FOOTBALL (SOCCER) – CHAOTIC SNOOZE

 The Sports That I Know and Love

 

First of all, even though my family was 100% Italian, I was born and raised in North America, the continent where North American football was invented because we wanted to hold, throw, and carry the ball. Thus, in my childhood, world football (soccer) had a major strike against it through the socialization process.

My family’s sport prowess was in bocci ball which led my elders into the world of bowling, mostly duckpin. So, my major sport of interest was bowling. I loved to watch the PBA tournaments and see the scores exceed 200 regularly.

Being immigrants to the United States and wanting to fit in, my family also became interested in baseball, a game invented by Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York in 1839. These two sports established my ideal of sports games.

Players of both bowling and baseball have jobs to do in designated areas of play, defined roles which, though demanding and calling for versatility, never change. Both sports require strategy, skill, and flexibility within a strict framework. Most importantly, the object of the game is not only to win, but to have high scores.

 

My Recent Foray into Football (Soccer)

In this July of 2024, an Italian buddy of mine tried to introduce me to the love and fanaticism of football, a fanaticism which leads to death and injury in the stands more often than in other sports.

Currently, there are two important Football events going on –

1.    UEFA European Championship 2024 (June 1 – July 14 ) and

2.    2024 Copa América (June 20 – July 14)

He invited me to watch some of the games with him on TV. He is a good friend and I always like enjoying new activities.

Now remember, in my two sports bowling and baseball, every player and position are organized.

The bowlers take a 4 or 5 step deliver on a standard size bowling lane and attempt to throw strikes by getting proper rotation and direction on, normally, a sixteen-pound ball. The bowlers’ moves are practiced and perfected so that they can score as close as possible to 300.

Baseball players all have their positions in the diamond or around the outfield. The pitcher starts the play of the game by throwing the baseball toward the opponent hitter. The pitcher is attempting to have the hitter do something to become an out. Although fans talk about wonderful pitching duels (where both pitchers prevent the opposition from scoring runs); in reality, the crowd wants hits, homeruns, and lots of scoring so their adrenal keeps pumping, and they can cheer for their team.

Okay, so the football game started, and I saw 22 (including 2 goalies) men on the field, dressed in boxer shorts and knee-high socks, running around the field and randomly kicking a ball in the direction of their goal or the opponent’s goal. Mostly, the field was filled with traffic jams of one sort or another. Every time a player and the ball got near the opponent’s goal, there were at least 16 men getting in each other’s way. This wall of maleness made getting the ball into the net nearly impossible.

The five games I watched had the following scores: 0-0, 1-0, 1-1, 0-0, 0-0

I am 77 years old and I am approaching the light every day. Oh My God, what a waste of what precious moments left in my life -- 90 minutes plus extra time. No wonder, football fans riot. They paid money to see at least an hour and a half of chaos resulting in no scoring. They are probably pissed off that they were dumb enough to pay good money to watch this confusion.

I did find a few things very amusing, though.

These football players are very good at falling to the ground, grabbing the knee or thigh, feigning enormous pain, trying to get the referee to give them a free kick.

When they get a free kick or a corner kick, there is a hoard of male flesh blocking the net. The chance of scoring a goal is little or none, unless the ball ricochets off a foot in the middle of the football rush hour.

There are so few goals. The rest of the game is just a mishmash of failed kicks in the right direction. The sad thing is that when I saw a goal finally scored, the opposition objected, and the goal was called offside. Oh for God’s sake, why are you making the game even more boring?

There were a few occasions where players seemed to escape the player logjam and kick the ball toward the net. Of course, in all cases, right at the goalie who stopped it. Every other fan was praising the goalie for his magnificent stop. I had two thoughts. 1. How dumb of the kicker to kick the ball right to the goalie. 2. The goalie was just trying to protect HIS ABILITY TO SIRE CHILDREN and just happened to stop the ball.

How could I say something so scornful of a goalie. Well, bear with me, I have a baseball story. I was a pitcher in a slow pitch softball league. Of course, the batters hit the ball a lot. On several occasions, the ball was hit directly at my face. In every case, I put my glove up to my face to protect it, AND VOILÀ. I CAUGHT THE BALL TO THE CHEERS OF MY LOVING TEAMMATES, SHOUTING, “WHAT A CATCH.” Of course, I accepted the praise. Once, I even quickly recovered and threw another runner out at first base.

 

My Ideas for Improving Soccer

 

Decrease the size of the teams

There was one match which ended in a tie game, 0-0, WHAT A SURPRISE!! The one team had to play most of the 45 minutes with one less player. So they had only 10 players and the other team had 11 players. “OH WOW,” I FOOLISHLY THOUGHT, “THIS WILL MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN THE GAME.”

No, it made no difference, there are just too many men on each team.

I think reducing the team on the field to 7 players would prevent the huge choke points, which makes the game more of a die throw and less one of planning and executing strategy. In addition, the huge wall of testosterone in front of the net would be lessened, and more goal scoring would excite the crowds.

 

Get rid of the goalies

One part of the game that was really clear to me is that the defensive play of the mob of players stopped 90 % of goal attempts and thus goals. The removal of the goalies would lead to higher scores and more excitement, but the 7 men on the field defending against scoring would still prevent a high percentage of scoring opportunities and goals. However, fewer players and no goalies would make football a faster moving, higher scoring, and more intensive, interesting game. The players would have to improve both their defensive and offensive skills to stay in a high calibre league.

 

I know – Keep Your Asinine Ideas to Yourself

The sports, professional baseball and bowling, that I love the most, have changed over the years to increase the skill level of the player, to give spectators a more exciting experience, and give patrons more bang for their buck.

I think changes to football might make the sport more appealing and thus more lucrative in the large North American markets.

IT IS MY OPINION AND I AM STICKING BY IT. UNTIL THE CHANGES ARE MADE, MY ITALIAN BUDDY WILL HAVE TO WATCH FOOTBALL MATCHES ON HIS OWN.