Soccer confusion
Last night, I attended a FC Dallas pro soccer game with Rob and his brother Tiny. It was fun, but a bit confusing for what should be such a simple game.
Like every kid who grew up in North Dallas, I played soccer as a child --- mostly as a fullback and midfielder because I was slow and white, kind of like I am today. I stopped playing soccer after baseball and ice hockey became more interesting to my 10-year-old brain. I think I did the game of soccer a favor by stopping my butchering of the sport at an early age.
In college, I kind of got interested in soccer again while going to school in England. It's hard to ignore the sport in that country because everybody is insane about it. I attended some matches by what was then a very terrible Arsenal team and liked the vibe. But that was about it. I'll watch soccer on T. V. from time to time, but I'm ignorant of rankings and who the players are except for the most famous ones.
So attending a game live I had to confront my total ignorance of the games intricacies, which is more easily avoided when casually watching the game on T.V. What in the hell is offsides? Why are the fans around me demanding that every minor infraction deserves a yellow card? What do you have to do to get a yellow card? If a player gets stomped and injured during the course of play, why can't you have a substitution?
I am dumb soccer guy.
Like every kid who grew up in North Dallas, I played soccer as a child --- mostly as a fullback and midfielder because I was slow and white, kind of like I am today. I stopped playing soccer after baseball and ice hockey became more interesting to my 10-year-old brain. I think I did the game of soccer a favor by stopping my butchering of the sport at an early age.
In college, I kind of got interested in soccer again while going to school in England. It's hard to ignore the sport in that country because everybody is insane about it. I attended some matches by what was then a very terrible Arsenal team and liked the vibe. But that was about it. I'll watch soccer on T. V. from time to time, but I'm ignorant of rankings and who the players are except for the most famous ones.
So attending a game live I had to confront my total ignorance of the games intricacies, which is more easily avoided when casually watching the game on T.V. What in the hell is offsides? Why are the fans around me demanding that every minor infraction deserves a yellow card? What do you have to do to get a yellow card? If a player gets stomped and injured during the course of play, why can't you have a substitution?
I am dumb soccer guy.
posted by john clarke at 8:27 AM
3 Comments:
Cards are typically reserved for malicious or clearly intentional acts, but it's a gray area.
Offsides is tricky to enforce, but you must be level with or in front of at least one defender when the ball is played. This is tough to call on long passes, because the ref is basically asked to see two things that are pretty far apart at once.
The linesman will raise a flag if a player is off, but he has the same sightline problems.
I know people who have watched for years who still struggle with the two questions you posed.
as they say in Run Lola Run 'the ball is round, the game lasts 90 minutes, everything else is just a theory'
Kev plays co-ed indoor soccer. He likes it. One game each week, and sometimes out for a beer after. You guys should sign up. They need a good goalie. Theirs is always getting various colors of cards for trying to take people out by sliding into them. Even girls. Very uncool.
I tried co-ed, but it was too unstable
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