Bored By Beckham

Hardly seems to have been a deterrent to people watching football, where receivers try to initiate contact and fall down to get a pass interference call. Or quarterbacks flop around after a glancing blow to get a roughing the passer penalty.

People complain about how soft the NFL has got, and that the QB's should be wearing a dress, but no-one stops watching.

 

There is a difference between tolerating and appreciating a pitcher's duel. For a baseball fan, appreciation is taught and ingrained in a manner that's mainstream, whether it's watching or the game from a young age, and the tradition and purism of the game that has been passed down.

Who is passing along the purism of soccer to the hundreds of thousands of youth soccer players? And more importantly, how has that been done in the mainstream? Or will it happen and create a spillover to the mainstream, in which children grow up watching the sport and learning the finer points?

Or is this yet another difference in the sporting cultures of America and Europe?

However, comparing the offensive dynamics of hockey and soccer is comparing apples to oranges. Where offensive opportunites are sometimes at a minimum in soccer, less than 20 shots a game is a rarity in the NHL.

 

To address this, it's the coaches and parents who are doing this. The difference between the way parents used to watch soccer when their kids were playing five years ago and now is drastic. And in the coming years, when the players who are playing college, USL Super-Y and Super-20 soccer now have their kids, the cycle builds up.

It gets helped by the proliferation of soccer coverage on television, by ESPN, FSC, Goltv et al. who now cover the game far better than they did in the past. Analysts like Eric Wynalda are increasing the education of the game for kids and adults watching the game on television.

It's going to take a number of years for soccer to have a chance at being an NBA or MLB, and get that level of respect. But Beckham's arrival, along with other international quality players like Juan Pablo Angel in New York, Cuauhtémoc Blanco in Chicago and Guillermo Barros Schelotto in Columbus, and the development of the U.S. national players, it is far closer now than it was when MLS had its inaugural season.

 

Soccer is not "defense-oriented." It is defense-suffocated, defense-strangled, defense-dominated-to-complete-paralysis. (Hockey is following close behind.)

See, there's a common myth that runs through every sport that "offense" is selfish, greedy, egotistical, stupid, lazy and evil, while "defense" is unselfish, generous, hardworking, breathtakingly intelligent, and noble.

Coaches, in every sport, have had this drummed into them since the first day they toddled onto the kiddy practice field. If you want to score, you're a selfish stupid pig. If you like defense, you're a courageous unselfish genius.

Therefore, almost all coaches in almost all sports spend the majority of their practice time on defense, because they believe deep within themselves it makes them a better person and a better representative of their sport. The message is repeatedly drummed into them by the cliche-bound and imperceptive media.

As a result, over a period of time, given no significant changes in rules, playing equipment or facilities, all sports tend to evolve to become more and more defense-dominated. Coaches figure out new defensive strategies to neutralize offensive advances. When coaches try to come up with new offensive strategies, they are quickly attacked as "poor fundamental coaches" who want to take "shortcuts to win," and if they don't win, are shouted down by a clucking chorus of sycophants who trumpet, "once again, fundamentals have triumphed."

Most American sports have combatted this phenomenon by rules changes, new arenas or stadiums which are more conducive to scoring.

Soccer, of course, is the most hidebound of all hidebound sports, still playing for all intents and purposes under the same rules that were in effect in 1907. Anyone proposing any changes to boost scoring is shouted down as a heretic and simply "not understanding the game."

If football, basketball and baseball were still playing under the same rules as 1907, then a 10-3 football game would be a romp, a 2-1 baseball game a blowout, and a 20-15 basketball game an offensive shootout.

 

Remember that soccer started in England at nearly the same time that baseball started in the United States. Its simply unreasonable to expect one man to jump a league forward a hundred years of mainstream attention and tradition.

It's still a great signing for the MLS and will bring the kind of attention that will continue the slow build that we have seen for the past six years or so.

 

Trust me, it drives soccer fans like myself nuts, too.

But Boom, that's a statement clearly made by someone who hasn't watched much soccer outside of the World Cup. You see more diving from certain countries (Italy, Portugal and Argentina come to mind), especially in a tournament where one call means so much and the referees from smaller nations are suspect. What I admire most about the EPL (which I watch far more than MLS) is the quality of play and the lack of diving. The refs simply don't allow it, so it rarely happens. Our USMNT typically plays the right way. So does England, Germany, etc ...

I was raised on college football, and what first lured me to soccer was the overwhelming passion of the fans and countries. Go to a game, preferably in another country. I promise you've seen nothing like it. I enjoy soccer now, partly because I don't cover it and permit myself to enjoy and root for it, but also due to the running clock and lack of starts and stops. Actually, it's some "American" sports that have grown boring to me because of all the timeouts and commercials.

This Beckham thing is ridiculous to me. No one who really knows and understands soccer ever saw this as a watershed moment in US soccer. He's an celebrity first and an above-average player second. We knew that already, but most people did not. Good luck to him, but MLS did not need Beckham to survive, and neither did the US national team programs.

It's just another reason for the soccer-hating crowd to mock a sport they don't try to know and understand. Seen it before. Will see it again.

Better question: Why does soccer threaten everyone so much?

 

Boom, that's just not a good enough thing to latch onto.

It's not as if they're taking WWF pratfalls out there. There IS some contact going on. I don't see why you would think it's any different than a punter spinning himself into the ground when a defender gets close to blocking his kick.

No, I think non-soccer fans have a much bigger problem with the lack of a "high" every 10 seconds, like a scoring play. To which I say, it's a shame for them, and better ADD drugs are being created all the time.

 

Not that Wikipedia is some authoritative source, but in its article on the NASL, it is claimed that the league failed because of some of its "radical" rules changes:

Yeah, like the game clock actually indicating the accurate time remaining in the half is some radical assault on tradition. Like the idea of allowing offensive players to streak downfield to get into an overload situation and have a better chance to score, absolutely revolting.

I've had soccer mavens inform me, usually in an insufferable faux-euro accent, that having the accurate, official time on the stadium clock "just won't do," because if you do, then the trailing team will look up at the clock, realize they are down by one goal with 20 seconds and they better bust the ball downfield and see if they can get a shot off, "and that just destroys the natural flow of the game, because teams will be making headlong dashes trying to get a goal."

Oh no, can't have that. It's much more beautiful and aesthetically pleasing to have teams wander gently downfield, patiently and methodically try to get in position for a shot, then the ref blows his whistle and says, "That's it, chaps, game over."

 

It was a radical assault on tradition. "Scoring in the 89th minute" is part of the sport's fabric.

But leave it to the ugly Americans to think they knew better.

 

It's a shame no one consulted you first, Starman. Amazing how someone can be such an expert on a sport he does not like. ... I'll have to start knocking NASCAR, since you know, I don't ever watch it.

 

The problem with having the count clock down is that professional games have a running clock and the referee on the field keeps track of the injury or stoppage time to make up for the time wasted on deadballs.

What is more confusing a clock stopped at 45 or 90 and play continuing, or the clock stopped at zero and play still happening on the pitch?

 

Not like they've been shot by a sniper in a tower, only to resurrect after a card or the "magic sponge."