Observations on the soccer madness from an outsider
By Chuck Pollock, Sun Senior Sports Writer, photo from FIFA.com
Full disclosure, I don’t particularly like soccer
Offside, yellow card, corner kick, red card, goal kick and on and on. The rules dull the gray matter.
During my 50 years at the Times Herald, I sought all manner of excuses to not cover a high school soccer game. I argued that a 2-0 result was a “blowout” in the “Beautiful Game”; that Foregin Exchange Students should be required to have a green card as they were better than everybody else on the high school field and that soccer rules should be posted on large signs in every corner of the “pitch” … not to be confused with what you do with a baseball.
That said, every four years I watch the World Cup … both genders.
And while I root for the men, I’m more ambivalent about the females.
To be sure, they’ve won four of the nine women’s titles but it’s been done with a degree of arrogance that strikes me as inappropriate.
Anyway, I’ve learned plenty about the sport from watching the World Cup but my best soccer lessons came on the scholastic level during the playoffs. Two extraordinary coaches — Allegany-Limestone’s Dale MacArthur and Fillmore’s Jamie Mullen — were my eloquent, gifted teacher.s
What I know about soccer is mostly their fault.
ANYWAY, what irritates me during the World Cup is the TV announcers botching English, saying, for instance, “New Zealand are” rather than “is” to sound foreign.
I can live with “nil” in place of zero or nothing but I can’t stand it in a high school game. I’ve got your “five-nil” right here.
With the women’s World Cup a year away, the men are on the verge of the semifinals and the championship is set for Sunday, July 19.
THIS YEAR’S field was expanded to 48 teams and before the current quarterfinals, 94 games had been played.
You want some sobering statistics?
How many of those games were scoreless? Right, seven.
How many were shutouts? Correct, 43, four short of half. Worse, in 114 games, one team or both, scored only a single goal or none.
That paucity of scoring was good news for underdog teams such as Cape Verde, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Egypt which didn’t win but their ties against superior opponents were as good as victories. And those teams were easy to root for.
Full disclosure, I don’t particularly like soccer
Offside, yellow card, corner kick, red card, goal kick and on and on.
During my 50 years at the Times Herald, I sought all manner of excuses to not cover a high school soccer game. I argued that a 2-0 result was a “blowout” in the “Beautiful Game”; that Foregin Exchange Students should be required to have a green card as they were better than everybody else on the high school field and that soccer rules should be posted on large signs in every corner of the “pitch” … not to be confused with what you do with a baseball.
That said, every four years I watch the World Cup … both genders.
And while I root for the men, I’m more ambivalent about the females.
To be sure, they’ve won four of the nine women’s titles but it’s been done with a degree of arrogance that strikes me as inappropriate.
Anyway, I’ve learned plenty about the sport from watching the World Cup but my best soccer lessons came on the scholastic level during the playoffs from two extraordinary coaches — Allegany-Limestone’s Dale MacArthur and Fillmore’s Jamie Mullen — each of them an eloquent, gifted teacher.
What I know about soccer is mostly their fault.
ANYWAY, what irritates me during the World Cup is the TV announcers botching English, saying, for instance, “New Zealand are” rather than “is” to sound foreign.
I can live with “nil” in place of zero or nothing but I can’t stand it in a high school game. I’ve got your “five-nil” right here.
With the women’s World Cup a year away, the men are on the verge of the semifinals and the championship set for Sunday, July 19.
THIS YEAR’S field was expanded to 48 teams and before the current quarterfinals, 94 games had been.
You want some sobering statistics?
How many of those games were scoreless? Right, seven.
How many were shutouts. Correct, 43, four short of half. Worse, in 114 games, one team or both, scored only a single goal or none.
That paucity of scoring was good news for underdog teams such as Cape Verde, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia and Egypt which didn’t win but their ties against superior opponents were as good as victories. And those four teams were easy to root for and I did.
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
