Late last week, US Soccer announced that Bruce Arena's tenure as men's national team coach would end with this year. Arena will finish his 8-year run as the all-time winningest coach in national team history. He also led the team to a pair of continental titles (2002, 2005) as well as a World Cup quarterfinal appearance in 2002, the second best US World Cup showing ever.
I loved having Bruce as coach. I enjoyed his willingness to shake up the establishment and tell it like it is. I've read he was instrumental in demanding that US Soccer professionalize its internal operations. He criticized Major League Soccer because regular season games have such little meaning (something I've criticized too) which means domestic players face little pressure on a daily basis. He's called for more young players to challenge themselves by playing in Europe, where there is more pressure to improve. He's ruffled a lot of feathers in a US Soccer environment that demands conformity and a fake happy face but to be honest, he's had the guts to amplify a lot of the things that many fans have been saying for years.
There are many people who trashed Arena after the US team's disappointing performance at the most recent World Cup. That was understandable. He was the coach and was always going to bear the brunt of the responsibility for the shambolic performances. I was one of many who criticized Arena's overly defensive tactics during the tournament.
However some took their criticisms to the next level. Some got personal. Take notorious loudmouth Eric Wynalda. Waldo is the US' all-time leading goal scorer (for now) and perhaps that's what makes him so obnoxious and self-important. Rather than limiting his criticisms to Arena's tactics, Wynalda got gratuitously nasty as he so often does.
"He can take a team to a certain level, but he has no idea where the next level is," he said. "How much does he know about playing in Europe, other than having a hot dog and a beer in the stands? Hearsay? Does he talk to the players? That's justification to know? Has he ever coached there and have that pressure? No. Sorry, I'm just pointing out the obvious."
The view's pretty good from the cheap seats. I guess one could equally ask Whine-alda what he knows about coaching a national team.
As I explained before, Arena deserves criticism for his overly defensive tactics at the World Cup. But is it his fault that most of the players inexplicably didn't show up? Is it his fault that the best players mostly underperformed? That he can't be bothered to hold anyone to any standard of accountability other than Arena says more about Whine-alda than Bruce.
I do not subscribe to revisionism. This happened the last time the US changed coaches as well. Steve Sampson did a poor job preparing for the 1998 World Cup and the team went three and out. However, people just his reign solely on the World Cup. They forgot what it was like before. When Sampson took over, the US was a team of hard workers that hoped to luck their way to some results. Sampson made them into a regional power. But the World Cup performance is the sum of most people's judgement of him. Sampson took the US to the next level.
Arena took the team to the next level above that. Now, we have a team that EXPECTS to be competitive against big powers. During Arena's tenure, we've gotten results in competitive matches against teams like Germany ('99), Portugal ('02) and Italy ('06). The US outplayed Germany in the 2002 quarterfinal but lost 1-0 due in part to a controversial officiating decision. In years past, the team and fans would've been happy losing 'only 1-0' to a team like Germany. Now, we're disheartened. It's precisely those expectations, raised so high by Arena, that make the performances in Germany so disappointed.
And that's precisely why Bruce Arena has been a great manager for the US. He's raised expectations for everybody. 'Almost' is no longer good enough. Criticize his decisions in two of the games in Germany if you must; fans do that all the time and I'm sure Bruce's feelings aren't going to be hurt by it. But don't succomb to the cheap temptation to discard his whole legacy and his important contributions to US soccer.
Update: Columnist Jamie Trecker takes a dissenting view. I still maintain that Arena took this team to the next level. Maybe it requires someone else to take the team another level still, but I can't help but praise Arena for his contributions.
Second update: First, Trecker identifies Bruce Arena's prickly nature, arrogance and tendency to blame everyone else when things went wrong as major flaws. His solution to this state of affairs: hire Jose Mourinho, the self-described Special One, as his successor. Sorry Jamie, you lost all credibility with me there.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
'Americans will never like soccer' and other fairy tales
There are certain things you can set your watch to. For example, if you come inside after getting soaked in a rainstorm, some people will blame President Bush for causing the bad weather or at least for not handing out umbrellas to everyone. Others will swear up and down that there isn't a cloud in the sky and that the rain is an invention of the liberal media. Another thing you can bank on is the massive hyperbole that surrounds the quadrennial soccer World Cup.
This is when normally understated soccer-lovers come out of closet and profess the love for their sport unabashedly. Since it only happens one month out of every four years, there's always quite a bit of hype.
This of course brings the soccer-bashers out of the closet too. I ought to start by defining the term. A soccer-basher is not someone who is uninterested in soccer. My mom is someone who is uninterested in soccer. A soccer-basher is someone who goes out of his (or her) way to badmouth the sport. I was in a bar on Sunday watching the World Cup final. I went into the bathroom and some guy came in as well. He noticed by soccer hat. That provoked him to launch into a one minute discourse on why he disliked soccer and why it was boring. Where did he get the audacity going out of his way to badmouth the sport to some stranger he knew was a fan?
Soccer-bashers talk about how boring soccer is, how it's a sport for pansies and commies (or, in the modern lingo, a sport for terrorists and the French). They insist it's a sport filled with lazy cheating divers (more true than it should be) and people not tough enough to play manly sports. Strangely enough, they don't say this to Roy Keane's face. The soccer-bashers insist that if if you really love the sport, you should move to Che-loving Latin America or socialist Europe. How right-wing politics gets in here is beyond me.
And as in anything of this sort, the more popular soccer becomes, the more shrill the soccer-bashers get. This is to be expected. No one bashes professional lacrosse because few follow it. Popularity of smaller sports provokes a backlash amongst those who follow the establishment sports. The harder the rain falls, the sunnier they insist it is.
Why do so many people go out of their way to bash soccer like the guy in the bar? I can't stand the NBA (Non-Basketball Association). It baffles me how anyone can sit in front of a TV and watch golf or NASCAR for hours on end. But I don't bash those sports. I don't go the bar and shout about how much auto racing sucks. I don't whine about the NBA Finals being shoved down the throats of anyone who watched more than 3 seconds a day of ESPN. I just ignore those sports. I don't need to tear down other sports to prop up my own. If they come on the TV, I don't fire off any angry newspaper column or blog entry. I just change the channel.
But it is amusing is when soccer-bashers in their hysteria express statements that flout common sense. I'm not talking about subjective comments like 'Soccer is boring' or 'There aren't enough goals.'
I'm talking more about comments like 'Soccer will never be big in America.' The more popular the game as a spectator sport becomes, and it's come light years since the early 90s, the louder these comments become.
They tell you that soccer will never be big in America. But they can't explain why the highest World Cup rights fee in history from a single country was just paid by US broadcasters. They can't explain why and cities and across the country have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build soccer-specific stadiums. Are Disney, Univision and big developers capitalistic entrepreneurs or charities who magnanimously want to prop up soccer in this country with their largesse? Or maybe they know something the 'Americans will never like soccer' crowd refuses to accept.
They will tell you that no one watches soccer. But they can't come up with a good reason why almost as many people watched the World Cup final on Sunday as the average World Series game last year.
To be honest, these comments are more amusing than anything else. I don't like sports based on how popular they are. I liked soccer when it was obscure. I still like it now that it's popularity continues to rise. I will continue to like soccer if its popularity in this country plummets.
The point of this entry is not to convince soccer-bashers to 'get with the program.' It's not to say that if they only knew the rules and understood the nuances, they'd love it. They shouldn't like it because it's becoming popular anymore than I should've stopped liking it back when it wasn't.
My comment is simply for the soccer-bashers to grow up. If you don't like soccer, just ignore it for crying out loud. We soccer fans don't rain on your parade when you 'shove down our throats' the YEARLY saturation coverage of the Super Bowl or MLB postseason or NBA playoffs. Can't you give us one month every four years with a little grace?
A corollary to that is that soccer fans need to grow up too. There are various reasons most Americans aren't into soccer as a spectator sport. But some of the 'reasons' offered by soccer fans are obnoxious and condescending. It has nothing to do with the fact that Americans don't win every World Cup; if dominance were the only factor, then track and field would be our national sport. It has nothing to do with low scoring; Americans venerate the pitchers' duel and gridiron defenses. There are other bogus reasons offered too but they really boil down to a superior, nose-in-the-air attitude, which is surprising. Most of the rest of the world thinks that Americans aren't good enough at soccer to be snobbish about it. But our fans are.
There is one simple reason why baseball and gridiron football are more popular than soccer in the US: they were here first. Or at least they gained a cultural foothold first. This is also why baseball and gridiron football remain nationally more popular than basketball and hockey. Passion and tradition are related. Big-time soccer doesn't have the tradition yet. It takes time. Soccer may never be as popular as baseball. So what?
Admittedly, a lot of the snobbery results from the bunker mentality. American soccer fans have to defend themselves against American soccer haters and foreigners who insist Americans are crap at the sport and should just give it up. You'd be shocked at how much the soccer boards light up every time Jim Rome opens his big yap bashing soccer. Fans need to grow up and give him and other soccer-bashers exactly the amount of attention they deserve: none.
(And they can delight in the fact that Rome's show was pre-empted for most of the last month by... none other than the World Cup)
Maybe when US soccer fans losing the condescension, there might be a little less knee-jerk resistance to the sport.
Another thing you can set your watch to is that after every World Cup, people who wouldn't watch soccer anyways will offer fantastic ways to improve the sport. Make the goals ten yards wider. Make goals from distance worth two points. Reduce the number of players on the field. Make a 4' height limit for goalkeepers.
None of these things should happen. Soccer should not be completely changed to pander to the fans of a single country, especially one with such a short attention span anyway. They tried it before in this country with a weird version of soccer called the NASL. It boomed but only for a few years and really only in one place (metro New York). Then it collapsed because it was unsustainable. The current Major League Soccer is a much more orthodox version of soccer and its success is more modest but also more uniform and sustainable.
Americans love fads. That's why poker and reality shows are on television so much here. In recent years millions of Americans have come to love soccer as it is now. There's no reason to mutate it into something unrecognizable for the purpose of a 4 or 5 year boom. And Americans also love quick fixes. For the soccer to really take root as a spectator sport, it needs to grow organically and that means slowly. And it's doing so now. Soccer fans just need to accept that. And soccer bashers just need to deal with that.
This is when normally understated soccer-lovers come out of closet and profess the love for their sport unabashedly. Since it only happens one month out of every four years, there's always quite a bit of hype.
This of course brings the soccer-bashers out of the closet too. I ought to start by defining the term. A soccer-basher is not someone who is uninterested in soccer. My mom is someone who is uninterested in soccer. A soccer-basher is someone who goes out of his (or her) way to badmouth the sport. I was in a bar on Sunday watching the World Cup final. I went into the bathroom and some guy came in as well. He noticed by soccer hat. That provoked him to launch into a one minute discourse on why he disliked soccer and why it was boring. Where did he get the audacity going out of his way to badmouth the sport to some stranger he knew was a fan?
Soccer-bashers talk about how boring soccer is, how it's a sport for pansies and commies (or, in the modern lingo, a sport for terrorists and the French). They insist it's a sport filled with lazy cheating divers (more true than it should be) and people not tough enough to play manly sports. Strangely enough, they don't say this to Roy Keane's face. The soccer-bashers insist that if if you really love the sport, you should move to Che-loving Latin America or socialist Europe. How right-wing politics gets in here is beyond me.
And as in anything of this sort, the more popular soccer becomes, the more shrill the soccer-bashers get. This is to be expected. No one bashes professional lacrosse because few follow it. Popularity of smaller sports provokes a backlash amongst those who follow the establishment sports. The harder the rain falls, the sunnier they insist it is.
Why do so many people go out of their way to bash soccer like the guy in the bar? I can't stand the NBA (Non-Basketball Association). It baffles me how anyone can sit in front of a TV and watch golf or NASCAR for hours on end. But I don't bash those sports. I don't go the bar and shout about how much auto racing sucks. I don't whine about the NBA Finals being shoved down the throats of anyone who watched more than 3 seconds a day of ESPN. I just ignore those sports. I don't need to tear down other sports to prop up my own. If they come on the TV, I don't fire off any angry newspaper column or blog entry. I just change the channel.
But it is amusing is when soccer-bashers in their hysteria express statements that flout common sense. I'm not talking about subjective comments like 'Soccer is boring' or 'There aren't enough goals.'
I'm talking more about comments like 'Soccer will never be big in America.' The more popular the game as a spectator sport becomes, and it's come light years since the early 90s, the louder these comments become.
They tell you that soccer will never be big in America. But they can't explain why the highest World Cup rights fee in history from a single country was just paid by US broadcasters. They can't explain why and cities and across the country have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build soccer-specific stadiums. Are Disney, Univision and big developers capitalistic entrepreneurs or charities who magnanimously want to prop up soccer in this country with their largesse? Or maybe they know something the 'Americans will never like soccer' crowd refuses to accept.
They will tell you that no one watches soccer. But they can't come up with a good reason why almost as many people watched the World Cup final on Sunday as the average World Series game last year.
To be honest, these comments are more amusing than anything else. I don't like sports based on how popular they are. I liked soccer when it was obscure. I still like it now that it's popularity continues to rise. I will continue to like soccer if its popularity in this country plummets.
The point of this entry is not to convince soccer-bashers to 'get with the program.' It's not to say that if they only knew the rules and understood the nuances, they'd love it. They shouldn't like it because it's becoming popular anymore than I should've stopped liking it back when it wasn't.
My comment is simply for the soccer-bashers to grow up. If you don't like soccer, just ignore it for crying out loud. We soccer fans don't rain on your parade when you 'shove down our throats' the YEARLY saturation coverage of the Super Bowl or MLB postseason or NBA playoffs. Can't you give us one month every four years with a little grace?
A corollary to that is that soccer fans need to grow up too. There are various reasons most Americans aren't into soccer as a spectator sport. But some of the 'reasons' offered by soccer fans are obnoxious and condescending. It has nothing to do with the fact that Americans don't win every World Cup; if dominance were the only factor, then track and field would be our national sport. It has nothing to do with low scoring; Americans venerate the pitchers' duel and gridiron defenses. There are other bogus reasons offered too but they really boil down to a superior, nose-in-the-air attitude, which is surprising. Most of the rest of the world thinks that Americans aren't good enough at soccer to be snobbish about it. But our fans are.
There is one simple reason why baseball and gridiron football are more popular than soccer in the US: they were here first. Or at least they gained a cultural foothold first. This is also why baseball and gridiron football remain nationally more popular than basketball and hockey. Passion and tradition are related. Big-time soccer doesn't have the tradition yet. It takes time. Soccer may never be as popular as baseball. So what?
Admittedly, a lot of the snobbery results from the bunker mentality. American soccer fans have to defend themselves against American soccer haters and foreigners who insist Americans are crap at the sport and should just give it up. You'd be shocked at how much the soccer boards light up every time Jim Rome opens his big yap bashing soccer. Fans need to grow up and give him and other soccer-bashers exactly the amount of attention they deserve: none.
(And they can delight in the fact that Rome's show was pre-empted for most of the last month by... none other than the World Cup)
Maybe when US soccer fans losing the condescension, there might be a little less knee-jerk resistance to the sport.
Another thing you can set your watch to is that after every World Cup, people who wouldn't watch soccer anyways will offer fantastic ways to improve the sport. Make the goals ten yards wider. Make goals from distance worth two points. Reduce the number of players on the field. Make a 4' height limit for goalkeepers.
None of these things should happen. Soccer should not be completely changed to pander to the fans of a single country, especially one with such a short attention span anyway. They tried it before in this country with a weird version of soccer called the NASL. It boomed but only for a few years and really only in one place (metro New York). Then it collapsed because it was unsustainable. The current Major League Soccer is a much more orthodox version of soccer and its success is more modest but also more uniform and sustainable.
Americans love fads. That's why poker and reality shows are on television so much here. In recent years millions of Americans have come to love soccer as it is now. There's no reason to mutate it into something unrecognizable for the purpose of a 4 or 5 year boom. And Americans also love quick fixes. For the soccer to really take root as a spectator sport, it needs to grow organically and that means slowly. And it's doing so now. Soccer fans just need to accept that. And soccer bashers just need to deal with that.
Friday, July 14, 2006
He wants to do for the World Bank what he did for Iraq
Paul Wolfowitz is infamous for having been one of the main architects of the Iraq aggression. He is now president of the World Bank. One of his predecessors at the Bank was Robert McNamara, one a main architects of another disastrous US war. I wonder why it's believed that guys who conceive and execute hideously destructive wars that cost thousands of lives and incalculable damage have business running an organization whose main job is make things BETTER for less developed countries.
The Iraq debacle is a bad idea, poorly executed. One of the reasons it was poorly executed is because of the administration's style: listen to whatever panders to your preconceived notions and ignore the rest.
Sadly, it looks like Wolfowitz has brought that same style of mismanagement to the World Bank.
The Iraq debacle is a bad idea, poorly executed. One of the reasons it was poorly executed is because of the administration's style: listen to whatever panders to your preconceived notions and ignore the rest.
Sadly, it looks like Wolfowitz has brought that same style of mismanagement to the World Bank.
Bush to respect rule of law (honest!)
Earlier this week, the Bush administration flip flopped and decided to grant Geneva Convention protections to terrorism suspects in accordance with its treaty obligations. This follows a US Supreme Court decision ruled that it was illegal to deny such protections to terrorism suspects.
This is a major policy shift on two fronts.
First, the administration had previously argued that terrorism suspects were NOT prisoners of war and thus were not subject to Geneva protections (they also argued that detainees were not common criminals and shouldn't be put on trial either; they basically invented a category out of thin for these).
Secondly, the administration had previously acted as though the rule of law was null and void. This is an important policy shift on both fronts.
The president's spokesman Tony Snow insisted, "It is not really a reversal of policy - humane treatment has always been the standard
How imprisoning unindicted suspects indefinitely for years without them having any hope of even being formally accused and a chance to defend themselves is humane treatment is not something the former Fox News [sic] personality explained.
Nevertheless, it's a good sign that the administration will start respecting the rule of law on this front. Let's hope it can be expanded to all fronts. Let's also hope that this marks the definitive end of "the terrorists are doing worse" as a rationalization for destroying our values before the Evildoers can.
Update: Despite the concerns, most experts say that US troops will benefit from this long overdue clarity on the issue.
2nd update: Leonard Pitts Jr praises the Supreme Court's decisions as being the first time one of the other two arms of government has stood up and declared America to be a republic, not an absolute monarchy.
This is a major policy shift on two fronts.
First, the administration had previously argued that terrorism suspects were NOT prisoners of war and thus were not subject to Geneva protections (they also argued that detainees were not common criminals and shouldn't be put on trial either; they basically invented a category out of thin for these).
Secondly, the administration had previously acted as though the rule of law was null and void. This is an important policy shift on both fronts.
The president's spokesman Tony Snow insisted, "It is not really a reversal of policy - humane treatment has always been the standard
How imprisoning unindicted suspects indefinitely for years without them having any hope of even being formally accused and a chance to defend themselves is humane treatment is not something the former Fox News [sic] personality explained.
Nevertheless, it's a good sign that the administration will start respecting the rule of law on this front. Let's hope it can be expanded to all fronts. Let's also hope that this marks the definitive end of "the terrorists are doing worse" as a rationalization for destroying our values before the Evildoers can.
Update: Despite the concerns, most experts say that US troops will benefit from this long overdue clarity on the issue.
2nd update: Leonard Pitts Jr praises the Supreme Court's decisions as being the first time one of the other two arms of government has stood up and declared America to be a republic, not an absolute monarchy.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Public service announcement
I was surprised to see the same error made by both the prestigious Washington Post and the excellent public radio show The World.
In this piece, The Post referred to Italy's prime minister Romano Prodi as the country's head of state. The World said that German chancellor Angela Merkel's video podcast is 'the first ever by a head of state'; the chancellor being the German term for their prime minister.
A political science lesson for any journalists who may be reading this. In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is by definition head of GOVERNMENT. In such a system, the head of state is either the president (in a republic) or the monarch.
I know Americans aren't great at international affairs but these two outlets usually lead the way in foreign coverage and should do better.
In this piece, The Post referred to Italy's prime minister Romano Prodi as the country's head of state. The World said that German chancellor Angela Merkel's video podcast is 'the first ever by a head of state'; the chancellor being the German term for their prime minister.
A political science lesson for any journalists who may be reading this. In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is by definition head of GOVERNMENT. In such a system, the head of state is either the president (in a republic) or the monarch.
I know Americans aren't great at international affairs but these two outlets usually lead the way in foreign coverage and should do better.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Nigeria's oil capital without electricity
This essay is part of a (more or less) weekly feature on this blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel, Iraq and Iran*. (*-added on the suggestion of a reader)
I've always advocated that if you want to be an informed citizen, you should rely on many media sources to get your information. BUT if you live in the US and can only choose one, I'd highly recommend The Week (website). This is because it's not one media source but many: it's a sort of world press review, publishing articles from countless different US and international press outlets.
The most recent issue cited an interesting editorial from the Nigerian paper This Day.
Bayelsa State is located in the heart of Nigeria's oil producing region. Yet like most of the Niger Delta, Bayelsa residents remain mired in poverty.
That's due in no small part to the massive environmental damage caused by oil exploiters such as Shell. Ecological devastation is pretty big deal for poor residents who rely on fishing an other subsistence activities for survival.
Yet despite putting up with the rape of its natural resources by foreign multinationals, Bayelsans haven't got much in return. The state home to one of Nigeria's largest deposits of crude oil doesn't even have electricity 50 years after the 'godsend' black gold was discovered.
I'm sure Global Witness wouldn't be surprised.
I've always advocated that if you want to be an informed citizen, you should rely on many media sources to get your information. BUT if you live in the US and can only choose one, I'd highly recommend The Week (website). This is because it's not one media source but many: it's a sort of world press review, publishing articles from countless different US and international press outlets.
The most recent issue cited an interesting editorial from the Nigerian paper This Day.
Bayelsa State is located in the heart of Nigeria's oil producing region. Yet like most of the Niger Delta, Bayelsa residents remain mired in poverty.
That's due in no small part to the massive environmental damage caused by oil exploiters such as Shell. Ecological devastation is pretty big deal for poor residents who rely on fishing an other subsistence activities for survival.
Yet despite putting up with the rape of its natural resources by foreign multinationals, Bayelsans haven't got much in return. The state home to one of Nigeria's largest deposits of crude oil doesn't even have electricity 50 years after the 'godsend' black gold was discovered.
I'm sure Global Witness wouldn't be surprised.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
2006 World Cup recap: how to combat diving
Diving, which is also known as simulation or play acting, was more prevalent at this World Cup than any previous. And it's not just North Americans raised on 'manly' sports like pointy ball and ice hockey who think play acting is garbage. The head of the 2006 World Cup organizing committee, German legend Franz Beckenbauer, has called for a summit on how to deal with this plague.
dirtycheatingportugal (TM) was the team most infamous for its players' penchant for collapsing as though shot merely because a fan in the upper deck sneezed. Despite their ability to play attractively when they actually put their minds to soccer instead of flopping, Portugal became most neutral fans' most hated team because of their unsporting behavior. Their tendency to whine like snivelling little children whenever their cheating was not rewarded by the ref only added to most fans' loathing of the Iberians. I'm sure I wasn't the only person happy to see them eliminated in the semifinal and thrashed in the third-place match.
But it would be wrong to see this as a purely Portugese disease, even if they were the worst practioners. Sadly, most teams that did anything had a few players with a tendency to flop, with the notable exception of the English and the Germans.
For many casual fans, the diving plague cast aspersions on the integrity of the whole sport. To casual fans, they asked how can you like a game where it seems like everyone cheats? To the rabid fan, it ruined their dream of the Beautiful Game winning out.
This disillusionment has many fans asking what can be done to clean up the sport of this crap. The answer is a bit less direct than you think.
Unlike most fans, I refuse to separate diving from obstruction and shirt pulling.
Obstruction and shirt pulling are also forms of cheating that ruin the game. But they are rarely, if ever called. Furthermore, when a player cheats by play acting, fans want him tarred and feathered. But when a player cheats by shirt pulling, fans excuse it as 'savvy' or 'sophisticated' play. This double standard is deplorable.
Diving and obstruction/shirt pulling are not separate crimes against soccer. They are two sides of the same coin. Defenders obstruct the attacking player or grab a chunk of his jersey. Many creative players have had their careers cut short because they've literally been kicked out of the game by players fouling them with impunity. Former Dutch legend (and current Dutch coach) Marco Van Basten is one example of someone who retired because of repeated injuries. I fear that Italy's Francesco Totti will soon be another.
These defensive players and goons masquerading as such get away with it. So the attacking player rationalizes, "The defender is getting an advantage by breaking the rules. If I dive, I'm not cheating; I'm just evening things up."
I don't condone diving. But you can't condemn one form of cheating and refuse to acknowledge any other. Too many fans do.
Referees need to crack down on diving. But they simultaneously need to crack down on obstruction and shirt pulling. And they need to give yellow cards for hard fouls, not for pedantic nonsense like they did this World Cup.
Most of the time, the only way to get the ref to blow the whistle when a real foul is committed is to fall to the ground. If a player doesn't fall down, then the legitimate foul will not be called and the attacking player is punished for staying on his feet in a sporting manner.
That's the dirty little secret that no one talks about but it's central to addressing the problem.
Of all the fouls that result in the award of a penalty kick, what percentage are awarded to players who are fouled but stay on their feet? I venture to say the number is something like 0.01 percent. In 12 years of playing and watching dozens of matches every month, I bet I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen this happen and have fingers left over.
When sporting behavior is punished and unsporting behavior is rewarded, can you really blame players for choosing the latter?
Punishing divers is an important change that needs to happen. In such cases, I'd like to see the foul or penalty awarded to the attacking team AND the attacking player's diver yellow carded. If a player is fouled and flops, two infractions have been committed; there's no need to choose only one or the other. Punish both.
Referees also need to do one other important thing: they must call fouls even in cases where the attacking player doesn't fall down.
This is far and away the best thing officials can do to discourage diving. Once attacking players realize they won't be punished for staying on their feet, that's exactly what they'll try to do. And defenders will learn that their cheating will not be rewarded.
Diving in soccer must be dealt with. But it can only be dealt with if it's seen for what it is: a response to a larger pattern of cheating.
dirtycheatingportugal (TM) was the team most infamous for its players' penchant for collapsing as though shot merely because a fan in the upper deck sneezed. Despite their ability to play attractively when they actually put their minds to soccer instead of flopping, Portugal became most neutral fans' most hated team because of their unsporting behavior. Their tendency to whine like snivelling little children whenever their cheating was not rewarded by the ref only added to most fans' loathing of the Iberians. I'm sure I wasn't the only person happy to see them eliminated in the semifinal and thrashed in the third-place match.
But it would be wrong to see this as a purely Portugese disease, even if they were the worst practioners. Sadly, most teams that did anything had a few players with a tendency to flop, with the notable exception of the English and the Germans.
For many casual fans, the diving plague cast aspersions on the integrity of the whole sport. To casual fans, they asked how can you like a game where it seems like everyone cheats? To the rabid fan, it ruined their dream of the Beautiful Game winning out.
This disillusionment has many fans asking what can be done to clean up the sport of this crap. The answer is a bit less direct than you think.
Unlike most fans, I refuse to separate diving from obstruction and shirt pulling.
Obstruction and shirt pulling are also forms of cheating that ruin the game. But they are rarely, if ever called. Furthermore, when a player cheats by play acting, fans want him tarred and feathered. But when a player cheats by shirt pulling, fans excuse it as 'savvy' or 'sophisticated' play. This double standard is deplorable.
Diving and obstruction/shirt pulling are not separate crimes against soccer. They are two sides of the same coin. Defenders obstruct the attacking player or grab a chunk of his jersey. Many creative players have had their careers cut short because they've literally been kicked out of the game by players fouling them with impunity. Former Dutch legend (and current Dutch coach) Marco Van Basten is one example of someone who retired because of repeated injuries. I fear that Italy's Francesco Totti will soon be another.
These defensive players and goons masquerading as such get away with it. So the attacking player rationalizes, "The defender is getting an advantage by breaking the rules. If I dive, I'm not cheating; I'm just evening things up."
I don't condone diving. But you can't condemn one form of cheating and refuse to acknowledge any other. Too many fans do.
Referees need to crack down on diving. But they simultaneously need to crack down on obstruction and shirt pulling. And they need to give yellow cards for hard fouls, not for pedantic nonsense like they did this World Cup.
Most of the time, the only way to get the ref to blow the whistle when a real foul is committed is to fall to the ground. If a player doesn't fall down, then the legitimate foul will not be called and the attacking player is punished for staying on his feet in a sporting manner.
That's the dirty little secret that no one talks about but it's central to addressing the problem.
Of all the fouls that result in the award of a penalty kick, what percentage are awarded to players who are fouled but stay on their feet? I venture to say the number is something like 0.01 percent. In 12 years of playing and watching dozens of matches every month, I bet I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen this happen and have fingers left over.
When sporting behavior is punished and unsporting behavior is rewarded, can you really blame players for choosing the latter?
Punishing divers is an important change that needs to happen. In such cases, I'd like to see the foul or penalty awarded to the attacking team AND the attacking player's diver yellow carded. If a player is fouled and flops, two infractions have been committed; there's no need to choose only one or the other. Punish both.
Referees also need to do one other important thing: they must call fouls even in cases where the attacking player doesn't fall down.
This is far and away the best thing officials can do to discourage diving. Once attacking players realize they won't be punished for staying on their feet, that's exactly what they'll try to do. And defenders will learn that their cheating will not be rewarded.
Diving in soccer must be dealt with. But it can only be dealt with if it's seen for what it is: a response to a larger pattern of cheating.
Monday, July 10, 2006
2006 World Cup recap: analysis
The 2006 World Cup ended in fantastic fashion with the Italians lifting their fourth world championship. I would've given anything to have watched the match in Rome or Naples or even in Montreal's Little Italy, where I'd hoped to be.
But the match was fantastic only if you're an Italian fan, like myself. If you're a neutral, then it was a fairly disappointing match. Since I started watching World Cups in 1990, I haven't seen a single final match that was good. Yesterday's fairly disappointing game was far better than any of the other four I've seen; at least both teams scored... something which hadn't happened in a final in 20 years.
The final was marred by two events. One was the penalty shootout, which decided the champion. As an Italian fan, I was thrilled the Azzurri won... especially since I suffered with them through penalty heartbreak in three successive World Cups ('90, '94 and '98). But winning by penalty shootout is a little bit anti-climatic. Surprisingly, I was more joyous after Italy's late pair of goals won the semifinal. I've always said that the penalty shootout should be eliminated. Play golden goal (sudden death overtime) until someone scores. End of story. A penalty shootout is no way to determine a world champion.
The main event that stole headlines in the final was the red card handed to French legend Zinedine Zidane, who was appearing in his last professional soccer match. He inexplicably headbutted Italian Marco Materazzi in the chest. It has been reported that Materazzi provoked Zidane by allegedly* calling him 'a dirty terrorist.' Zidane is Muslim and of Algerian descent.
As I've written before, racism is a serious problem in too many soccer grounds in continental Europe, particularly southern and eastern. The plague has been effectively tackled by soccer authorities in England, which proves that the problem can be dealt with if the will is there. Assuing the accusations against the Italian are true, hopefully the shared shame of the Zidane-Materazzi incident will provoke European authorities to crack down on xenophobia on and off the pitch. I won't hold my breath.
Yet the fairly disappointing final was an appropriate end to a fairly disappointing tournament. The Azzurri were clearly the most consistent team in a Cup where most of the heavyweights were very erratic. Besides Italy, only Germany regularly played anything close to world class soccer.
This World Cup seems to continue a trend. The last World Cup held in Europe, France '98, was fairly disappointing. The previous one in Europe, Italy '90, was so negative that it prompted the international soccer federation (FIFA) to change the rules! By constrast, the last three World Cups held outside Europe (Korea/Japan '02, USA '94 and Mexico '86) featured lots of goals and some breathtaking soccer, especially in the latter two. Thank goodness FIFA will start rotating World Cups among the six soccer-playing continents so half of the tournaments aren't European snoozefests.
The tournament was dominated by two big stories, both negative: officiating and diving.
I wrote earlier about the flood of red and yellow cards. According to the laws of the game, players should only be shown yellow cards if they are 'guilty of unsporting behavior' or of a handful of other specific actions. However, during this tournament, it seemed like nearly every foul was considered 'unsporting conduct.' The yellow card's deterrent effect was devalued by its frequency. And too many players missed games because of suspensions induced by dubious yellow cards.
What's most interesting is that the semifinals and final were very well officiated. Cards were reserved for more serious play, as they should be. The games were decided by the teams, not the man in the middle. Also as they should be.
Yet the flood of cards did not prevent the tournament's other biggest talking point: diving. But that's a topic for my next entry.
Some have argued that the quality of World Cup matches is not what they used to be. These are usually Europeans and they typically attribute this to the expansion of the tournament from 24 to 32 teams which allowed in several more smaller (read: non-European) soccer nations. I disagree. After all, with the notably exceptions of Argentina and Germany, even the 'superpowers' of soccer were produced mostly uninspiring stuff. Brazil was a motley collection of talented individuals. Italy, though more attacking than usual, was its typical efficient self. Portugal did too but that was marred by diving and incessant whining. Spain had potential but choked as usual.
I'm sorry but 'minnows' like Ivory Coast and Ghana produced more consistently compelling soccer than anything offered by 'big' teams like England and France. But neither of the 'minnows' made it past the second round, while drab Ukraine and dirtycheatingportugal (TM) both made it further. This demonstrates how the modern game doesn't reward positive soccer.
I think the quality of the World Cup appears to be going down for two reasons. One is the interminable demands on top players. Most of the top players have been playing competitive matches almost non-stop for eleven months. Longer if you count last summer's pre-season training. Top clubs typically play at least 50 competitive matches in a season, plus pre- and in-season friendlies (exhibitions) plus the long foreign tours they all seem to take. As soon as the club season was over in mid-May, players went immediately into training camps with their national teams. Players are humans, not machines.
The other reason the quality of the World Cup appears to be going down is down to perception. In the past, the World Cup was essentially the showpiece of the best players in the world. But now, the best players in the world tend to be concentrated in top European clubs. And while clubs train together for ten months out of the year or more, national teams are only together for a few weeks before the World Cup. Is it any surprise that national teams don't mesh nearly as well as club teams, despite the presence of top players on both? Let's face it, FC Barcelona was better than any national team at this tournament. The showpiece to watch if you want to see the best soccer is no longer the World Cup, but the European Champions League.
And since the Champions League gets huge television exposure as well, the World Cup seems to pale in comparison, at least in terms of the quality of the soccer. The sport isn't stagnant at all levels. The malaise is mainly at the international level.
For this, I propose pushing back the World Cup a month. So that the Cup is primarily in the month of July, instead of June. Make it so that the World Cup is at the BEGINNING of the European season (where most of the top players play) not at the end. This would give players a few weeks of rest before WC training camp and hopefully we'd see fresher legs and minds.
A game without mistakes is pretty boring to watch. People remember the 'golden era' of soccer. And when they do, it's not bone crunching defenders they remember, it's the brilliance of Pele, the brashness of Maradona, the grace of Beckenbauer. There have to be ways to reward risk taking soccer. Knockout round games must be played until someone scores (unlimited golden goal). The present system (30 automatic minute of extra time and then a penalty shootout) encourages tired teams to sit back and play for penalties. 6 games this tournament went to extra time; in only two of them did someone score. With extra time until someone scores, teams are forced to attack at some point.
As good as this would be, such a change would only affect a handful of games. There have to be other ways to encourage attacking soccer. I'm not talking about gimmicks like expanding the size of the goals. People don't need to see 6-5 games to enjoy soccer. But they do want to see a good scoring chance more than once every 20 minutes. Some have treating a 0-0 game the same as a loss for both teams; the premise being you are not rewarded in the standings if you don't score. Others have suggested awarding four points for a win, instead of the current three. I'm not endorsing or rejecting either of these ideas, but they're worth considering. If anyone has any ideas on how to encourage attacking soccer within the fundamental context of the game, please share them.
Tommorrow: The diving epidemic and how to deal with it. It's not exactly what you think!
*-Update: It looks like the 'dirty terrorist' reports were erroneous. Zidane claims that Materazzi insulted his mother and sister.
But the match was fantastic only if you're an Italian fan, like myself. If you're a neutral, then it was a fairly disappointing match. Since I started watching World Cups in 1990, I haven't seen a single final match that was good. Yesterday's fairly disappointing game was far better than any of the other four I've seen; at least both teams scored... something which hadn't happened in a final in 20 years.
The final was marred by two events. One was the penalty shootout, which decided the champion. As an Italian fan, I was thrilled the Azzurri won... especially since I suffered with them through penalty heartbreak in three successive World Cups ('90, '94 and '98). But winning by penalty shootout is a little bit anti-climatic. Surprisingly, I was more joyous after Italy's late pair of goals won the semifinal. I've always said that the penalty shootout should be eliminated. Play golden goal (sudden death overtime) until someone scores. End of story. A penalty shootout is no way to determine a world champion.
The main event that stole headlines in the final was the red card handed to French legend Zinedine Zidane, who was appearing in his last professional soccer match. He inexplicably headbutted Italian Marco Materazzi in the chest. It has been reported that Materazzi provoked Zidane by allegedly* calling him 'a dirty terrorist.' Zidane is Muslim and of Algerian descent.
As I've written before, racism is a serious problem in too many soccer grounds in continental Europe, particularly southern and eastern. The plague has been effectively tackled by soccer authorities in England, which proves that the problem can be dealt with if the will is there. Assuing the accusations against the Italian are true, hopefully the shared shame of the Zidane-Materazzi incident will provoke European authorities to crack down on xenophobia on and off the pitch. I won't hold my breath.
Yet the fairly disappointing final was an appropriate end to a fairly disappointing tournament. The Azzurri were clearly the most consistent team in a Cup where most of the heavyweights were very erratic. Besides Italy, only Germany regularly played anything close to world class soccer.
This World Cup seems to continue a trend. The last World Cup held in Europe, France '98, was fairly disappointing. The previous one in Europe, Italy '90, was so negative that it prompted the international soccer federation (FIFA) to change the rules! By constrast, the last three World Cups held outside Europe (Korea/Japan '02, USA '94 and Mexico '86) featured lots of goals and some breathtaking soccer, especially in the latter two. Thank goodness FIFA will start rotating World Cups among the six soccer-playing continents so half of the tournaments aren't European snoozefests.
The tournament was dominated by two big stories, both negative: officiating and diving.
I wrote earlier about the flood of red and yellow cards. According to the laws of the game, players should only be shown yellow cards if they are 'guilty of unsporting behavior' or of a handful of other specific actions. However, during this tournament, it seemed like nearly every foul was considered 'unsporting conduct.' The yellow card's deterrent effect was devalued by its frequency. And too many players missed games because of suspensions induced by dubious yellow cards.
What's most interesting is that the semifinals and final were very well officiated. Cards were reserved for more serious play, as they should be. The games were decided by the teams, not the man in the middle. Also as they should be.
Yet the flood of cards did not prevent the tournament's other biggest talking point: diving. But that's a topic for my next entry.
Some have argued that the quality of World Cup matches is not what they used to be. These are usually Europeans and they typically attribute this to the expansion of the tournament from 24 to 32 teams which allowed in several more smaller (read: non-European) soccer nations. I disagree. After all, with the notably exceptions of Argentina and Germany, even the 'superpowers' of soccer were produced mostly uninspiring stuff. Brazil was a motley collection of talented individuals. Italy, though more attacking than usual, was its typical efficient self. Portugal did too but that was marred by diving and incessant whining. Spain had potential but choked as usual.
I'm sorry but 'minnows' like Ivory Coast and Ghana produced more consistently compelling soccer than anything offered by 'big' teams like England and France. But neither of the 'minnows' made it past the second round, while drab Ukraine and dirtycheatingportugal (TM) both made it further. This demonstrates how the modern game doesn't reward positive soccer.
I think the quality of the World Cup appears to be going down for two reasons. One is the interminable demands on top players. Most of the top players have been playing competitive matches almost non-stop for eleven months. Longer if you count last summer's pre-season training. Top clubs typically play at least 50 competitive matches in a season, plus pre- and in-season friendlies (exhibitions) plus the long foreign tours they all seem to take. As soon as the club season was over in mid-May, players went immediately into training camps with their national teams. Players are humans, not machines.
The other reason the quality of the World Cup appears to be going down is down to perception. In the past, the World Cup was essentially the showpiece of the best players in the world. But now, the best players in the world tend to be concentrated in top European clubs. And while clubs train together for ten months out of the year or more, national teams are only together for a few weeks before the World Cup. Is it any surprise that national teams don't mesh nearly as well as club teams, despite the presence of top players on both? Let's face it, FC Barcelona was better than any national team at this tournament. The showpiece to watch if you want to see the best soccer is no longer the World Cup, but the European Champions League.
And since the Champions League gets huge television exposure as well, the World Cup seems to pale in comparison, at least in terms of the quality of the soccer. The sport isn't stagnant at all levels. The malaise is mainly at the international level.
For this, I propose pushing back the World Cup a month. So that the Cup is primarily in the month of July, instead of June. Make it so that the World Cup is at the BEGINNING of the European season (where most of the top players play) not at the end. This would give players a few weeks of rest before WC training camp and hopefully we'd see fresher legs and minds.
A game without mistakes is pretty boring to watch. People remember the 'golden era' of soccer. And when they do, it's not bone crunching defenders they remember, it's the brilliance of Pele, the brashness of Maradona, the grace of Beckenbauer. There have to be ways to reward risk taking soccer. Knockout round games must be played until someone scores (unlimited golden goal). The present system (30 automatic minute of extra time and then a penalty shootout) encourages tired teams to sit back and play for penalties. 6 games this tournament went to extra time; in only two of them did someone score. With extra time until someone scores, teams are forced to attack at some point.
As good as this would be, such a change would only affect a handful of games. There have to be other ways to encourage attacking soccer. I'm not talking about gimmicks like expanding the size of the goals. People don't need to see 6-5 games to enjoy soccer. But they do want to see a good scoring chance more than once every 20 minutes. Some have treating a 0-0 game the same as a loss for both teams; the premise being you are not rewarded in the standings if you don't score. Others have suggested awarding four points for a win, instead of the current three. I'm not endorsing or rejecting either of these ideas, but they're worth considering. If anyone has any ideas on how to encourage attacking soccer within the fundamental context of the game, please share them.
Tommorrow: The diving epidemic and how to deal with it. It's not exactly what you think!
*-Update: It looks like the 'dirty terrorist' reports were erroneous. Zidane claims that Materazzi insulted his mother and sister.
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