World Cup Thoughts – Pt II
The other day, in Pt I, I gave an overview of my thoughts on the World Cup, and so now I’ll go a little bit deeper and discuss some of the World Cup thoughts that I have had this weekend as I did watch one of the games.
Yesterday, I was invited out to watch the Colombia-Uruguay game by a cute girl, and so, naturally, I accepted the invite — yeah, I’m one of those guys — and it left me with a lot of questions about soccer.
Probably the biggest obstacle that I have, in terms of enjoying soccer, is not understanding why they don’t have the same rules as hockey — whose rules make a lot of sense, to me. For example: the fixed offside line — soccer doesn’t have that, but I think that they should. Also, pulling the goalie for an extra attacker — that’s something that I was saying Uruguay should have done until I was told by the soccer people there that it is against the rules. Then what is the point of playing the overage time??
Pulling The Goalie.
Essentially, if you’re down 2-0 (like Uruguay was), there’s no point — in my mind — to keep playing once regulation has expired because you’re not going to get any good scoring opportunities anyways and, I reckon, 99.99% of all 2-0 deficits remain 2-0 by the time overage is reached. So what’s the point? At least in hockey, you can pull the goalie for an extra attacker and play 6-on-5 in a desperate attempt creating a mismatch/scoring opportunity to get back in the game…. and, when it happens… it…is… AMAZING. So intense. Soccer doesn’t do that. The ball just gets advanced and then rejected to the opposite side of the field on a loop until the game is stopped. What’s the point? Where is the tension?
Even the Uruguay fans didn’t look frozen in suspense. They knew that there was no way they were going to win. It was like once they went down 2-0, their mood switched from being there for the soccer game to, instead, just being in Brazil on vacation: just hanging out, smiling for the cameras, and I didn’t like that. Sports are supposed to be intense and passionate. For being a game that your country really cares about, they didn’t seem very invested in the outcome, emotionally. You shouldn’t be relaxed when your team is facing elimination; you just shouldn’t.
The folks that I was watching the game with looked at me like the “pulling of the goalie” was an absurd thought, but why? From what I’ve seen, most shots on goal tend to sail high or wide anyways (as most shots that I’ve seen have appeared rushed or one of those turn-and-fire attempts), it’s not like the goalie is involved in those instances — it’s difficult to control a ball with your foot, especially when rolling over a surface like grass that provides friction to slow it down. As long as your team doesn’t completely screw up, with the extra attacker, you should be able to prevent any good shots on goal anyways. BUT, for argument sake, let’s say that they do score again — so what? You’re already likely going to be eliminated, so what’s the difference in losing 3-0 as opposed to 2-0? You’re going home after the game regardless. At least you can leave the field saying: “Hey, we tried everything. They were just better than us.”
Size Doesn’t Matter – It’s Just A Slow Game.
I used to think that the reason that I found soccer games difficult to watch (because of how slow they seemed to be playing) was because the field was massive and, without much lines or stationary cues to measure speed against, it just appeared to be slow moving. Sort of like when you watch a plane in the sky: sure it is traveling at several hundred miles per hour, but against a solid blue sky, it looks like it is crawling peacefully across the sky. Same principle. However, that appears to be incorrect with soccer.
From what I found out, a soccer field is comparable in size to that of a rugby field — which is only slightly longer than a football field but quite a bit wider. Ergo, I no loner know why the game is so slow paced, as rugby certainly is not. Rugby does have more lines on the field and, I believe, more players, too, but not a substantial amount more — so I’m not sure why soccer feels so much slower….but it certainly does. It has to be that because the ball is kicked (as opposed to being controlled by the hands) that it makes it naturally more difficult and thus more prone to sloppiness. Plus, there’s a lot of flopping and exaggerated injuries in soccer. That does slow things down quite a bit.
Short Man’s Game?
On Colombia’s first goal, where the guy sailed it juuuuust over the goalie’s outstretched fingers but below the crossbar, I thought to myself: “How high is the crossbar on the goal?” The people I was with said they didn’t know but guessed it was 9-10′ tall to which I was like: “Oh okay – yeah, that is a bit of a challenge, then.” But it’s not. Turns out, according to the Internet, that FIFA regulations state that the crossbar is only 8′ high. 8 FEET!!!! That blew my mind. No wonder our goalie is, reportedly, one of the best in the world: hell, I can stretch to reach 8′ without leaving my toes. Either the Uruguay goalie is a short guy or just doesn’t have much vertical lift, because I am pretty confident that I could have deflected that ball out of play. Geez — I can dunk on a 9′ rim and almost touch a 10′ rim (I could in my prime), and I’m by no means a tall guy or exceedingly athletic.
Their goalie didn’t strike me as being abnormally small, by comparison of the other players, so this made me think that maybe soccer is geared more towards small guys? For example, if you end up being being tall, you play basketball; if you end up being stocky and big, you play rugby; but if you’re 5’7″ and quick, then you play soccer. That would make sense to me. That’s the only reason why I can think of he missed that ball. He was able to touch it but not enough to deflect it; you could not have been in a better position, either, but, man, to not be able to jump and reach the 8′ mark with outstretched fingers, they must be small guys playing.
Upon further review: Uruguay’s goalie is, reportedly, 6’3″!! I’m now further baffled. I have no idea how he missed that deflection. Even if he was out of position (it did appear, upon review, that he was closer to the shot than I originally remembered), the ball doesn’t exceed 9′ even at its highest point. For a guy who is 6’3″, I don’t know how he doesn’t make that deflection. Maybe these guys just can’t jump?
A 5’11” Ryan Henley could have blocked that shot. I think that if I was to play soccer, that I could be a goalie. If these guys are 6’3″ but can’t extend to 9′ then I can do something that they cannot, regardless of their 4″ height advantage. I would also introduce the soccer world to the Mutombo Finger Wag. We often joke that the rest of the world, culturally, is behind us by 20yrs, so the Mutombo Finger Wag is probably something that they would be really interested in and wanting to embrace. Speaking of which, this is a great commercial:
I just like how happy Mutombo is and, thanks to a Jimmy Kimmel Live “Mean Tweet” segment, I now can’t hear Dikembe Mutombo without thinking that he sounds like the Cookie Monster, haha.
Anyway, I’m going to start wrapping this up as I have to get ready for my short week that starts tomorrow. If I was to play soccer, I think that I could be a pretty good goalie. However, I don’t think that the goalie gets to trash talk as much as the other players, and I am a prolific trash talker. It is a big part of my game and so I would miss it too much if I had to stay in the goal the whole game. It is unlikely that these claims will ever be tested out as I have no interest in playing soccer and, as I’m now over the 30-mark and have noted how a lot of friends that I know who have sustained bad injuries (ACLs, MCLs, etc.) have done so playing rec league soccer, I think that I’ll stick to the sports that I know and have a lower likelihood of injury.
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That will do it for Part II. Probably tomorrow, I’ll get into Part III and get into the Suarez biting scandal as well as that one annoying pundit who claims that our interest in soccer is evidence that our culture and country is morally corrupted or something silly like that. Stay tuned!
-Ryan.
The Peanut Gallery 