Why we hate soccer
While I'm pretty consistently transfixed by the pure spectacle of the World Cup every four years, I'm just not much of a soccer/football convert. I love the sight of the Ghanaian cab drivers in Toronto flying their flag proudly off their cabs, or the spontaneous closing of Bloor Street when the Koreans so much as tie a match, but the game itself has problems. And it has further problems because it refuses to admit it has problems. Until they're solved, soccer will always be a curiosity in North America.
Andrew has a piece about soccer culture today, and it is excellent reading.
Soccer has a problem with its sporting culture. There is too much to be gained by falling down, faking injury, and otherwise, being a cheating, whining little child.
Argentina's match against Mexico contained a moment of brilliance. As extra time neared its close, Argentina's Rodriguez settled a ball on his chest and rocketed a left-footed volley into an area about the size of a milk crate in the top left corner of the net. He was probably standing about 70 feet from the net at the time. The ball never touched the ground.
The players are trained in these techniques, especially diving, and refs either fall for them or don't punish them.
There is a solution. Soccer's governing bodies just need the balls to stick to them. NHL refs stuck to the zero tolerance of obstruction all the way through the playoffs (OK, until Game 7 of the Finals, but that's still pretty good).
Here's my guidelines:
- Diving - No foul called, one warning, followed by a yellow card
- Time Wasting - One warning, followed by a yellow card to all players involved. That means if your four defenders are playing pattycake with the goalie, you book 'em all and let the soccer gods sort them out. The RIDICULOUS spectacle we've seen at the Euro, of TWO teams wasting time because they've received word from the bench that a simultaneous game in their group has some effect on how they should play? Call the two team captains together and tell them that all 22 players on the field are going to get booked if they don't have at it.
- Injuries - Let the players settle it. They'll put the ball into touch if someone's really hurt, but otherwise, play on... Players - Stop rewarding fakers. Once a couple goals go in when some guy's rolling around 70 yards from his own net, people will get up quickly.
- Stretchers - Want to go off the field on a stretcher?... Fine.. You're out of the game and your team is required to use one of its 3 substitutions. Tell someone that and I guarantee they'll make a miraculous recovery
- Penalties - Refs should be given clear guidelines and it shouldn't be an all or nothing call. They should be able to call a foul WITHOUT calling a penalty kick. Did the defender commit an intentional foul in order to prevent a scoring chance? Penalty. Did the attacking player still need to dribble around five guys in order to maybe get a shot? Give 'em a corner, or a set piece from 25 yards. For god's sakes, the ref GAVE the game to Italy yesterday on a call where the Italian was definitely impeded, but he wasn't FOULED. He fell over somebody in his way. Hockey refs have this discretion in calling penalty shots, why not soccer ref's?
- Penalty shoot-outs - This is a tough one because of the exhaustion of the guys on the field, especially with only 3 subs, but get rid of it. At the highest levels, nobody wants to see the game settled this way. Play the 30 minutes of extra time in full, and go to the golden goal thereafter. SOMEBODY is sure to score eventually. I'm flexible here, but there's too much of an incentive for a weaker team to kill the extra 30 minutes and take their chances in penalties.
This would fix these games in about 5 minutes. But NONE of it will ever happen because those who run soccer would rather die than change their "beautiful game" in order to make it more appealing to North Americans who just "don't understand".
