The World Cup is finally over, which means I won’t have to care about soccer for another four years. But wait—since I never care about soccer, I wasn’t interested this time, even though many of the matches reportedly were actually played in the U.S.
I probably watched fewer than 30 minutes of
the action, none of which involved the U.S. teams’ games. The only action I saw
was when a match happened to be already on, and I was too distracted to change
the channel. I did, however, get to see a goal scored by a guy named Harry Kane
on the England team. My reaction was: “Hey Beavis, they just said some guy with
a hairy cane scored—huh, huh, huh, sweet!”
But even though I didn’t care and didn’t
watch much, there is still something that greatly irritates me. Remember, I am
a MOACA—a man of a certain age—which means I get greatly irritated over minor
things. The worst thing about soccer is the time clock. Instead of showing how
much time is remaining in the game, it shows how long the match has been going
on. News Flash: nobody cares how long they’ve been playing, except maybe the
players’ mothers— “I hope Miguel isn’t getting too tired with all that running
and kicking.” Everyone cares how much time is left. In a one‑goal contest, you
need to know how much time remains for your team to score.
This is a universal concept. You don’t care
how long your car has been parked; you want to know how many minutes are left
on the meter. You don’t care how much money you’ve spent from your checking
account; you want to know how much is left. You don’t care how long the
restaurant has been open; you care how much time you have until closing.
This concept has escaped the people at
FIFA—the global governing body for world soccer for almost 100 years. All other
time‑related sports—football, basketball, and hockey—do it the correct way. But
soccer does it stupidly across all league levels, even in most high school
matches.
Of course, the lame reason given for this is
that the referee controls the time, not the scoreboard, and the clock does not
stop for injuries, substitutions, or delays. Then the referee can add back time
at the end of the half. This is accepted by the soccer world, but it is
ridiculous.
Electronic scoreboards began popping up in
the 1930s and soon became universal. Football, basketball, and hockey all
figured out ways to manage the clock and time stoppages so the clock on the
scoreboard was official. But apparently soccer did not—and still has not.
Here’s an idea: Change your time stoppage rules so the clock has the
official time, then show how much time is left like every other sport—you
morons!
It can be done, but there is that difficult
concept of change. When you’ve been wrong for almost 100 years, it’s difficult
to admit you’re wrong. I would guess that the average age of the FIFA board is
“deceased,” and they have lived with the stupidity so long that it would
literally result in some members croaking if they ever brought a timing‑rule
change to a vote.
So, continue to look stupid, FIFA. If you made the change next year, everyone would be happy—even me. But you won’t, because you’ve always done it this way—the refrain I heard often in my 40‑year business career.
No Cards Please
Another beef I have with soccer is the
practice of men giving other men colorful cards. Real men don’t send cards—red,
yellow, or whatever—to other men. If they don’t end this practice, soon they
will be giving each other “pastel cards,” which could ruin the sport—and of
course it wouldn’t take much.
Oh, the Embarrassment
An online article said I should be
embarrassed by the U.S.A. team getting knocked out of the tournament by
Belgium. Uh, I don’t know anyone from Belgium, have no Belgian social‑media
contacts, and am unlikely to encounter any Belgians at the store, so I think I
can survive and keep my head up.
Making Soccer Useful
People always promote the World Cup as a way
to bring countries together. I say we make soccer useful. I would like to see
Russia play Ukraine, with the winner gaining the pre-agreed-upon disputed
territory—and the war ends. You know you would watch that game.
Unfortunately, soccer could not be used to
end the U.S.–Iran conflict. If Iran were leading 1–0 at the half, we could
expect the following post on Truth Social:
Look, nobody knows soccer like I do, okay?
And let me tell you, the Iranian goalie? Total disaster. A very bad guy, very
weak, but he was blocking our shots. And some of these shots—believe me,
folks—were the most beautiful, most tremendous shots you’ve ever seen.
Perfectly straight. Tremendously hard. Nobody has ever seen power like this.
But this goalie, he wouldn’t let them in. He
was totally restricting the passage of our beautiful, totally legitimate goals.
It was a disgrace.
So, just as the second half started, I said,
“We have to do something.” And I am very happy to announce that we executed a
beautiful, flawless, surgical strike. We took out the Iranian goalie. Boom.
Gone.
And you won’t believe what happened next. It
was incredible. After we took this action, their backup goalie—complete
loser—immediately ran right into the stands. Ran like a dog! And he ordered
some nachos. Can you believe it? Total surrender!
Final Score: U.S. 78, Iran 1.
