Football

I was amused by the reaction to Thierry Henry's "Hand of God" goal by football supporters.

The thing with football is that it is the sport most prone to luck of any sport out there. It has insuffient judging (considering the space), lacks episodic play (so it's not easy to check refereeing decisions) has low scoring and lacks scoring requires on confirmation of victory.

Its opposite is tennis. Tennis has judges, computer judging and the tournament referee can be called in. It has plenty of points and has 2 levels of confirmation (win game by 2 points and set by 2 points). So, the person who wins the match is extremely likely to be the best performer of the day.

Rugby doesn't have enough judging nor action replays, but does have high scoring. So the luck evens out across a match and while the best team may lose because of luck, they would still have to be quite close to the better team to win.

But the level of luck in football is its attraction. It's why fans will turn out for matches - their non-league club might, just might put that one goal in the net against a league club and win by defending for the rest of the game. It also, I believe, explains it's near religious and tribal following.