OK, so that disallowed goal that
would’ve won the game for the U.S. against the Slovenians didn’t
come back to bite them in the ass. Good thing for US … er, the
U.S. Oh, screw it, I’m not going to be objective when it comes to
international competitions.
Where were you when Landon
Donovan scored that awesome goal against Algeria
Wednesday? I managed to get to the Nomad
World Pub in downtown Minneapolis for the last ten
minutes of the second half. The place is one of two hardcore footy
fans go for World Cup partying in the Twin Cities, and I managed to
sneak into a spot in the bar to get a good view of one of the TV’s.
There are two things I love about that
score. The first is the incredible explosion that blew the roof off
the Nomad when Donovan deposited that rebound. The second is seeing
a few of the revelers hold up their smartphones and videotape the
joyous scene just after the goal. Both moments show how great
sporting events are at uniting strangers and lifting them up in an
orgasm of euphoria. This particular
compilation – set to the music from the movie
Rudy – is genius at showing the reaction to Donovan’s goal
in various cities around the world. Americans were separated by
miles and oceans, yet were acting in unison for those precious,
sacred eleven seconds in a way we haven’t since, truthfully, 9/11.
Alright, now I’m going to slam
soccer. I love the sport, I really do, and this World Cup has been
awesome. But as with all other sporting competitions, there are
things worth complaining about.
Like I said in a previous
column, three round-robin group games to determine
who gets into the playoffs knockout round is way too
few. Sure, that would deprive us of March Madness-style upsets of
Italy and France and small countries Paraguay and Slovakia advancing.
But there are so many variables beyond the control of players on the
best teams that they should be dealt with by playing more pool games.
More group action cuts down on the
effects of the aspect of the World Cup that people are bitching about
the most, although they probably bitch about this every World Cup, or
any soccer tournament, or any sporting event regardless of sport for
that matter: the officiating. My problem with the ref of that
U.S.A.-Slovenia match, Koman Coulibaly, is that he couldn’t or
wouldn’t say why he whistled a foul on Maurice Edu’s disallowed
goal, not necessarily that it was whistled at all.
Take a look at the replays. Note where
Coulibaly is on the free kick at the :16
mark. There are almost 20 guys literally
sodomizing each other in front of the net, and all the action is
going away from him. You try and control two teams fighting
in the globe’s biggest tournament all by yourself. American head
coach Bob Bradley said Coulibaly whistled the no-goal because he
regretted calling a foul on Slovenia in the first
place, and that sounds more and more reasonable the more I think
about it.
I’ve thought for a while that 80-90%
of the bad calls on the pitch can be eliminated just by adding
another ref. Double the officiating means double the eyes upholding
the integrity of play. And a second ref should also cut down on all
the damn diving and flopping that chronically bogs down play and
turns soccer into a series of dishonest, and bad, acting. I’m
convinced the game would instantly be better with another official.
Why the hell do they not do this?
And shoot, get instant replay, too. I
swear there’s going to be one game where a kick hits the crossbar
and the goal line and nobody will know whether it went in or not,
just like Geoff
Hurst’s controversial goal against West Germany
that gave England the 1966 World Cup. The ref and linesmen will make
a guess, and invariably the video evidence will prove they’re
wrong, but you can’t change it.
And why can’t you change it? Because
instant replay would remove “the human element” from The
Beautiful Game. Screw that! If we have to live with bad calls that
take away championships from teams that deserve them just so we can
affirm that we’re humans, I can’t wait for the day when the
ever-smarter robots we’re already building rise up against us and
take over the world. Stop playing with your iPhone 4 and bring on
our day of reckoning, Steve Jobs!
But I love soccer, I really do! I just
want to see it better, that’s all!
And another thing … what’s the deal
with time-keeping? You’re supposed to play for 45 minutes, but the
clock we see on the screen isn’t the real clock. Instead, it’s
the one kept by the ref on the pitch, which apparently is supposed to
be a secret. So the players just run around until the ref whistles
two or three times to indicate the half’s over. Surprise!
And how does the ref determine extra
time? If he has a stopwatch that he can stop whenever a player fakes
getting hurt gets hurt, there’s no way for him to keep
track of how much time has to be added onto the back of the half. Is
there another official that keeps time off the field? And why do
they say there’s, like, four minutes of injury time, yet when the
final whistle blows there are some stray seconds? Shouldn’t four
minutes mean four minutes exactly? Or is that the European/Latin way
of telling time?
Oh yeah, and those vuvuzelas …
actually, I don’t mind the vuvuzelas. If that’s how South Africa
football fans celebrate, I would like to know. If you don’t like
them, put it on mute or go to a bar where they keep the sound of the
TV’s off. Yeah, I hate when I can only watch a game at the bar
without sound.
And the low scoring … Jimmy Kimmel
Live had a great bit about how
the NBA Finals would look like if it were more like soccer.
It’s funny, and he has a point. But then, remember Donovan.