Objectively Smart and Funny Thoughts About Soccer

Like how do they get the whole world in one cup?

(Note: What with the World Cup in North America, and what with soccer/football like the world’s favorite thing, and what with me being something of a sports whisperer for the non-fanatical among us, I cannot not face up to this cultural challenge. As is my wont, my analysis features suggestions on how to improve the product. Also as is my wont, I hereby assert you do not have to be a sports fan to enjoy reading this. And my third and final wont is to root for Bosnia and Herzegovina against the US tomorrow for way too many reasons to go into here except to say that you really should too.)

When most Americans think of soccer, they almost immediately try to think of something else.

We want to like soccer. We want to sing songs in unison no one can understand. We want the cool Europeans and South Americans to not think we’re knuckle-dragging cretins, but we simply can’t pull it off. To most Americans, soccer is like modern art: we examine it closely, try desperately to understand it, and ultimately can’t fathom what all the fuss is about.

This would be no problem but for two annoying realities. First, the fact that we don’t love and can’t appreciate a sport that the rest of the world goes bat shit crazy for makes us feel bad about ourselves. We pretend it doesn’t, just as we pretend not to care about other things the rest of the world feels strongly about, like riding bicycles and not getting invaded. But national identity, like personal identity, never really graduates from the eighth grade, and as a nation we want in on the joke.

Second, in a delicious morsel of irony, this sport we collectively can’t get excited about is the one our children leave the crib playing. We may spend thousands more hours watching football, baseball, basketball and even poker on television, but we likely attend more soccer games than anything else. Try finding an open patch of publicly held grass on a spring Saturday—it can’t be done. Tiny soccer players swarm over our green spaces like ants on a glazed donut, and their parents prowl the sidelines like caged animals with advanced degrees, grimacing as each stumble and whiff their children take sears its way across their achievement-addicted souls. Okay, that was a bit harsh. Little kids play soccer because kicking things is easy and fun, and we’d rather have them kick balls than beloved family members and pets.

Most kids stop playing soccer after a few years because: A) it’s hard; B) you hardly ever get a chance to score, and C) the post-game snacks start to suck after a while. A few kids move on to travel soccer, where what little free time their parents had goes right down their gas tank. Still, we won’t ever be able to fully banish soccer from our shores, like we did the British, whom we have to thank not only for soccer but such less delightful imports as smallpox and Ed Sheeran.

Since we can’t effectively rid ourselves of this sport we neither appreciate nor understand, the least we can do is make it better. To that end I certainly could have interviewed any of a handful of friends who are experts on the subject for their improvement ideas, but that seemed like it might derail the entire enterprise, as they might have convinced me I was fully on the wrong track, and then I would have had to abandon this piece and think up something wholly different, and who has time for that? Plus this way you know exactly who to blame should you find the whole thing stupid.

Problem: Not enough scoring

Silly Solutions:

1) Second half, second ball: If, at halftime, as so often happens, the score is 0-0—or nil-nil, depending on where you were born and/or how pretentious you are—a second ball should be introduced. Remember how exciting pinball became when you got a bonus ball if, that is, you’re old enough to remember what pinball is? Soccer fields are massive, there are nearly two dozen players, yet shockingly there’s only one ball. This results in a space- and player-to-ball ratio that is decidedly out of whack. Goalies get nearly as bored as fans in one-ball soccer, but think how engaged they’d become with two strikers attacking at once, each with their own ball.

2) Punching time: Should a game be scoreless with 20 minutes to go, punching the ball with one’s fist becomes legal.

3) Goalie eye patches: Should a game be scoreless with 10 minutes to go, each goalie shall be forced to wear an eye patch, and alternate eyes every two minutes to further impair depth perception and spatial judgment.

Semi-Serious Solutions

1) Tweak the offside rule: This would be a more compelling entry if I fully understood the offside rule, but I maintain it’s like the situation in the Middle East—no one fully understands it. And if we all only offered opinions on matters we understood, admittedly things would be better but my list of potential writing topics would be severely thinned. Having the last defensive player (other than the goalie) and/or the ball be the ever-in-motion offside line is entirely too elastic a circumstance for such a critical component of the game. The original offside rule was established in 1863, so maybe it’s time for a tweak. There should be a way to amend the current rule to allow more scoring without fundamentally changing the sport, but I sure as hell don’t know what it is, so let’s move on.

2) Put a backboard above the goal. Goalkeepers would hate this, but how much fun would it be if, instead of shots going over the crossbar and into the stands, the ones that missed by less than, let’s say five feet, came bouncing back into play? Tons of fun, that’s how much.

Problem: Too much flopping/Too few officials

I put these together because it seems to me that solving the latter would cut down on the former. While it is fun to see a player go down as if hit by a container ship then watch the replay to find that the only thing they were touched by was a flair for the dramatic, stage fighting ability shouldn’t determine the outcome of games people care about, and so yellow cards are indeed appropriate penalties for acts of such chickenshit cowardice. Replays of such egregious flopping should also be shown multiple times on whatever Jumbotron is handy, and the guilty party should be roundly jeered by fans of both teams and pantsed by officials if the offense is truly offensive.

As for the on-pitch official shortage, there’s usually only one referee and two assistant referees in charge of a match, and the referee is supposed to be within 20 yards of the ball at all times, a semi-ludicrous equation that causes them to run an average of seven miles in each game. No matter their fitness level, they simply can’t be as sharp at the critical end portions of games, so there should either be more of them or they should be allowed to call for a substitute when they feel their powers waning. And speaking of substitutions, a rule allowing one per game wasn’t added until 1958, meaning I was two years old before even one poor schmuck who was literally on his last legs could come out of a match before it was over. Now they allow five, which seems semi-normal but really isn’t. Soccer should adopt hockey’s substitute-on-the-fly rule, as it’s hard to imagine a sport where having fresh legs is more important in terms of quality of play.

Problem: No public clock

I’m not positive this is a problem, as there’s something quaint and retro about a sport with global audiences that tick over a billion humans, only one of whom knows when the match will be over. Maybe our poor referee has enough to do without being match timekeeper as well, and maybe things might be more exciting if the players and fans were brought in on what is now a secret soccer clock instead of all the late-match wondering. There are those who think it’s more exciting not knowing, but I like a little warning before things come to an abrupt end.