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While the proper reaction to yesterday's victory by the United States over Algeria in the 2010 World Cup should have been one along the lines of "Rah, Rah, Patriotism," I couldn't help but be reminded once again that soccer is a potentially great game that is bogged down by horrible rules and shady officiating, instead rendering it a sport that can only be appreciated by retards and people in third-world countries. And while I'm well aware that any ignorant American who proposes changes to the sport that is, far and away, the most popular in the world won't be taken seriously, I'm going to do so anyway because sometimes, in order to facilitate change, it requires an outsider pointing an unbiased light at a subject and asking, "Why?"
In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that soccer and I have had a tumultuous relationship over the years. Despite my retirement from the world of organized soccer at the ripe old age of eight, I have casually followed the sport in the years since. In the summer of 1994, after being hammered with story after story in the local newspapers about the World Cup taking place on American soil, I sat down and watched the much-anticipated final between international powerhouses Brazil and Italy. Two excruciatingly-dull hours later, the game ended in a scoreless tie and was ultimately won by Brazil in a shootout. In 2002, in the midst of a particularly overindulgent period of my life, one in which I seemingly aimed to be the most decadent, debaucherous libertine this side of, well, that guy from The Libertine (minus the syphilis), I blindly placed a wager on the game between Mexico and the United States, my thinking being, "I can count on one hand the number of things that Mexico does better than the United States. And four of them involve tortillas. The other, however, is soccer. Of course they're going to win." I placed my money on Mexico, and the United Stated proceeded to win in one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history. And in 2006, I once again fell victim to the hype leading up to the championship game between France and Italy and went out of my way to watch the "action" live. And once again, the game ended in a 0-0 tie. Italy won in a shootout and, in the process, I realized, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that soccer is a stupid sport for stupid people.
1) Why distract from the obvious positives of international soccer?
Don't get me wrong, World Cup soccer has some good things going for it. The nationalistic fervor, for instance. The pregame national anthems are always poignant and, when you see the players standing against a backdrop of thousands of fans, singing along with a look of pride, determination and outright fear in their eyes, you're quickly reminded that there is more is at stake here than in other sports.
When you realize that the hopes of both competing nations (unless one of them happens to be the United States) are riding on the result, each game simply feels like more of a global "event," and it's always enjoyable when a goal is scored and the network broadcasting the game cuts away to a shot of, like, a public square in Rome or Stuttgart and hundreds of fans are wildly cheering and waving flags and lighting stuff on fire. Inside the stadium, the passion of the fans can be infectious, with the chanting and the intermittent singing and all. That was one mild complaint I recall making after the 2006 title game... watching from my couch, I couldn't really hear the crowd noise and I wished that the network had done a more effective job of putting microphones up in the stands so that the energy of the fans would be audible. You know what viewers will hear if the network tries to capture any of the crowd noise during this World Cup?
Forty thousand fucking vuvuzelas.
Not the drunken singing of national anthems, not the terrified gasps of the fans each time a shot heads towards the goal. Nope. Just a loud, obnoxious, unwavering buzzing noise. Thanks, South Africa. You've managed to take the best thing about big soccer games -- the atmosphere -- and make it annoying.
2) Why not dissuade soccer players from being giant pussies?
In referring to the third and final bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1975, sportswriter Jerry Izenberg famously stated, "They were fighting for something more important than the heavyweight championship of the world. They were fighting for the heavyweight championship of each other." Throughout that brutal trilogy, both men seemed to put aside their instincts of self-preservation in favor of a more simple goal: to win by any means necessary. While Ali emerged victorious in that deciding bout in the Philippines, he later stated that the fight was the closest thing to dying he'd ever experienced.
Moments like that, when talent and desire and competitive drive all come together to form a perfect storm of edge-of-your-seat drama, is why we watch sports. We live for those moments when, even in a team sport, one man looks at a competitor and says, "I'm better than you, and I can prove it."
It happens when a shooting guard gets the ball at the top of the key, glances at his defender for a split second before juking to his left, then cutting back to the right, leaving his opponent grasping at thin air as he elevates and viciously slams the ball through the rim. It happens when a pitcher stares down the other team's cleanup hitter in the ninth inning of the World Series and guns a 98-mile per hour fastball past him for a strike. It happens when a running back breaks into the open field and, with only a safety standing between him and the end zone, he lowers his shoulder and plows into him like a runaway steamroller.
It does not happen when gutless pansy Kader Keita of the Ivory Coast intentionally jogs into the back of Brazil's Kaka, then falls to the ground and writhes around as though he'd been hit by a sniper's bullet. And it does not happen when Christiano Ronaldo, generally regarded to be among the two or three best homosexual players in the world, has a ball gently ricochet off his knee as he waits to take a corner kick and responds by clutching his face and crumpling to the turf.
The flopping has become an epidemic in soccer, especially among teams from South America and mainland Europe, to the point where it is often excused as "a part of the game," almost as though fooling a ref into calling a penalty deserves as much acclaim as, say, making a great pass or defensive play. And then you look at the teams that are often accused of flopping, and you realize that many of them are practically third-world countries, ones where paved roads and indoor plumbing are still not commonplace. And then, if you're like me (mildly racist and slightly drunk), you start to think, "Gee, maybe the reason these countries are horrible shitholes is because their citizens -- as exemplified by their soccer stars -- place no value on succeeding by way of hard work and determination. Instead, they've realized that they can get by by gaming the system and, thus, they put forth minimal effort trying to better themselves. Sure, they realize they may never reach the heights of world or soccer domination, but they'll do just enough to coast by, which is good enough for them and is why their countries will always be poor and disgusting." So instead of building schools or hospitals, for instance, they're taking siestas and letting the problems work themselves out on their own. Keep on flopping and faking injuries, Ivory Coast. It's the reason your shitty country still has the plague.
Between the flopping and the hasty, gutless surrender of the French team, this World Cup has, at the very least, reinforced a number of international stereotypes that, as it turns out, seem to be fairly accurate.
But how do we fix this? Easy: these games are all being televised. There are cameras everywhere. A FIFA official needs to sit down and watch tape of each game. If a player appears at any point to be faking an injury with the intent of drawing a penalty, they're suspended for their next game. In addition, any offender needs to be outed and shamed for their pathetic actions for the remainder of their miserable lives, much like baseball players who cork their bats or use steroids. Like Sammy Sosa, for instance. He was a great player for several years. But it's now pretty obvious that he was on steroids, and he was caught with a corked bat in 2003. Therefore, he'll likely never sniff the Hall of Fame, and every profile written about him from now until the end of time needs to mention that he cheated. Likewise, Ronaldo needs to be remembered for being a giant pussy who collapsed like a frail little girl at the slightest hint of contact.
3) Why not do what it takes to make the right calls?
In the wake of the Armando Galarraga imperfect game, Major League Baseball is under fire to implement instant replay to make sure important calls are correct. The reason that it hasn't yet been added is simple... the MLB commissioner, Bud Selig, is suffering from advanced pre-senile dementia and spends most days in the parking lot of the MLB offices eating bugs.
But after a blatant officiating error like that which occurred in the France-Ireland World Cup qualifying match, when Thierry Henry's game-winning handball was missed by the refs, why has FIFA not taken steps to implement instant replay on controversial goals? From the looks of it, the sole reason appears to be arrogance.
Controversy may generate headlines, and FIFA may profit in the short term from any publicity, good or bad, but after enough questionable calls (like Henry's handball, like the two American goals in the 2010 World Cup that have been called off due to an iffy offsides and/or a ref from Mali seeing things), the average fan begins to get disillusioned. So put additional refs on the field to cover all angles. Have an officiating crew in a booth take thirty seconds after each goal to inconspicuously look at the replays to make sure everything was on the up-and-up. Do whatever it takes to be correct at all times. It'll pay dividends in the long run.
4) Why are there always goofy offsides calls in soccer?
The answer? Because the offsides rule in soccer is retarded.
In essence, the rule goes something like this: "When you're in the opponent's half of the field, you need to stay behind either the ball or two defenders (one of which is usually the goaltender)." So let's say you're an offensive player and you and your ball-handling teammate are running up the field. As he tiptoes down the right sideline, you slice through the middle of the field, blowing past an unsuspecting defender and leaving him in your dust, at which point your teammate passes you the ball and you redirect it past the diving goalie and into the net. Exciting, right? Everyone loves pinpoint passing and skilled offensive displays, right? Sure, but if the lazy defender you embarrassed was the last one between you and the goalie, that goal doesn't count because you were offsides. Soccer is the only sport in which bad defensive teams seem to have an advantage and, in calling offsides as they do, soccer has eliminated any possibility of a breakaway. Any hockey fan can vouch for the excitement that comes with any breakaway. Either the player scores or the goalie makes an exceptional save. Either way, the fans get to witness something thrilling. What's the harm with that?
Italy had a goal waved off in the 2006 final because they were offsides, as did the Americans in 2010. In both cases, the goals were scored after the offensive player beat the defender legitimately, with speed and tenacity. Why is that frowned upon?
Abolish the existing offsides rule. If a player is talented enough to beat a defender and create a scoring chance, let him do so. If you want to institute something along the blue lines in hockey in order to prevent teams from having a "cherry-picker" stand next to the opposing goalie all game and wait for long passes, so be it.
5) Why not allow for exciting finishes?
That is, of course, Al Michaels' famous call during the final seconds of the Miracle on Ice in 1980.
The commentary in the final seconds of a typical World Cup game tends to go something like this: "As we enter the fourth minute of stoppage time, you've got to assume we're near the end. And, yes... I think that's it. We'll wait for the official call. Yes, indeed, the ref has signaled that this game is over. This game is over." How fucking thrilling.
Have you ever seen a movie in which someone has to defuse a bomb and the timer on that bomb is counting up to sixty seconds? No. You know why? Because it's not exciting. The anticipation of reaching zero is exciting. So why does the clock count up in soccer? Just as a general rule, things are more thrilling when the clock is counting down.
And what the hell is stoppage time? If the ref has a secret stopwatch that he keeps in his pocket during the game, let that be wired to the clock that's being shown on the broadcast so that everyone's on the same page. Allow everyone to be on the same clock, from the players to the refs to the viewers at home. That way, you at least create the possibility of there being a frantic finish in a game in which there are just a few seconds left and one team needs to score, so they go balls-to-the-wall and fire everything at the opposing goal as the crowd counts down, "Ten, Nine, Eight..." How cool would that be? And yet, under soccer's current set-up, it can never happen.
6) Why are championships decided by a shootout?
Through this evening, there have been 44 games played in the group stage of the 2010 World Cup. Twelve of them have ended in draws. That's 27% of all games thus far that have ended in a tie. In the knockout stage, a game cannot end in a tie, as one team obviously must advance. At some point in time, it was decided that a shootout would be a fair way of deciding a winner, and of the fifteen knockout stage games in 2006, four (26%) were decided by shootout, including the championship game between France and Italy. Why? Why can't the game be decided by playing by the same rules that apply for the first ninety or so minutes?
No other major sport allows a championship to be decided using such a contrived method. It would be like deciding the Super Bowl with a field goal contest, or game 7 of the World Series with a home run derby. Why not just keep playing until someone scores? I distinctly remember the commentators saying during the France-Italy World Cup final in 2006, "Well, the game has to end sometime." Really? Why? It's the championship game, all of the fans are drunk and having fun... Let them keep playing! Every stadium has lights, so the setting sun isn't a concern. Sure, the players are tired. So what? There is nothing better than a playoff hockey games that goes four or five overtimes and the players are too exhausted to climb over the boards for line changes and instead have to use the door. In those moments, you get to see athletes fueled only by heart and desire. Quite frankly, with guys like Thierry Henry being "too tired" to finish the title game in 2006 and participate in the shootout, these soccer pansies need to toughen up anyway.
Based upon recent results, it would appear that, regardless of which teams end up meeting in this year's World Cup final, there is a 25-30% chance that the game will again be decided by a shootout. How is that preferable to a championship game that goes into overtime and lasts for, say, six tense hours before one team finally manages to thread the ball through an exhausted defense?
Allow for more substitutions if needed. Expand the rosters. Do whatever it takes to decide the championship by playing the sport the way it was intended. If the worst thing that could result is a marathon game that becomes an instant classic and is talked about for years, that's not so bad.
But if you absolutely must have a shootout, it needs to be altered in order to even the odds. Penalty shots in hockey are exciting because there is maybe a 50-50 chance that the goalie will make an incredible save. What are the odds in soccer? A ten percent chance the goalie will deflect it? It's almost laughable watching the goalies fling themselves towards one side or the other with minimal chance they'll stop the shot even if they guess right. I don't have any statistical data to back this up, but if the goalie is standing in the middle and the shooter aims for an upper corner, isn't there roughly a 99.2% chance they score? So move the spot of the kick back to whatever distance proves over time to even the odds. A shootout that ends 3-2 is much more thrilling than one that ends 5-4. In 2006, every Italian shooter scored in the shootout against France, and the French only missed one because their guy hit the crossbar. So, essentially, the goalies might as well have remained on the sidelines, because they had no effect on the outcome.
7) Why resist change?
Soccer, in some form or another, has been around for centuries, but the first standardized rules were established in 1863 at Cambridge University. Nearly one hundred and fifty years have come and gone since that day. In those one hundred and fifty years, the world has changed dramatically, yet soccer has largely remained the same. To honor history and tradition is one thing, but to deny advancement is another thing entirely, and in order to keep up with the times, soccer needs to adapt and become faster and more exciting... or risk being phased out entirely.
How then does soccer maintain its relevance for future generations? Here are a few admittedly edgy ideas...
A) Current soccer fields are roughly three-quarters of a mile from end-to-end. Reducing that will increase scoring chances while also enabling the television cameras to get in closer to the action on the field.
B) I'd also like to see the field surrounded by a moat or flaming barb wire, but I'll settle for a wall. This'll make for exciting ricochets and collisions.
C) Reduce the size of the goal in order to give goalies with quick reflexes an advantage.
D) Institute hockey's penalty box. If a player gets a yellow card, your team plays shorthanded for a few minutes.
E) Stop calling exhibition games "friendlies." That just sounds gay.
I think that's all I've got for now. Consider this my official application for the position of President of Soccer.
And, just for kicks (get it?), I'll leave you with another picture of hot soccer fans...
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