Men’s soccer is popular in the United States about every four years, when the World Cup transpires and Americans embrace this sport – known as football in the rest of the world – if the U.S. happens to have qualified, which is the case in 2022.
Watching the games transpire can be quite the experience for the folks who don’t live and die with this stuff. Witness my brother, on hand at my house for Thanksgiving and so compelled to take in a bit of a game involving Portugal with one of the world’s top players, Cristiano Ronaldo.
Having seen, for perhaps the 50th time in this game, a player collapse as if shot and writhe on the ground in apparent agony, my brother was moved to observe in politically incorrect terms that the players were a bit soft.
Understand that the brother’s preference is women’s softball, where the players arguably are much tougher than your average men’s soccer practitioner, so his amazement was duly noted.
For the benefit of my brother and folks like him, in advance of the titanic Tuesday meeting of the United States and Iran, we offer a soccer primer.
First, some World Cup housekeeping. Thirty-two teams are divided into four-team groups and each team plays the other three in the group. Three points are awarded for a win, one for a tie and zero (nil) for a loss.
At the end of the round-robin group play, 16 teams (the top two from each group) advance to a knockout stage in which, blessedly, there are no more ties. A game ending regulation tied moves on to a pair of 15-minute overtime periods. If no one is ahead then, it moves to a shootout, goalie vs. one shooter at a time.
A tradition of soccer, above the kiddie level, is for players absorbing even the most minor physical contact to collapse to the turf and put on a display that would get them thrown out of any credible actors’ workshop for overacting, but is encouraged and even rewarded in soccer.
Sometimes this act gets the alleged causer of the pain issued a yellow card. Get, two and you’re gone from the game.
If the fouling player is judged to have been particularly egregious, a red card is shown. The player is gone and his team plays short-handed.
And, if the foul – yellow card or red – occurs in the 18-yard deep penalty box in front of the goal, then the aggrieved player’s team is awarded a penalty shot, a free chance at the goalie from 12 yards out.
Now you understand the motivation for all the ridiculous overacting. Awarding yellow cards for bad acting, or flopping, might help limit this.
An aside to this flopping is the tendency of goalies, after having made even the most routine save, to fling themselves to ground, looking like someone having completed back-to-back marathons, with a triathlon thrown in for good measure.
Their fatigue is understandable. On a particularly tough night, they might be called upon to make three, maybe four saves.
This is because goal scoring in the typical World Cup game is, shall we say, sparse.
The U.S. and England battled to a titanic 0-0 draw in group play, which was widely heralded as scintillating, gut-wrenching and otherwise riveting. If you watched the game – and I did in its entirety – it was more like two fighters trying to stay away from each other for the duration of their bout and hoping the judges would gift them a win.
Alas, in soccer, there are no judges.
Ties are rampant at the World Cup. Spain and Germany, winners of two of the past three World Cups, slogged to a 1-1 tie Sunday.
Urgency to win is not a soccer theme.
But come Tuesday, the U.S. needs to beat Iran to advance out of group play. Our guys have tied Wales and England to date, so a win would be their first. Two goals would be a watershed scoring moment.
This World Cup has been quite the political stage. German players covered their mouths for a group photo before playing Japan, a lament against the soccer sanctioning body cracking down on social justice warrior actions such as rainbow armbands to protest host Qatar’s stance on gay rights.
The Germans then lost to Japan, prompting more than one wag to suggest the players might have concentrated on the game instead of political statements.
English players took a knee before their game with the U.S., then had trouble getting up the rest of the game, putting on a pathetic display for a team that came into this event ranked fifth in the world.
Iran has come out asking the U.S. be banned from the World Cup for a social media posting by our U.S. Soccer Federation of Iran’s flag without the Islamic Republic emblem – this supposedly to support human rights protesters in Iran.
Despite all this, there are redeeming virtues to soccer games, most notably the fact that the 45-minute halves transpire without television ads or timeouts. Time lost to injuries, or faking, is tacked on to the end of each half by the referee in what is called stoppage time. Usually this is 4-6 minutes.
The games are played in a relatively short amount of time, especially when compared to Major League Baseball or college football.
Now, you are prepared to watch the U.S. either beat Iran Tuesday and move on to knockout play, or be sent home if the result is a tie or loss.
Enjoy the histrionics, on the field and off, and perhaps between the cracks some worthwhile soccer viewing will find its way into the tableau.
Sam Ross Jr's site 