I'm not much of an athlete, but I have played soccer and football on occasion (pickup games, rec league and/or kids league). My perspective is that soccer is mu

I'm not much of an athlete, but I have played soccer and football on occasion (pickup games, rec league and/or kids league). My perspective is that soccer is much more focused on endurance and smaller, measured bursts of energy. Football on the other hand is focused on explosive bunches of energy. The players all wait for the same moment before sprinting either as far as they can, or into another player. The linebackers (the players in the middle of the field, facing off a few feet from the opposing team) also must push against the opposing team as hard as they are against them. That might help explain why instead of a focus on endurance, there's more focus on strength and power (in the physics sense). As a little bit of interesting/illustrative media, here's a video of an American football player jumping out of a pool that I found on a Reddit discussion a few days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXDSPbZ_OUw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXDSPbZ_OUw