When I was 5 years old, I fell in love with soccer. By the time I was 15, I started to hate it.
Let me explain the love part first. Growing up in Victoria, I played right wing for a team called Oak Bay United. I don’t want to exaggerate, but I was on the best team in the history of sports. It was great; I would play soccer pretty much every day with my twin brother in the backyard, practice twice a week, and then have a game on Saturday. Our team was good enough to be invited to play in tournaments, and eventually win tournaments. I made a lot of friends and kicked some crazy ass!
However, I wasn’t exactly a tough defender, so the coaches decided to put me on defense to toughen me up. I hated it more than Math class, and started to get a little pissy about it. I was then stricken to the dreaded ‘B’ team. For full and accurate details on the matter, please consult my brother. I eventually sucked it up and came back the next season as a starter for the ‘A’ team, back in my natural position. Things were good for one more year, but then it happened. The exact moment I decided to stop playing soccer: I was going for a 50/50 ball against a defender, and we basically kicked each other in the shins as hard as we could. He popped up and was fine; I was on the ground going towards the light. Play was stopped and not only was my shin pad broken, so was my love for the game. I had finally had enough.
Luckily, by that point basketball had raped its way into my life. Basketball – so much cooler and easier to play than soccer, and it’s sweet embrace was much too tempting. I traded in my cleats for Reebok Pumps and was off to buy Michigan Wolverines gear, and anything with a Jumpman logo on it.
I did still watch soccer quite a bit; The World Cup was held in the States that year and I remember being entertained, but I started to notice something. Something that I hadn’t experienced on the field, nor did I witness at Victoria Vistas games I went to: DIVING! Here was something that was the ultimate in puss-moves. I couldn’t believe how much diving was actually going on. And, to top it off, guys were rolling around on the ground and doing a Hail Mary while clutching and kissing their Jesus necklace. It made me want to kick soccer right in the nuts. Why wasn’t anything being done? Why were good, honest players getting carded for nothing? I realized that this was a very old game and very old people didn’t want it to change. So, instead, the sport lost supporters, including me.
Fast forward to July 2010, and here we have the World Cup in South Africa. What the f&*% is going on?! A phantom foul against the Americans, a linesman missing an obvious goal by the English, and many more awful calls. The worst part about the whole thing is that some of the blown calls aren’t even the referee or linesmen’s fault. The field is just way too big for three officials to spot and judge everything. Something needs to change. How about a referee at each net, or two referees on the field, or maybe a game suspension (or worse) for an obvious dive?
In my mind, the microscope that soccer is under right now is the best thing to happen to the sport in a long time. When you watch highlights of the World Cup, you’ll see bad calls, missed calls and a whole lot of dudes with their hands on their heads. Then the panels of experts come on and slam the refereeing and lack of good referees. (Did you know that some of the refs were actually sent home because of the horrible calls they made or missed?) There are a lot of things that need to be looked at in order to update and improve soccer and it starts here and now. Here’s one last thought. Who the crap likes to watch two hours of a sport and have the score end up 0-0? If something doesn’t change soon, I’m worried that the sport I grew up loving to play will be left behind.
I’m with you, Jay.
I realize that getting a free kick can be a good thing and all but how can any self respecting man really justify doing the Oh-My-God-The-End-Of-The-World-Is-Coming roll around on the pitch? Sad. You know why Canadians don’t seem to make strong soccer players? We don’t puss out and roll around on the ground when someone almost touches us on the arm.
Man up, soccer world.
Easy fix. Have a ref review the game on tape, and issue yellow cards for obvious diving. Problem solved. But i realized something, it’s part of the game. It’s a European sport, and the last thing Europeans want is Americans telling them how to play their sport. It’s like telling us to take out the fighting in hockey, i personally love it and understand why it’s important to the game, but there’s a lot of good arguments to why it has no place in hockey, and inevitably the argument ends in ’shut up pussy’. Just as my feelings to anyone that can defend diving ends, ’shut up pussy’.