Soccer is apaprently a beautiful game. Pele said that but why? There is simply not much beautiful about twenty bodies kicking around the park for 90 minutes trying to get a ball past one of two idling goalies and succeeding at best a couple of times, and often never. If that's beautiful sporting endeavour then it's hard to avoid thoughts of wanting your money back. 

The table shows exactlyt how long it takes to score a goal in football. Roughly it's every half-an-hour. This is a constant interval of boredom regardless of the competition, from the English Premier League to Euro 2004 and to the marginally more exciting Copa America. 

In rugby, by contrast, scoring events arrive roughly every five minutes, as judged by the Rugby World Cup 2003. Scoring events have the additional advantage of being more varied. Rather than simply a gaol in the net there can be a penalty, a drop goal, try and/or a conversion - altogether four different types of scoring events.