If you want passion, choose football

TVNZ's Michael Burgess gets it exactly right on the reasons for all the passion exhibited in All Whites' playoff against Bahrain.

1. Qualification for the World Cup is an incredible opportunity. It's the biggest sporting tournament in the world. The stakes were sky-high.

2. The game of football is intrinsically exciting. Low scores mean that goals are always worthy of wild celebration. The winning margin is usually small enough that it could have been negated or overturned at any point right up to the final whistle, which keeps spectators on the edge of their seats throughout the game.

3. Paradoxically, the low scoring also means that the supporters have plenty of time to sing, play instruments. pose for the TV cameras and generally have a party without missing any of the action.

Rugby Sevens comes close with its short-duration, often low-scoring games and sudden momentum changes. The atmosphere can be somewhat artificially generated however.

One-eyed rugby naysayers dismissed this game in particular as being of low international signficance, and football generally as being uneventful and too full of playacting. Diff'rent strokes and all, but this smacks of wilful misunderstanding to me.