La copa mundial... Some things to concede at the outset.
--Ghana p'wned the U.S. No way the U.S. could have won that game.
--If El Tri falls in a forest, and no one plays defense, does anybody hear it?
--England....Jeez, England was terrible. Not as bad as Les Bleus, or Il Azzurri, but bad.
--Brazil beat the bejeesus out of Chile. Sad. But not close.
Having said that, wtf?
--The referees? No golden balls, more like a golden shower, right on the games.
--The faking? These weenies make the Celtics' Paul Pierce look stoic and undemonstrative. Why in the world are there not more yellow cards for diving?
--Vuvuzelas. Really? Why?
I can see why futbol is so big in Europe and Latin America. Largely arbitrary, controlled by officials who are in no way accountable to anyone, yet who are remarkably incompetent and indifferent. Everyone constantly pretends to be a victim, and rolls around on the ground crying until they get a subsidy they don't deserve. And then they waste the free kick, just giving up the ball. And then they run around in random patterns, hoping that someone will get lucky and do some actual work, so we can all celebrate.
Wait, I need to update. Soccer is the perfect sport for Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. Congress.
UPDATE: Tommy the Brit posted this on his FB page. And got the following comment, from a fellow Brit:
I can see why "football" is so big in America - the black guys do all the work, the white guys have all the power, obesity is an advantage, and there are commercial breaks every five minutes...
Meh. The whole "soccer is a commie euro fag sport" meme is pretty played out.
ReplyDeleteActually I'm a little disappointed in your analysis, given that the economics of soccer are much closer to any actual free market than any of the salary capped, luxury taxed, union having, revenue sharing arrangements that exist in all the major American sports.
ReplyDeleteIt's "Gli Azzurri".
ReplyDeleteAlso, there's a fine equilibrium at play: if the ref is not calling fouls it can get ugly pretty fast and injuries can pretty serious, so a bit of faking is the only solution from a player stand-point. OTOH the ref can also give a yellow card for faking.
the reason they fake a foul is because it works. the punishment for faking is small; a yellow card at the worst. the reward for faking in the opponent's penalty area is a penalty shot. this is large.
ReplyDeletethis explains why players do not fake fouls in their own half. the reward is small and the potential loss is huge.
The FB commenter forgot to ad this: "Americans are good at it. Mostly because we are the only ones who play it".
ReplyDeleteHonestly, if America was the Brazil of soccer almost all the conservatives who diss it now would be first in line to kiss the feet of the US team and thumb their noses at the rest of the world.
If, on the other hand, American Football was big in europe instead of here, those commentators would diss is as an prime example of European over regulation and softness.
"So many minute rules. So many penalties. So many officials. Salary caps? And pads? Man up, nancy!"