Stealing a page from Victor Cruz.
Posted on 07/02/2014 9:55:48 AM PDT by PoloSec
I’m a sports fanatic. I love almost every sport.
I’ve tried to get interested in soccer. I just can’t.
Soccer is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
There’s almost no scoring in soccer. Too many games end 0-0 and 1-0.
Hours can go buy with barely a shot on goal – when no one even comes close to scoring.
I think there’s too much scoring in NBA basketball. But I’d rather have too much scoring than no scoring.
If this sport is ever to catch on in America, soccer needs to make adjustments to make the game more exciting to watch.
Adjustment #1: Dramatically shrink the size of the field.
Make the field about half the size it is now.
This will help increase the action in front of the goal.
Adjustment #2: Increase the size of the goal.
An increase in the width of six inches or so would probably be enough.
Adjustment #3: Put sideboards up around the field so the ball doesn’t go out of bounds so much.
Indoor soccer has this feature. Indoor soccer is much more fun to watch than outdoor soccer.
Passes that carom off the walls make the passing more complicated and interesting, like hockey.
Adjustment #4: Allow hitting in soccer, like in ice hockey and lacrosse.
Soccer need not make all these changes at once.
Try one or two changes at a time and see what happens.
People want to see goals. And people like to see hitting.
The National Football League is constantly tweaking the rules to make the game more exciting.
If the NFL never changed the rules, there would be no scoring because defense always catches up to the offense. Almost all the rule changes favor the offense.
Even the football itself has changed shape over the years to enhance the passing game.
Baseball created more home runs by bringing in the fences. Basketball created more scoring by adding a shot clock. Boxing created more action by making the ring smaller.
But boxing is being overtaken in popularity by martial arts caging fight because there’s a lot more action, a lot more actual fighting.
All other sports that I can think of constantly review and change the rules – to make their sports more exciting to watch.
Why can’t soccer make adjustments?
There is no sport that I can think of that is more boring than soccer.
Even golf is more exciting.
There are tense moments in golf, such as when Phil Mickelson is trying to sink a five-foot putt to win the Masters.
Baseball is slow. But it gets tense when the bases are loaded in a close playoff game if your team is involved. The tension in golf and baseball is created by the situation.
But there are few situations in soccer that create any tension because so much of the action takes place so far from the goal.
Is there strategy in soccer? I assume there is, but I can’t discern it.
It’s obvious there’s strategy in baseball and football. The fans can see it. The fans can question the strategy.
The fans can boo if the football coach decides not to go for it on fourth down.
Should they pass or should they run?
The fans can question whether it’s the right move for the baseball manager to take the pitcher out of the game.
Should the hitter bunt and try to move the runner over, or should he swing away?
Strategy is a big part of the appeal of football and baseball.
There’s a chess-match aspect to these sports.
There’s a lot of thinking involved. Should we do this? Or should we do that?
I’d Watch Soccer If It Were More Like Ice Hockey
I’m not sure there’s a lot of strategy in hockey either.
But hockey is exciting. Hockey is basically the same game as soccer. But it’s fast. It’s on skates. The rink is small compared to a soccer field.
Hockey is mayhem.
There are lots of shots on goal in hockey, lots of action in front of the net. There are fights. Many hockey players have missing teeth. They look cool. They look rugged. They are rugged. The puck is hard as a rock. It caroms off the boards. There is checking in hockey, where the player gets to slam the other player into the boards. You hear a loud thud when that happens.
Hockey is more like a gang fight on skates. The players are carrying a weapon – their hockey stick. Their skates are razor sharp.
Hockey is a truly dangerous game.
Hockey is much more of a man’s sport than soccer. In soccer, the players fall on the ground if they are barely touched. They then writhe around on the field screaming in hopes of drawing a penalty.
When the penalty comes or doesn’t come, that same player who was writhing around on the field crying suddenly jumps to his feet and resumes playing, perfectly healthy.
Hockey players don’t act like this. They would be laughed off their teams as sissies if they did.
In soccer, the clock keeps running during the alleged injury.
So if a team that’s winning by one goal just wants to run out the clock, that team can just fake all kinds of injuries — which often happens.
That sure makes for an exciting game.
And what’s up with the obsession with the hair of certain World Cup soccer stars?
The star player from Portugal (I forget his name) has a completely different hairdo and hair color every game. How much time is this guy spending in the hair salon?
Shouldn’t he be spending that time watching film or practicing?
Something else I’ve noticed.
Recent immigrants to America learn to love NFL football.
There’s a Mexican restaurant that I go to a lot in Chicago that doubles as a sports bar.
Mexico is known for soccer. It’s their national sport.
But at this Chicago Mexican sports bar I go to, the preferred sport there is NFL football.
Mexicans who move to America quickly become NFL football fanatics. So do Asians and Africans who move here.
These recent Mexican immigrants admit to me that American football is a whole lot more fun to watch than soccer.
They also love boxing and caging fighting.
Something else that bugs me about soccer is that it’s a sport that I feel is being forced on me by liberals who hate American football, who hate violent, dangerous sports.
Liberals are doing everything they can to feminize the NFL. There’s Breast Cancer Awareness month when all the NFL players are expected to wear pink. Kick-off returns are being phased out because they are so dangerous. Defensive players can no longer hit the quarterback, for some reason.
Former NFL great Terry Bradshaw suggests putting a skirt on the quarterback so the defensive player understands more clearly who he can’t hit.
During Super Bowl Week, there’s always the obligatory article in The New York Times on how violence against women (husbands beating their wives) rises during Super Bowl week.
Turns out this is a myth – a complete canard.
Violence against women actually seems to decline during Super Bowl week – probably because husbands are wrapped up in the game. The wife beating seems to resume after the Super Bowl is over.
There’s now the obsession with concussions in the NFL – as if concussions never occurred before now.
So now the NFL has banned leading with your head.
If we want to reduce concussions, maybe football should be played without a helmet, like in the old days. That would discourage players from engaging in head-on collisions with each other.
Some liberal writers have proposed banning football, banning boxing, banning caging fighting, banning car racing, banning all these dangerous sports.
But liberals love soccer.
Soccer’s not the least bit dangerous. About the worst injury you see in soccer is a pulled hamstring.
Well there is that guy in the World Cup from Uruguay who keeps biting the opposing players.
What’s up with that guy? And why doesn’t someone break his nose?
Do you remember when liberals tried to force the metric system on Americans?
I feel they are trying to do this to us with soccer.
Liberals told us we needed to adopt the metric system because that’s what the rest of the world uses.
They told us the metric system makes more sense and is easier to understand.
Not sure that’s true.
A foot is about the length of my foot.
Seems pretty straight forward and simple to me.
I have no idea what 2.34 centimeters is.
Is that like a centipede?
I think America’s measuring system is a lot easier.
But liberals continue to try to push the metric system on us, just like they are desperate to get America to love soccer – so we can be just like the rest of the world.
I don’t want to be like the rest of the world.
Frankly, I was also turned off by the big celebration in the media over USA’s soccer victory over Ghana.
Where the heck is Ghana?
I had to look it up on a map. What’s their population? Do they even have enough people in Ghana to field a soccer team?
Apparently they do.
If America is this excited about its World Cup victory over a dinky little country like Ghana, that’s pathetic.
We’re a nation of 320,000,000 people.
Yet we barely beat Ghana — 2-1.
If Wisconsin played Ghana, that would seem to be a more fair contest.
Then we went on to tie Portugal — another dinky country. This was also hailed by the media as great news for the USA.
If this is great news, America really is in decline.
Then Germany defeats USA, you guessed it . . . 1-0.
Zzzzzzzzzzz.
Here’s something else that’s off-putting.
USA keeps advancing in this World Cup tournament without winning.
We beat Ghana, and that’s it. We then tied Portugal and lost to Germany.
Yet we continue to advance in the tourney.
Why aren’t we eliminated?
Maybe that’s another reason liberals love soccer so much.
Nothing is at stake in these games. Your actual performance in the game makes little difference.
Everyone’s a winner. It’s almost impossible to lose at this game.
So no one feels bad.
UPDATE: Belgium defeats Team USA 2-1 to eliminate the US from World Cup competition.
Try playing on sand. :-)
-PJ
And the rink is ICE! Thank you for this, btw. I had a nice debate with a Scot on this very subject the other day; and, I was trying to convey my feeling of being forced (as you pointed out) to like this game, to watch this game. We did a back and forth and agreed to disagree (he doesn't see the appeal of baseball). However, some soccer nut had to post to me that I "LITERALLY" don't know anything about this game. I guess that meant I could not give my opinion on why I don't watch this incrediably boring game.
I thought about that, and I was reminded of the fact that every four years I get hooked by curling. I will even watch curling when the USA is not playing. I don't know why. I find it somehow, mesmerizing. Now, I actually don't know anything about curling. It's big in Europe and Canada; but, after watching for several Winter Olympics, I don't think I could actually explain how they do the scoring. But, I watch, and I enjoy the thing. Soccer simply doesn't "draw" me in. For some reason, curling does. And, being in the Seattle area, I get the CBC - Canadian channel; and, occasionally I will watch the Equestrian events. So, I will watch different types of "sporting" events; but, they need to have a certain something, that is hard to define, which will draw me in. Soccer fails.
Thanks for the credit.
Alternative shoot-out approach: follow the format of the NHL (three shooters from each team, alternating as in hockey, with additional shooters as needed until the tie is broken) - but with one key modification: the shooter gets the ball at mid-field, the defending team gets a defender at the top of the box, along with the goalie. Once the ball is touched by the shooter, but not before, the defender can move. Defending team must alternate defenders in the same fashion that the offensive team alternates shooters (no repeats until you’ve gone through the entire roster, unlike the goofy Olympic-TJOshie-against-the-world rules).
Two other major modifications:
Get rid of the stupid yellow card (no immediate consequences) / red card (death penalty) system, and replace with a penalty box (minors, majors, and game misconducts) as per hockey.
Allow (hell, encourage) the use of the arms to advance the ball or propel shots on goal. No carrying or trapping with the hands or arms allowed - those would result in lost of possession - but thwacking the ball to advance it, pass it or shoot it would be perfectly fine.
Soccer is only the world’s most popular game because it’s the world cheapest game (you’re not going to be able to outfit a football team in a village in Zambia), not because it’s the world’s most exciting game. American has a history of taking crappy sports and making them interesting (see: cricket, rugby (although I wouldn’t say that to the face of a rugby player)) and making them into sports worth watching - we should take it as a national mission to do that to soccer.
Only in soccer can a player bite another and keep his teeth.
“As an example, one or two slam-dunks might be palatable, however as a steady a diet is just about as interesting as stuffing a shopping bag at the market.”
You mean the chest pounding displays after dunking isn’t exciting to you?! The best is when a near 7 footer dunks with no one within 20 feet of him, and still breaks out the primal screams and chest poundage. But at least they usually can’t spend too much time on the fruity celebration, the ball is going up court right after. In Soccer the crazy celebrations by players after scoring a goal is way too much for me, but at least it doesn’t happen 40 times a game.
The absolute worst is the NFL, they break out the fruity self-congratulatory gyrating displays after even mundane plays. The cool NFL players have no way to self police the jerkwads, the nature of the modern game doesn’t allow it.
FReegards
Two points: 1. No one is forcing you to watch. Seriously, are you under duress? 2. If you admit that you don’t watch, why do you think your opinion is equal to that of someone who does? I mean, that’s common sense . . . I don’t watch cricket, and don’t presume to tell others what I think about it.
Ever watch a baseball fight? LOL
Actually, the soccer goal is 8’ high by 24’ (8 yds) wide – a ratio of 1:3 … An increase in height by a foot to an even 3 yards would probably marginally increase goal production. It would be a interesting exercise to find out too why the other standard dimensions are set as they are, e.g. why it’s a 6-yard box in front of the goal, and an 18-yard deep Penalty area instead of 20 yards with the PK spot right in the center.
Curious though that with all this talk of forced “metrification”, the standard dimensions are all expressed in exact old-fashioned English units ;)
This was a boring article about the boringness of soccer.
American sports are civilized.
Soccer is more primitive in rules and in fan base.
Soccer became popular as a vehicle for drunken behavior and fighting. Hooliganism.
Even today that is largely the case.
Stealing a page from Victor Cruz.
I've given up on the NFL too. But my response to the prancing is that the league should institute a new major award, "The Jolson," for the best impersonation of a minstrel show strut by an player. To really do it right, the award should be presented live on national tv, when they hand out the MVP award. The top contenders would reprise their routines, and the white guys would wear blackface and the black guys would wear whiteface, just to honor the spirit of the thing.
I used to wonder where all the strutting, chest pounding, and prancing came from. Then I became a parent, and had a three year old. Fortunately, my three year old outgrew such displays.
I remember in 94 a South American player accidentally knocked the ball in to his own team’s goal.
His team was eliminated.
Back in his home country, before the World Cup was over, this player was shot death at a street cafe with the shooters yelling, “goal” each time they shot him.
I thought the US, who hosted the thing that year, should have cancelled it and made everyone go home after that.
The World Cup and pro soccer in general is not something to be admired or interested in.
It does serve as a marker of sorts. The more interest there is in it here in the US, the closer we go to a European Style socialist state.
Oh, please.
It’s true.
It’s not the cause, just a barometer.
I can just imagine these people wheeling their carts past the ethnic food section of their local grocery store, white-knuckled and gnashing their teeth. LOL
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps USMNT matches are one of the few bastions left where people can proudly wave the Red, White and Blue?
And there’s also more than one Gadsden Flag in the crowd.
Yeah, I don’t like that kind of thing until the game is decided. I mean come on, we know you are enjoying what you are doing, but until the end of the match let the fans do your celebrating.
Freegards
I believe your shootout scheme is very similar to something the old NASL tried in the 1970’s as a tiebreaker – that was still a one-on-one with the goalkeeper, but the attempt started at the 35-yard line (which they put in to replace the centerline for offsides) and the players had 5 seconds to shoot the ball. I recall a lot of them would toe-lift the ball immediately & dribble the ball in the air on the way in to get the goalie to commit.
The problem with the penalty box approach is that 11 vs 10 for short spurts really isn’t all that much of an advantage, unlike in hockey where 5-on-4 is a big advantage.
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