Re: Football.
Originally Posted by
Mups
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OK, so perhaps tennis players don't get as exhausted as football players, but you did say . . . . . "Whenever someone is physically exhausted they tend to produce more saliva which they either spit out or swallow."
So why don't we see marathon runners, joggers, Rugby players, Basket ball players etc, spitting everywhere?
What has it being 'a team sport' got to do with anything?
I agree with you about the mentality of many football supporters being 'different' to other sports fans though.
I wouldn't say that tennis players are less exhausted than football players. So that's not the reason. Running, jogging, and tennis are individual sports with a different culture. I'm a jogger myself and I admit that I also spit sometimes when I'm physically exhausted. But it makes a difference whether you make a point of doing so ostentatiously when being watched by millions of people or whether you do it kind of embarrassingly when alone in the wood or on your course.
It all depends on whether something is an accepted part of a culture or not. In football it is, in indoor sports like basketball or handball it's not. Rugby as an outdoor sport seems to be a borderline case. No rule without exception.
Team sports are specific and differ from individual sports. As someone doing an individual sport you can hardly blame a defeat on anyone else than yourself. You rise and fall with what you, and you only, accomplish. In team sports, however, where individual responsibility is not that clear, it is possible to blame other team members if things go wrong. You have the whole range of issues like group dynamics with its interdependence, recognition by others, status, power, etc.