In Europe, the belief that soccer is more interesting to watch than American football is widespread. Approaching unanimous.

If that preference is questioned, what often comes up is this: “American football has too many breaks in play. Soccer is continuous action.”

The NFL RedZone package, however, turns that complaint on its head.

It is the NFL that becomes nonstop and usually packed with meaningful action, while whatever one soccer match followed for any one minute … is extremely likely to feature 60 seconds of 22 guys running around accomplishing nothing.

It turns out that those breaks between NFL plays allow RedZone directors to jam something interesting from other games into even the most anticipated single match-up of the day.

If the NFL got the RedZone into basic European TV packages, I am convinced it would swamp local soccer leagues. Yes, even the big ones like England’s and Spain’s, none of which feature a RedZone style collation of every goal or every big moment.

Soccer games do offer more generic action, but nearly all of it is in the middle half of the field and 95 percent of it is not going to lead to a goal. I have been watching a lot of soccer since moving to Abu Dhabi in October of 2009, and I can vouch for this.

What in British-English soccer is called a “wonder goal” is something that happens in about one game in five, and that’s a lot of generic soccer to sit through, waiting for that one special goal. (Or any goal at all.)

The American football definition of the “red zone” is the area within 20 yards of the goal line, and that is what the network shows — every play in those final 20 yards. Even if that means whipping around as many as nine or 10 NFL games in a compact time frame.

What it turns out to be, for six-plus hours, is teams scoring, or about to score, or significant turnovers, and right there you capture every big play of the day. Dozens, scores of them.

(RedZone also is an enormous help to fantasy football players, and fantasy leagues are catching on in Europe, especially in Britain. It runs updated fantasy stats along the bottom of the picture.)

Just about any NFL big play is more visually appealing than all but a tiny fraction of any soccer match. Fast, colorful, strategic (and, yes, violent) — and another big play will be coming along in the next 30 seconds. Or less.

Here in France, RedZone comes with French announcers, who actually seem to know the NFL fairly well. They do a lot of shouting. Words like incroyable (incredible) and magnifique come up a lot. They are aided by being able to hear the English-language description of the games they are joining, and the French announcers rarely get lost. “Ah, the Tennessee Tee-tans have scored!”

The RedZone motto is “every touchdown from every game” every Sunday afternoon. If you don’t see it live, you will get it on tape in less than 60 seconds. You also are very likely also to see the big play that set up the scoring play.

Here in the south of France, I get the English Premier League, part of the SFR package, as well as the RedZone, which is part of the BeIN package. The total package here (internet, unlimited international calls, TV) costs 35 euros.

I like the Premier League. I spent six years enmeshed in it. But RedZone is so enormously more riveting that I tend to give a pass to any Premier League match that collides with RedZone live Sunday games — which begin at 7 p.m. in continental western Europe.

RedZone is not for aficionados of a given NFL team. You will see only a fraction of the plays from all but the most compelling games.

I am a Los Angeles Rams fan, more or less, and their sleep-inducing 9-6 victory over the new York Jets was nearly ignored by RedZone — which is inevitable (and understandable) when the game produces exactly four scoring plays, and three of them are field goals.

But if you are a generic sports fan, especially a European, RedZone represents a huge improvement in entertainment.

The pace of switching from game to game probably seems daunting to Euros who don’t know the American sport, but it does not take long to recognize uniforms or helmets and quickly grasp which game is being shown.

In a short time, what might be nausea-inducing dizziness of whirling games morphs into a sort of adrenaline drip that pins a person to the couch.

I watched more than six hours of RedZone today, from the 10 games in the early part of the night to the three games in the latter part of the evening, and I was never bored.

European sports fans would, eventually, behave no differently, I am confident. Why camp out on the Real Madrid match thinking Cristiano Ronaldo probably eventually will score, during this two-hour block of time … when you could see every play of significance from multiple NFL games?

Sure, go support your local soccer team. See them play. Pay for the TV package if you are not at the grounds. And rest comfortable knowing that any one soccer match might beat any one NFL game for ongoing action.

But the rest of the time … soccer is routed by RedZone kills. It is six-plus hours of little guys kicking around a round ball … pitted against a highlight reel of frantic NFL action.

It will be interesting to see if the service catches on with European TV sports providers and their customers. Exposure could win lots of eyeballs.