It is no secret that I am not a big soccer fan. In fact, it might be safe to say that I am more disinterested in soccer than anyone else on the planet. I have a lot of reasons for this and I will get into them a little later in this post. Before I do that though, I want to make it perfectly clear that I tried to like it. With the World Cup starting up last week, I decided that I was going to give the sport an honest effort to understand why it is the world’s "Most Popular Sport".
First things first, a little background. I have never been able to participate in or watch soccer in any form. I am also very unaware of the rules and traditions that soccer adheres to save for the kicking the ball into the net without using your hands aspect. So I did a little bit of basic Wikipedia research on the sport before watching the opening game of the World Cup. After getting mildly educated on the sport, I felt good about the rules and the yellow cards and red cards etc. To say the least, I was pumped about the prospect of finally understanding why everyone else in the world found this game so fascinating.
I sat down to watch the first game and I was immediately annoyed. You know how when you watch regular sports and all you can hear is the occasional insight of washed up former player doing the play by play and you don't even notice the crowd at all? Well apparently, in soccer, the tradition of the fans is to be as annoying as possible by playing, and I'm going to use that word lightly, a sort of loud obnoxious horn called a vuvuzela for the whole game. I literally had to turn down the volume on my tv before I blew a hole in the back of my head. And yes, I used the word literally correctly there. Ok so, whatever, no big deal, I eventually understood that this was only a South African tradition and wasn't necessarily inherent to the actual sport itself. See, I was even getting educated about other cultures and stuff by watching.
Ok so once I got over the BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZing sound, I finally got acclimated to the pace of the game. That was until I witnessed the dreaded "offsides" penalty. Having read about this on Wikipedia, I figured that it must only happen once in a blue moon especially since the article I read praised the rule quite a bit. I found it to be the exact opposite. It is, in fact, the dumbest rule in sports ever. From what I understand, the rule is in place to prevent offensive players from just hanging around the opposing teams goal while waiting for the ball to be passed to him. This would, of course, be a "cheap shot" and I can sort of see the need for the rule to exist.
What I didn't seem to understand, however, was that this rule is applied even in the thick of the action. Take for example the game today between the USA and Slovenia. With 5 minutes left (although if you aren’t a soccer fan you would have no idea how much time is left because the dumb clock counts upward), the USA had a penalty kick which resulted in a GOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!!!! However, the goal was called back because the US player who scored the goal was called offsides. The play in question can be seen here. Now if you get done watching that and say "yup, offsides, clear as day" then I will punch you in the baby maker.
Anyway, offsides as implemented is a dumb rule. But what about the flopping? Is that Manu Ginobli and the rest of the San Antonio spurs out there on the soccer field? Nope, just like in the NBA, soccer players feign injury in attempt to draw a yellow card for the opposing team. I will never understand the logic behind this. If soccer is such a "pure" sport, why does cheating play such a big role in it?
Do you enjoy arbitrary and unilateral officiating? I sure as hell don't, but maybe that's because I live in America where bad decisions can be overturned and rules are clearly laid out. The referee in soccer has sole authority over the game. He can eject players, reverse goals, kill your family in their sleep and decide how much "extra time" will be played at the end of each half. That's right, soccer doesn’t have a "set" amount of time. After the game clock has expired (although, once again, you'd really have no idea it had if you didn't know the rules of soccer), the referee can then add an arbitrary and secret amount of time to each half. I'm told that this is because the clock never stops during play (dumb) and it is to compensate for the time wasting activities that occur during regular play. The referee then at some point just decides that the game is over. I'm guessing that countries that live under dictatorships are the reason for this rule. After all, you know who else liked to unilaterally and arbitrarily decide stuff, don't you? That's right, HITLER.
Ok, only one more bullet point to go. Soccer fans often tell me how exciting the games are and how there is constant action on the field. While the latter may be true, the former is most certainly not. As of this posting, 6 of 12 games have ended in a tie. That's right, a tie, in the biggest tournament in the world. A couple games even ended in a 0-0 tie. How very exciting indeed. The ties wouldn't be so bad for me if I had known what happens in the unlikely event of all teams in a group tying with same amount of goals. Should that happen, the advancing teams will be decided by, wait for it…..a LOTTERY. Are you kidding me!??! Drawing names out of a hat to decide who advances in the biggest tournament in the world!?!? WHAT?!
Ok end rant. 1 billion people in the world are watching the World Cup at any given moment, and that’s gotta stand for something about soccer, right? Right? No. In fact, I am convinced that those folks only think soccer is the greatest game in the world because it is all they have. For instance, I greatly doubt that Slovenia has a riveting college football season where they get to discuss the pros and cons of Slovenia U joining the Big Asia Conference. Anyway, I will most likely continue to watch this world cup. Hopefully after watching a few more games I will be able to understand why this sport is so damn popular.
As a side note, I’d like to point out that this was my 100th post on this blog! Where’s my celebratory cake and ice cream?
