re: soccer v football and fitness
There was an interesting article by Dr Peter Larkham (spelling?) in the Sunday Age about just this issue a couple of weeks ago. Interestingly the Australians appear to be considered one of the best prepared teams in terms of fitness in the World Cup. One of the main reasons for this is the intense level of physical training that Guus Hiddink put them through in the weeks leading up to the tournament. The reason he did? Because a number of them play in England and are considered virtually automatically insufficiently fit on that basis. (A cultural and scheduling problem in English football I gather).
Australians, and AFL, are at the very elite level in terms of sports science, peaking fitness and recovery and it is unlikely that many, if any, "soccer" leagues around the world currently match them as the game doesn't have the same physical demands - different skill set, different game patterns etc. Does that denigrate soccer players - no of course not as they could certainly achieve similar results if needed. (And of course at less than elite levels it's probably fairly even).
Personally I have always enjoyed "soccer" at the highest levels, particularly for it's moments of individual brilliance but AFL will remain a generally better spectacle for me.
