MR. SOCCER EXPERT SPEAKS

 
The following was originally posted on the World Wide Wits End 
Message Board on July 12, 1998

Hey, how about all of this exciting Soccer World Cup action!

Seems that every afternoon that I walk into a bar, there it is on the TV. And I gotta tell ya, I’ve seen a ton of it the last couple of weeks. Specifically, I guess I have watched a full 17 minutes. And let me tell you, 17 minutes of soccer is like an eternity.

I have seen so much of this sport, that I am now an expert on it. Yes, that’s right, I am now Mr. Soccer Expert. Unlike baseball, basketball, hockey, cricket, American football, or any other goddammed sport in the Universe, the objective of soccer is to get smacked in the head with the ball. Once you grasp this one concept, you are on your way to becoming an expert like me.

Soccer goal scoring is limited, sometimes to absolutely no goals in an entire game. This has good and bad implications. The bad part of this is that it makes the sport as dull as watching the grass grow. The good point is that less people are killed. It kinda works like this. Germany scores a goal against Bulgaria, the Germans cheer, the Bulgarians give the finger to the Germans, and the Germans begin stabbing Bulgarians. If Germany was to score 10 goals in a game, half the citizenry of Bulgaria would be stabbed.

As Americans, we have come to accept excitement and violence as a necessary part of any sporting endeavor. Barry Sanders, football in hand, zigging and zagging into open territory, breaking away from the pack, and running in open field to the goal. In ice hockey, Eric Lindros skating in all alone on a breakaway. In basketball, Michael Jordan in front of everyone for the slam dunk.

However, in soccer, if you have the ability and wherewithal to run past the defenders for an unopposed breakaway on the goal, this would be considered exciting, so such a play is illegal, and it is referred to as “off-sides”. The referee blows his whistle, stops the play, and waves his finger at you, and admonishes you for running faster than the guys on the opposing team. If that’s not bad enough, physical contact is not allowed. Now, you might ask, what happens when a soccer player gets physical? In American football, you can get a 15 yard penalty. In Ice Hockey, you can get 2, 5, or a 10 minute penalty, and your team is shorthanded for that period.

But in soccer, sacre bleau, the referee blows the whistle, stops play, runs up to the player, now get this, he takes out a yellow card, and in front of everyone, shakes it in front of his face, and informs him that he is also going to tell his mother about this.

Hard to believe huh? But, it gets better. What happens to the same player that got the yellow card shaken in his face when he continues to be naughty? Just about the same thing, except it now becomes a RED CARD! And not only does the referee inform the offender’s mother, he also informs all of the nuns that the player had in grade school, who will be lined up at the end of the game to smack him with pointers, yard sticks, and golden rulers.

Well, I gotta run, as the World Cup Final begins in about two hours, about enough time to consume 13 beers.

For those of you that don’t follow it, France is playing Brazil in France. As is the custom, should the home team lose, the citizens of that country are required to riot and burn the entire country down.

LET’S GO BRAZIL!!!