The World Cup finale came down to Italy and France. I followed the general progression of the tournament but missed a lot of the games. I watch the whole final though, and was definitely supporting Italy. Actually, France doesn’t even have French players, many of their players are Moroccan and Algerian. The big shocker was when world renown, and retiring, French player Zindane head-butted an Italian player in overtime and got thrown out. It’s like Mickey Mantle charging the mound in his last at bat of game 7 of the World Series in extra innings.
Americans in general don’t like soccer. Soccer is considered boring. After living it Scotland, I think it has its pros and cons. On the up side, I like the format. The game is 90 minutes with one break for halftime. There are no timeouts, TV breaks, etc. This also makes the athletes be in top shape as they have to run up and down the field constantly. Watching the game in person is much better than on TV, though being in a crowded bar is not bad. There is a lot of atmosphere at a soccer match. There are lots of chanting and songs, whereas many American spectator sports are more reserved. (Of course, this bravado carries over into riots at time.) On the downside, the game itself is slow. Not only is scoring is very low, there are very few shots on goal. For much of the game, the ball remains in the middle 60% of the field. Actual scoring often comes down to corner kicks, free kicks, and penalty kicks. The latter two result from penalties of some kind. Hence, players tend to become actors in their ability to exaggerate falling down and clutching their knees in order to draw a penalty. Sometimes it is even comical about the delayed reaction from someone getting hit, to them limping around in pain.
Whilst I’m discussing sports, I better throw my two cents into a couple of others.
Basketball: I like basketball and it’s not even bad to watch on TV, but I hate the last 2 minutes of a basketball game. This is where the losing team starts to intentionally foul the winning team in order to stop the clock, allow the winning team to take 2 foul shots and let the losing team hope they miss and then get the ball back with little loss of time. In no other sport, is fouling (committing a violation), is a benefit of a strategy of the losing team. Penalties don’t stop the clock in football (either kind).
NASCAR: A mainly Southern sport, but living in Texas there are many fans. Although racing could be fun, NASCAR really isn’t. Why? Because there are 200 laps and for 195 of those laps, each racer is desperately trying NOT to be first. (The car that is first bears the main brunt of air drag). So if the race boils down to the last five laps anyway, why not just make the race ten laps.
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