A friend asked me if I was enjoying the World Cup.
“I don’t like soccer,” I told him. “I kind of hate it.”
He looked at me like I had murdered his dog.
I told him to relax. I don’t like broccoli or Steely Dan, either.
To each their own.
I have many problems with soccer, and much of my dislike is probably born from the fact that I didn’t grow up with it and probably don’t understand it well enough, but three problems are especially egregious to me:
Timing
It’s insane that fans and players have no idea when a game will end.
Time is added by referees during a soccer match to account for injuries and other stoppages of play, and it is recorded on a stopwatch kept on the field. After the 90 minutes of regulation play have ended, that time is added onto the game, and a sign that tells players and fans the number of minutes being added is flashed, but this number is not an exact amount but an estimate of the number of minutes being added that might still change during the overtime with additional stoppages of play.
“Plus 6,” for example, means an additional 6 minutes are being added, but it might be 6 minutes and 2 seconds or 6 minutes and 58 seconds.
The end of the game is a surprise to everyone because no one knows exactly when it will end except the referee or the field.
This is, as I said, insane.
Basketball, football, and hockey now track timing to the tenths of a second, but soccer doesn’t care about seconds at all.
It would not be difficult to connect the referee’s stopwatch to an official in the booth or even the stadium clock via Bluetooth so that everyone knows exactly how much t time is left to the second.
Or even the tenth of a second.
But no.
The players play. Effort is exerted. Desperate attempts to even the score or take the lead are made as unknown seconds tick away. Then the referee blows the whistle, and it’s over.
Had the players known there were only 16 seconds left, maybe they would’ve tried something different.
Take a greater risk.
Attempt a different play.
Kick a Hail Mary.
But there are no Hail Marys in soccer because no one knows when the damn game will end.
It’s ridiculous. Also easily corrected.
Ties
A tie is the dumbest end to any sporting event. It’s essentially an indication that the game should never have been played.
We end in the same place we started.
This is stupidity.
And yes, football can also end in a tie, which I also hate, but fewer than 1/2 of 1% of NFL games end in ties.
It’s exceedingly rare, and it never happens in the playoffs.
In professional soccer, 25-30% of games end in ties. And in the group stage of the World Cup, games can end in ties.
This is also asinine. Find a way to end the game with a winner and a loser.
That is why you play the game in the first place.
Overtime rules
The shootout is a terrible, stupid, and asinine way to end a game. After an additional period of play, soccer decides matches in tournaments and championship play with a shootout, which essentially turns a game predicated on speed, endurance, toughness, coordination, strategy, and teamwork into a video game, wherein one player kicks the ball at the net, and the goalkeeper tries to stop the goal by guessing which way the player might kick.
Yes, it’s mostly a guessing game.
Goalkeepers do not have time to react to the ball once it’s been kicked, so they guess which way the opponent might be shooting. Some may also be able to factor in the shooter’s run-up angle, plant foot direction, hip and shoulder position, and previous history, but in the end, it’s mostly guesswork, which is why you often see a keeper going left while the shooter is kicking right.
It had almost nothing to do with reacting to the ball. The goalkeeper just guessed wrong.
Soccer is a complex game predicated on athleticism, speed, strength, endurance, and teamwork, but it reduces it to a single, minuscule aspect to determine its winner.
Stupid.
Hockey suffers the same stupidity, though at least in hockey, the shooter is still skating, handling the puck, deeking and faking as they approach the net. And hockey goalies have time to react to the player, the stick, and the puck.
They are not merely guessing which way the player might shoot.
There are solutions to the problem.
You could allow the teams to play on until someone wins, as long as it takes.
Or take a page from the NHL and reduce the number of players on the field to three. This would undoubtedly create more scoring opportunities and end the game sooner, but it would also allow soccer to still resemble soccer, with running, passing, strategy, and stamina still coming into play.
But a shootout?
It would be like breaking a tie in baseball with a home run derby.
Ending a football game with a field-goal kickoff.
Ending a basketball game with a free throw contest.
Ending a tennis match by clocking the fastest serve.
Ending a golf match with a longest drive contest.
All would be just as dumb as a soccer shoot-out is.
This is also very correctable.
I have other issues with soccer, probably and admittedly related to my lack of knowledge of soccer strategy. The game strikes me as slow and monotonous. A lot of nothing happens in the middle of the field. Too much back-and-forth passing occurs between teammates while they wait for an opening to emerge. There isn’t enough scoring.
But perhaps baseball and football are viewed similarly through the inexperienced eye.
I might be able to get past some of that, but the lack of precise timing, the frequency of ties, and the overtime rules are just too much for me.
You can have your World Cup soccer. I’m rooting for America to win, but I’m checking on the score well after the game has blessedly ended.
