And knowing the game is more than just knowing the basic rules. I tell people that about soccer all the time. With regard to the sloppiness, Frank Deford, the long-time chauvanistic, xenophobic American soccer hating sports writer has said several times that soccer "has a real lack of proficiency in the game". I think that stems from his stupid quasi anthropological argument that soccer makes no sense because players can't use their hands, which of course separates us from animals. Meaning its so hard to control a ball without using your hands because its unnatural. But Frank Deford was a basketball player, so that is his perspective - a sport where use of hands to control the ball leads to such hyper "proficiency" that
50 goals are scored per game. Ha ha.
So I get your point about perception of control.

I have actually said to people that hockey people probably anticipate where the puck is and will be.

I have watched, and played, lots of INDOOR soccer, a game that basically has the same structure as hockey and played on a hockey rink with turf. I like that structure. Thanks hockey. But my eyes expect the same thing watching hockey. Probably the reverse for hockey fans. I actually think that regular soccer is fundamentally and significantly flawed in terms of its structure and rules. Mostly having to do with amount of space and number of players, it leads to a game where the correlation between superior play and scoring is not strong enough. To hard to score. But its still my favorite sport.

I try to keep out of sport bashing in forums unless soccer is attacked troll - style where I will go at it hard . Too hard sometimes. I've gotten in a little trouble over it on CB before. Soccer is attacked often. Hockey some too but with soccer its much more pervasive. So the only reason I even posted my issues with hockey is because of the "...like soccer but with action...." comment in the original post.