Why I Hate Soccer
Ok, perhaps hate is too strong a word. Call it more of a deep-seated aversion. I know, I know- futbol is the World’s game and only ignorant Americans are culturally-deprived enough not to appreciate the delicate nuances of this majestic sport. For weeks now, millions of soccer enthusiasts from the world over have travelled here to the United States in order to pay thousands of dollars to sit in massive stadiums and watch their country’s teams participate in the globally-televised contests that attracted literally millions of viewers, culminating in Sunday’s epic match between Spain and Argentina. But hear me out- perhaps some of us soccer detractors are not entirely wrong. I have watched my fair share of soccer over the last several weeks and have found that there are a few objectively shitty aspects of this sport that justify American’s reticence to fully embrace it.
Let’s start with the obvious: There is way too much flopping in soccer. For crying out loud, I thought LeBron James and Shae Gilgeous-Alexander were pansies until I started watching this fiasco. You can’t go two minutes without watching one of these full-grown men writing around on the ground, in so much seeming pain that you would think they were right in the midst of delivering a baby, only to witness their miraculous recovery mere moments later after a foul has or has not been called. Do all of these soccer clubs bring in acting coaches to mentor these aspiring thespians so that they can muster up all the tragic woe and agony of Hamlet or Oedipus Rex? If I have to watch one more soccer player flop on the ground like a fish out of water, I am going to hire Tonya Harding’s hitmen and go full Nancy Kerrigan on their ass so that they finally have something to really cry about.
And then there’s the scoring. Seriously, I just watched 120 minutes of this drivel only to end up with a 0-0 tie? The average combined score for a FIFA World Cup match is 2.65 with the most common scores being 1-0 or 2-1. That’s less than a goal every 30 minutes of supposed action. I can already hear pretentious Europeans shouting that I am just a simpleton who cannot appreciate the finer intricacies of the game that lead to these goals, but maybe it’s the game, not the spectator. Hockey has a similar cadence to the sport, as scoring is relatively limited and seasoned watchers grasp the development of momentum and scoring opportunities, but the average NHL game has a combined scoring total of 6.15, translating to a goal for about every 10 minutes of game time on average. Call me simple, but I actually like to have some excitement in my sports viewing, and watching endless minutes of scoreless back and forth is like being forced to monitor the inner workings of an incel’s customary Saturday night.
Which brings me to the fact that this game is just too slow to begin with. Because soccer is played on a massive field by players running back and forth, there is simply a lot of time spent kicking the ball back and forth between the backline players. The average speed of a soccer player over the course of a match is 6 to 7 miles per hour. But in a sport like hockey, where players don skates, the average speed during gameplay is 13 to 15 miles per hour. The pace of the action is much more frenetic and exciting than the relatively plodding and tedious tempo of a soccer match.
And speaking of time- just when does this shit actually end anyways? I was watching one of the early round games with my cousin and her family, who are far more seasoned purveyors of soccer than I ever have been, and I asked them how long the half was. They said 45 minutes, but when the clock hit 45 minutes, the game kept on going. When I asked what the hell was going on, I was told that the time is actually kept by the referee and that there is always some “extended time” added by the referee and that in the end, they blow the time dead whenever they really see fit to do so. Wait, what? I love the idea of soccer running continuously without commercial interruption, so hats off to you there, soccer fans, but how is it possible that the world’s most popular sport is the only one that can’t figure out how to measure time so that everyone is in the know. Imagine asking the Fates when you were going to die, and they told you you have 15 years left to live, but you might have some “extended time”. As a modern society, we have digitized time pieces that can reflect time down to hundredths of a second, but all you can do is give us a guesstimate as to when the game is done? Just what year is this anyway?
Finally, I just have to mention what I consider to be the most inane rule in all of sports: offsides in soccer. I get trying to prevent players from suckerhanging and then just kicking the ball all the way down the field to set them up. That’s why hockey has offsides and two-line pass penalties, but in hockey these infractions are clearly delineated by lines on the playing surface. In soccer, the offensive player can’t make initial contact with the ball behind the furthest back player on the defensive team. So, now I have to, in the midst of performing all of these other athletic maneuvers, make sure I do so while behind an imaginary line I cannot see that actually moves in real time? And why should I be responsible for some dumb ass on the other team who fails to recognize when a player got behind them? Shouldn’t that be on them in the first place? Offsides should be based on a position of the field, which is certain and predictable, not something as arbitrary and fluid as the positioning of a player on another team over which the offensive player has no real control.
In fairness, perhaps I am just peeved at FIFA because they bent the knee when Donald Trump called to complain about an American player being given a red card and a subsequent one-game suspension. Of course FIFA president Gianni Infantino capitulated, even though FIFA had never before rescinded a player suspension. That’s because Infantino has his head so far up Donald Trump’s ass that he needs a proctologist to remove it. As for me, I will show my patriotism the old fashioned way: I’ll sit around my house just waiting for September when the real football begins.
Steven Craig is the author of the best-selling novel WAITING FOR TODAY, as well as numerous published poems, short stories, and dramatic works. Read his blog TRUTH: in 1000 Words or Less every THURSDAY at www.waitingfortoday.com
