SOCCER, FOOTBALL, AMERICAN WORLD CUP, FINALLY

The American World Cup showed city after city jumping for their teams.

Not so much the American team in the finals and semi-finals, but the good teams.

Why not American soccer? What’s gone wrong to prevent the home team from becoming regulars in the Sweet Sixteen, the Elite Eight, and the Final Four?

Maybe it’s the branding since college basketball has taken all the cool names.

Maybe it’s that American football is more about passing and running than kicking?

I’ve figured out the problem, and solution.

After my coaching days I figured soccer would be the #1 sport in America.

I did my part, where’s everyone else?

Parents I met were all in on their kid’s teams.

They had flaming soccer ball tattoos, played in adult leagues. It was all set to explode in popularity.

What happened? The usual.

Soccer doesn’t have enough down-time, enough rest time.

The players are always on the move, tracking the ball, trapping the ball, kicking the ball.

It’s a very ball-centric sport. See ball, kick ball.

Every three year old knows how to play, and it only takes two kids for a game.

We Need Rest In American Ball Sports

Basketball has a shot clock. Finally.

Gone are the days of Dean Smith’s four corners, which was not only bad basketball but bad television.

Now it’s called a ‘motion offense’ or Tex Winter’s ‘triangle offense.’

Or it’s pick and roll from side to side and looking to kick it back to the three point line.

Short of anything else it’s a gunner dribbling the ball up and launching from deep for the win.

Everyone loves the sharpshooter . . . until they miss five in a row with everyone else standing around.

Soccer has their sharp shooter dropping passes into the mass of players gathered around the front of the goal pushing and shoving and waiting to jump for a header, or standing back to kick a deflection.

 

Baseball now has a clock after a century of watching a guy stand on a hump of dirt scratching himself, spitting, and digging at his crotch, before throwing the ball.

Every ball thrown across home plate, or near it, gets an opinion from the umpire. Every stolen base gets an umpire’s opinion.

The umpires have total control, unlike soccer with all of the players yanking and grabbing and surprise whiplash forearms in the back.

Even the out of bounds ball goes to the player, not the ref, who is supervising more than policing.

 

Football has a play clock along with a game clock.

The referees control the game after each play, with video reviews available.

The team leans in for a message, breaks the huddle to take their assigned positions, and move in a prescribed manner and direction.

On television soccer looks like everyone running everywhere all at once, like a band where everyone plays solo at the same time.

‘What the hell is going on out there’ is the common refrain.

The World Cup Solution

The Beautiful Game is subtle, yet vicious.

People get wiped out in the air and land hard, but it’s on grass, not the hardwood of basketball.

Some will see Messi kicking the ball full force into a Spanish defender’s face and call it the ‘play of the game.’

These are the same people who cheer when hit batters fight the itchy pitcher on the baseball mound.

What’s missing in soccer is the threat of life changing violence at every turn.

The bird leg when the knee bends the wrong way, the paralysis when the neck bends the wrong way, the CTE when the brain bounces the wrong way.

Where’s the middle ground? Lacrosse? Rugby?

Find a sport with non-stop action back and forth, with feats of strength and endurance. Are you looking.

I have said it before and here it is again: That sport is wrestling.

It’s got it all and then some. What it’s missing is a ball.

Wrestlers of both genders bring a pair of them to every match.

 

PS:

What if soccer included riding time when a defender takes someone down?

PSS:

What if soccer players wore MMA gloves and squared off in front of the nets?

What if . . . ?