"Why soccer is the greatest sport in the world" Article Analysis

The main idea of the article “Why soccer is the greatest sport in the world” (http://defconprods.hubpages.com/hub/Why-Soccer-Is-the-Greatest-Sport-On-Earth) is to persuade the reader that soccer is the best sport in the world. The author’s viewpoint is that soccer is better than all other sports because: it has the most fans (3 billion), it is the most physically demanding, and it is the most democratic, in other words, everyone touches the ball every game. The viewpoint of the author is biased. I think this because much of the evidence is not credible. As well, much of the evidence is vague. For example, in one of the opening paragraphs, the author makes the statement about soccer “we are three billion strong, more people in the world watch soccer than any other sport.” This statement is rather vague, as it is unclear what it means by “we are three billion strong” although it can be inferred that the statement is referring to the number of people who watch soccer. However, this fact is an unknowable because the definition of watching soccer can vary so wildly, it could mean everything from watching the world cup or an Olympic soccer match once in your life time to being an avid soccer fan that possesses season tickets to their favorite soccer club. It is often facts like this that I look for when attempting to determine whether a source is reliable or not.

          In this article the author states three main reasons why soccer is the greatest sport in the world. The first reason, soccer is the most watched or followed sport in the world, I examined in the paragraph above and I now will dissect the other two reasons given by the author to help determine the credibility of the article as well as the bias/ slant etc… of the article.

          The second reason given in favor of the claim that soccer is the greatest sport in the world given by the author is that soccer is the most physically demanding sport in the world as well as the fact that it is a contact full contact sport, and it cannot be claimed that it does not possess enough contact as many people claim. However, no evidence is given to support the author’s first claim that soccer is the most physically demanding sports although there is an abundance of evidence that the author could allege in favor of this argument. But, the author does use evidence to support soccer’s contact aspects. The author uses facts such as the lack of padding used by soccer players as opposed to that of other sports as well as the high number of injuries obtained by soccer players.

          The final argument that the authors uses in his declaration of soccer being the greatest sport in the world is the democratic and creative nature of soccer. In this the author is referring to the number of touches on the ball received by each player. This is a credible argument backed up by simple and clear but convincing evidence. The author’s evidence for his argument is that every player in a soccer game touches the ball at least several times, and this is a very true unbiased fact. As well, soccer is a free flow game and players are not very restrained by their position which leads to more creativity. This is also a very credible fact.

          After analyzing this article I determined that this article was biased and was also not entirely reliable.