Monday, April 03, 2006
Simple, squirrelly, soccer
(Telegraph-Journal, June 13, 2005)
CHUCK BROWN
OUT THERE
There is no simpler game than soccer.
OK, "Belching Contest" is pretty simple.
All right, fine. So is "Who Has The Best Scar?"
But in the wide world of sports, soccer is paint-by-numbers.
Soccer is so simple the balls don't even come with instructions. If they did, they would be, "See ball. Kick."
Soccer does actually have a few rules to cover the basics of the game such as what players are allowed to kick (balls - good; foreheads - not so much). And I learned another actual soccer rule last week at my five-year-old daughter's practice - if there is a mud puddle of any size anywhere on or near the actual field of play, the ball must land in it. Apparently there’s another rule that every player on the field, as well as several toddlers who are there because their parents couldn't find a sitter, must also land in it.
The most basic rules of the game, though, are - don't use your hands and don't kick, push or spit.
That pretty much covers the spectators.
Soccer fans need those rules because they are, clinically speaking, squirrelly. We know this because every time we, in North America, are exposed to soccer it's through TV news stories about huge crowds of fans beating each other up, setting stuff on fire or breaking things, such as large stadiums.
Soccer fans are so dangerously crazy that a recent game between Japan and North Korea was played in an empty stadium in Bangkok over fears that the “passion” of North Korean fans would be displayed by “killing something” to support the team. In March, for example, they demonstrated their "passion" by hurling rocks and bottles because... a referee didn't call a penalty on an opposing Iranian player.
After the match, Iran's coach sputtered one of those old sporting clichés that we always hear from professional athletes, "It is very disappointing when you feel your life is not safe."
But the potential for death is only a small part of soccer. It’s the players who create the real excitement of soccer with highlight-reel plays like the corner kick, the free kick, the goal kick and... the penalty kick.
So, with the basics of the game mastered, it's time to explore some of soccer's nuances. Such as the little-known fact that in England, where soccer is compared to NASCAR without the speed and excitement, the game is called "football."
They do that because the English, in their lust to be difficult, have come up with a different name for everything. They call an “elevator” a "lift," a car “hood” a "bonnet" and our kind of “football” is “rugby for children and the elderly.”
But the English name “football” makes some sense - mainly because of soccer's number one rule, the whole "no hands" thing. In North America, "football" is called "soccer" because the name "football" was already taken by a game in which players spend 98 per cent of their time USING THEIR HANDS.
For one per cent of the game, a kicker (usually a former soccer player) "kicks" the football with his actual foot. This is the part of the game that has fans totally riveted... to their fridges and/or toilets. They’d rather miss the kicking than the commercials which, like FOX News, often feature talking reptiles.
Oh, and if you were doing the math, and wondering what happens during the other one per cent of the football game... that's when the players hold their belching contest.
CHUCK BROWN
OUT THERE
There is no simpler game than soccer.
OK, "Belching Contest" is pretty simple.
All right, fine. So is "Who Has The Best Scar?"
But in the wide world of sports, soccer is paint-by-numbers.
Soccer is so simple the balls don't even come with instructions. If they did, they would be, "See ball. Kick."
Soccer does actually have a few rules to cover the basics of the game such as what players are allowed to kick (balls - good; foreheads - not so much). And I learned another actual soccer rule last week at my five-year-old daughter's practice - if there is a mud puddle of any size anywhere on or near the actual field of play, the ball must land in it. Apparently there’s another rule that every player on the field, as well as several toddlers who are there because their parents couldn't find a sitter, must also land in it.
The most basic rules of the game, though, are - don't use your hands and don't kick, push or spit.
That pretty much covers the spectators.
Soccer fans need those rules because they are, clinically speaking, squirrelly. We know this because every time we, in North America, are exposed to soccer it's through TV news stories about huge crowds of fans beating each other up, setting stuff on fire or breaking things, such as large stadiums.
Soccer fans are so dangerously crazy that a recent game between Japan and North Korea was played in an empty stadium in Bangkok over fears that the “passion” of North Korean fans would be displayed by “killing something” to support the team. In March, for example, they demonstrated their "passion" by hurling rocks and bottles because... a referee didn't call a penalty on an opposing Iranian player.
After the match, Iran's coach sputtered one of those old sporting clichés that we always hear from professional athletes, "It is very disappointing when you feel your life is not safe."
But the potential for death is only a small part of soccer. It’s the players who create the real excitement of soccer with highlight-reel plays like the corner kick, the free kick, the goal kick and... the penalty kick.
So, with the basics of the game mastered, it's time to explore some of soccer's nuances. Such as the little-known fact that in England, where soccer is compared to NASCAR without the speed and excitement, the game is called "football."
They do that because the English, in their lust to be difficult, have come up with a different name for everything. They call an “elevator” a "lift," a car “hood” a "bonnet" and our kind of “football” is “rugby for children and the elderly.”
But the English name “football” makes some sense - mainly because of soccer's number one rule, the whole "no hands" thing. In North America, "football" is called "soccer" because the name "football" was already taken by a game in which players spend 98 per cent of their time USING THEIR HANDS.
For one per cent of the game, a kicker (usually a former soccer player) "kicks" the football with his actual foot. This is the part of the game that has fans totally riveted... to their fridges and/or toilets. They’d rather miss the kicking than the commercials which, like FOX News, often feature talking reptiles.
Oh, and if you were doing the math, and wondering what happens during the other one per cent of the football game... that's when the players hold their belching contest.
