Futbol

I tried to enjoy soccer last month. I really did.

To be honest, it was the ESPN commercials advertising for the FIFA World Cup throughout the spring that really got me interested. I decided to really give it a shot and try to get into the World Cup a little bit. So a few weeks ago when the US team played their tournament opener against England, I settled in to watch it. Over the next couple of hours I learned exactly why soccer is not and will never be as big in the US as the NFL, NBA, or MLB.

1. The game ends whenever the official decides it ends. Soccer is comprised of two 45-minute halves, but at the end of each half the game continues after those 45 minutes have ended. Why? Because during the 45-minute half the clock never stops, so when a goal is scored or a penalty is called a few seconds or even a minute ticks away on the clock while the teams aren't really playing. At the end of each half it is up to the official to rectify the problem, so he approximates how much of the 45 minutes was spent NOT playing and adds that much time to the end. But if he adds 4 minutes at the end, then a portion of that 4 minutes is also spent NOT playing, so after those 4 minutes the official might add another 1 (if he feels like it). It's not an exact science, so the players just have to keep running around until the official has finally had enough and blows his whistle.

This method apparently works just fine throughout most of the world, but Americans need finality. In our sports we have a clock that counts down, and when it hits zero a very loud buzzer sounds. The game is over. It's not arbitrary, and it's not up to one official's whims. Or, in the case of baseball, there's a 9th inning, and when the defense gets its third out, the game is over. The home plate umpire can't just decide to the give the offense another batter or two. It's over. Americans have to have the build-up and the suspense, and the finality of the end of the game. If you score a goal in soccer in the 89th minute, that's awesome... but it's not exactly last-minute (probably). There are probably still a few minutes left (though no one knows for sure except the official). But when Kobe Bryant throws up a 3-pointer with 1 second left, it's a buzzer-beater. It would lose all its pizzazz if he sank a 3 at the buzzer and then the refs said, "Let's play for a couple more minutes... see if Boston can come back and win or not." It's ridiculous.

2. Games end in ties?!?!?!? This one is even more ridiculous. Even though the World Cup is the biggest possible global sporting event, its games (in the early rounds) ended in a tie (or "draw") as often as not! What?!?! The whole foundation of sports is that there are winners and there are losers -- except, apparently, in soccer where there are tie-ers. I'd be even more miffed if I was a player (and not just someone who almost never watches the sport). Imagine running around on a huge field for more than an hour and a half, spilling blood and sweat all over the place and practically killing yourself with effort... and then having the game end in a tie. It feels like the effort shouldn't have even been spent.

When I was watching the end of the US/England game a few weeks ago I didn't know that it was okay to just end a game at a tie, so when the game drew to a close and the score was tied, I began to get excited. Here comes overtime! I was curious as to what overtime looked like in soccer. Is it just sudden death? Do they have a shootout? Who gets the ball first? Overtime nailbiters can be some of the most exciting times in sports. So imagine my surprise when the official blew his whistle to end the game (at whatever arbitrary point he had decided to do so), and that's exactly what happened. The game ended. Tied. No overtime. No sudden death. No shootout. No winner, no loser. Just a tie. And a waste of my Friday morning.

A brief comparison for effect: I could spend $35 for a pretty good seat at a Rockies game. I know that at the end of the night, my team will have either won or lost. It's also possible, though not probable, that I'll get to see significantly more baseball than the 9 innings I paid for. I attended a Rockies game last season that went 14 innings. That's more than 50% more baseball for free. Not only is it fun and exciting, but at the end of the night, it felt like it was worth being there (win OR lose, it's fun to be among the fans at the stadium that have stuck around this long and cheered on their team). Now, the soccer tickets we had for the other night were about that same price: $35. We had pretty good seats, but there's no way I'm getting any more soccer than what I paid for (90 minutes plus a few minutes of Arbitrary Time or whatever the stuff at the end is called). But what's worse than that is that when the game ended, it felt like the entire effort was for nothing. Everyone who paid for a ticket got gipped. Everyone who had to work at a concession stand on a holiday got gipped. Every police officer who directed traffic before and after the game got gipped. All the money spent on flying the New York Red Bulls to Denver was absolutely worthless. Because nothing was determined.

3. The last thing I'll mention is how the low-scoring nature of the game probably doesn't do the game any favors in trying to attract more American fans. Now, I'm not against low scores in sports just on principle. I think a defensive battle in the NFL can be a thing of beauty. A game in the NFL that ends 10-7 is considered very low-scoring, but I can appreciate watching the game anyway. A pitcher's duel in a Major League Baseball game can be the most suspenseful kind of sport. Every pitch is important; a struggle for both hitter and hurler to out-perform the other.

But in soccer it doesn't seem like anything special has to happen at all for it to be low-scoring. There doesn't necessarily have to be fabulous defense, and the goalie doesn't have to make 10 or 15 saves to keep the other team from scoring. It seems to me that the vast majority of the time in soccer, no one's even coming close to being in a good position to score a goal. It also seems that for every goal I see scored, I see another one called off for some penalty or other (and in the case of the World Cup, we don't even always get to know what the penalty was).

So there you have it. Three (of the probably hundreds of) reasons why soccer isn't and will never be a huge sport in this country. Anybody have more?