (in the classic uses of the word).

Dustin

@Jesus Diaz: Huh? The UK is a state? The UK is a state that consists of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland? Would you clarify what you mean exactly?

@duckballs: Different concept really in my estimation. With the NFL, players from Cali play in NY, or whatever. The focus is on winning and making money, not on local pride. I have always seen the World Cup and the Olympics as a demonstration of national pride being the primary focus.

Represent as a nation. Can you imagine California fielding it's own Olympic team?

Samifumi

@mcsurfer3393: *ACHOOODOUCHE* Sorry, it's allergy season. >_ Please tell me you're being sarcastic.

Zaxxon Q Blaque

Umm... no diamonds? I have a gold one too, but I got mine with diamonds in it. Then again, I doubt he makes as much as me. Googling. Ok technically he makes less than me, not counting endorsements.

Let me tell you though, having diamonds in your iPod is great. I love America.

mcsurfer3393

@Jason Chen: I'll toss in a couple bucks for your 10k post. About how soon do I need to contact my bookie?

Geisrud

@Samifumi: NY Giants, NY Jets. NY Islanders, NY Rangers. It's not just the UK, and not just Soccer.

duckballs

There is no guarantee in sport, so four chances are better than one.

Aleung

@Samifumi: Because the UK is an state and the England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are nations. And it's a tradition that comes from other sports as well. Like rugby and cricket (although after playing it, I have my doubts about the last one being a sport).

Jesus Diaz

@alife_2008: It doesn't mean he's good at CTF?

dingus

@Jason Chen: STUPID ENGLISH PEOPLE! (Except you, honey, you are not stupid) STUPID ENGLISH PEOPLE!

Jesus Diaz

Something I've never understood about UK and the soccer teams they field in world competitions. If you are collectively the United Kingdom, why do you compete in your sports as separate entities including England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland?

Would it not make more sense to consolidate the teams, field a more talented squad, win the World Cup, and bring pride to the entire United Kingdom instead of going at it alone?

Samifumi

Ahhhhhh. Gotcha. Jesus lied. Damn you Jesus!

Jason Chen

I hope his kids scratch it all to hell!

halfshafter

Cap doesn't mean he was captaining, it just means hes played 100 times for England. The 'cap' referred to there is an old peaked cap given to players representing their country.

alife_2008

Not back and captaining, just back. Rio Ferdinand was the captain on his 100th cap.

_Mazza_

Awwwww, yeah. Only 100 more caps 'til I get mine, bitches...

Smith

@wjousts: no cricket, no baseball.

The only difference is that baseball is a sped up, repetitive, ADD-esque version of cricket.

Step666

What are you all on about? England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all separate COUNTRIES... not states...

RetepNamenots

The other nice thing about Cricket is that if you can't be bothered running you can just hit a nice defensive shot and stand about in the sun for awhile instead.

wjousts

Ha, ha. Laugh at Giz for not understanding international football!

And on the subject of Cricket. Only the English could invent a game that lasts five days and usual ends in a draw!

wjousts

@Samifumi: for the Olympics and in most other athletics events (save the Commonwealth Games), the UK competes together as one.
This is because the individual sports are so small that the different nations wouldn't necessarily be able to field participants for them all, they wouldn't have adequate coaching and funding set-ups in place, etc.

However, for more mainstream sports, there are enough people competing in each country to warrant the separation of the different constituent nations.
This is a good thing because, partly due to historical reasons, the 4 parts of the UK are all fiercely independent and patriotic and by competing separately, it allows the different nations to show that.

A convenient example of why competing separately has no detrimental effects would be the 6 Nations tournament which ended a few weeks ago - Wales beat everyone else who took part; Scotland, England, Ireland (this being rugby, it's the whole of Ireland, not specifically either Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland), France and Italy.
This is despite the fact that of the 6 competing nations, they are the smallest in terms of population by a quite some margin.


Also, with regards to the whole state vs nation point, there are so many different words with almost interchangeable meanings that it's very easy to cause confusion.
The UK is a 'state' in the sense that it has a head of state. Though 'country' may have been a better word in that situation.

Step666

@Jesus Diaz: Don't get too upset about it, Jesus. The Limeys do this sort of thing specifically to make us look silly. Fortunately, they are buying gold plated versions of our products, so it is Steve Jobs that is having the last laugh.

@Jason Chen: I will toss in a buck toward the 10,000 post cause. Put strider_mt2k in for a hundred. He's good for it.

Monty

Not much of a Beckham fan. But he has done alot for the game within the U.S. I'd like to see him have this over any pro football or basketball athlete in the U.S. Those guys should NOT be the ones making all the money! It's dissapointing how American's have embraced this greed from celebrities and athlete's...*cough* mtv cribs, b.e.t....the list goes on.

Jimbuck

The 32 gig. Very nice.

Marty_MacFly

From what I understand Wales is horrible at soccer so it's a good thing none of them are allowed to play on a world cup team.

Lupison

@bpapa9013: Precious Metals Investment. Ha! That's what I'm supposed to be working on today, but my boss is on a business trip, so Hello Giz!

duckballs

@Samifumi: Okay, good point.

duckballs

@Dirk: My girlfriend thinks he has a hot ass, so he must be a good bench-warmer... *harhar

bpapa9013

It's kind of tacky.... but I guess that fits Beckham. Seriously though, what has he done for American soccer? Has his astronomical pay been worth it?

Dirk

Screw a gold keyboard, ask for an Optimus Maximus! Probably worth more than a solid gold keyboard anyway... And more relative to your profession. (as opposed to, say, a blogger who blogs about precious metals investments asking for a gold keyboard...)

You still wouldn't be as cool as me, with my solid gold Optimus Maximus keyboard, oh and it has diamonds, lots of pretty diamonds around every oled key, and the base is weighted with a solid ingot of platinum, that you can't even see! The blingiest bling is what you know is there but no one gets to even see... And it has a flux capacitor so I can go back in time and type up quarterly reports before they are even assigned to me.

bpapa9013

@smeee: What about full-contact chess?

Geisrud

both baseball and cricket are boring to watch. The only exciting sports to watch are Soccer, American Football and basketball. In that order.

smeee

@bpapa9013: Don't forget the cover sheet on your TPS reports.

Geisrud

that gold is *sooo* gonna get all scratched up

phoomp

@smeee: Rugby.
Union not League, though both of them are more exciting to watch than American Football.

Step666

@Samifumi:

The UK tried to enter a unified soccer team for the Olympics but FIFA would not allow it.

FIFA basically said, if you are going to have separate leagues for each country, you must have separate national teams.

SportBilly

@Jesus Diaz: Rest assured your doubts are not ill-founded. Cricket is, indeed, not a sport.

Kaiser-Machead

@SportBilly: that's just not true.
For a start, FIFA has no authority over the Olympics.

The reason why there hasn't a British/UK team at the Olympics for a great number of years now was down to the distinction between professional and amateur players.
For a long time, only amateurs were allowed to compete at the Olympics but when the FA chose to scrap the distinction it made a lot of players ineligible and killed off the UK team, who had competed up until 1960.

Since then however, the IOC has also relaxed their rules and professional players are now eligible to compete but there is still no UK team enetered. This is not down to FIFA who have said on record they are not opposed to it but is, instead, down to an inability of the Associations of the home nations to agree.
Most notably, with regards to 2012, the Welsh and Scottish FAs are opposed to a UK team - the Welsh FA went on record at the start of negotiations as being against it and later voted that way, the Scots wouldn't even take part in negotiations. The SFA claims that their opposition is based on a concern that the special treatment the home nations receive from FIFA (ie being able to play separately in the European and World Cups) would be rendered invalid if a UK team were fielded for the Olympics. This is bullshit though as FIFA have gone on record saying that it would have no bearing on the home nations rights in other competitions, the rights actually being guaranteed in the FIFA constitution, ever since they were added to it in 1947.


So, there you go - nothing to do with FIFA, just some good old-fashioned in-fighting.

Step666

@Step666: Baseball is Cricket sped up?
SPED UP?? F--- that! Give me Hockey. It's Playoff time!

FLskydiver

@Step666: Baseball is just a complicated version of rounders [en.wikipedia.org]
It's just not cricket!

wjousts

@FLskydiver: it's true - it's like an incredibly basic version of cricket shrunk down from five days to one.
I'm not saying it's a quick sport but it's still quicker than Cricket - well, full test matches anyway, one-day matches are about the same length as a game of Baseball and 20-20 Cricket is much quicker again.


@wjousts: nice try, problem is that Rounders can be dated back to the late 1800s but there are references to the sport of Baseball as far back as the 1740s, so despite the claim on the Wikipedia Rounders page that Baseball evolved from Rounders, the evidence (what little there is) suggests otherwise.
Cricket still wins though, it's been played since about 1300.

Step666

Unfortunately, consolidating the UK in to one football (or "soccer") team would not field a more talented squad or win the World Cup.

Truth is that all the best players in the UK, play in the England squad (Not biased .. I'm Scottish). England have the most talented players at every position (with the possible exception of goal keeper) and even the best players from Scotland, N.Ireland and Wales would be lucky to get on the bench.

Anyway when did this apple post turn into a sports discussion?

dave_supra

mcsurfer3393: You have been nominated for the biggest douche in the universe award!

Sh3rpa

Cricket not a sport? I guess baseball isn't a sport either.

BigRocket

I guess the UK believes too in the deeply in the "Divide and Rule" philosophy for its own good.

BigRocket