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If you watched yesterday’s World Cup tournament game between Chile and Brazil, then you were probably wildly entertained. Even the biggest soccer truther in the world had to admit that the shootout in which Chile’s fifth and final kick nailed the crossbar and crushed their dreams, was riveting television. But allow me a minute to explain why it sucked.
Shootouts should never, ever be used to decided a tournament game in ANY sport – particularly a tournament where the loser’s season ends immediately afterwards. They played 120+ minutes of a grueling game, and then it was ultimately decided by a skills and luck competition – emphasis on luck. Guessing which way a player will shoot is 100% luck on the part of the goalie. Because the ball comes from so close and comes so fast, they don’t have time to react. Just throw their bodies left or right and hope the ball nails them in the junk. That’s how we pick winners in the World Cup.
The ball is wayyyyyy too close to the keeper when they shoot it. Even Mrs. Turtleboy pointed that out yesterday. And if Mrs. Turtleboy actually has an opinion about sports, that means they’re doing something so wrong that it got her to notice it. The ball can reach speeds up to 125 miles per hour, and unlike in hockey the goal is pretty fucking big. On average about 80% of penalty kicks go in. It’s not a fair fight between the goalie and the kicker. So basically if you have five guys taking PK’s, one of them will be the goat. Thus we’re not doing penalty kicks to create heroes, we’re doing it to create Buckner’s.
The NHL has penalty shots to decide REGULAR season games because they wanted to get rid of ties. Group play (World Cup’s regular season) doesn’t have penalty kicks either, because their games often end as NHL games used to – in ties. However, when the playoffs start the NHL gets rid of penalty shots, because that’s not how anyone wants to win a playoff game.
Not World Cup though. After an awesome and exciting back and forth game between Brazil and Chile the winner was decided in a skills competition. This would be the equivalent of deciding an NBA playoff game with a three point shootout, an MLB playoff game being decided by a home run derby, or an NFL playoff game being decided by a punt, pass, and kick competition. Bush league.
What I can’t stand about self-proclaimed soccer fans is that you cannot even QUESTION any aspect of soccer. Because we only watch it once every four years, so our opinion is invalid. Newsflash, there is a reason we watch it once every four years – the product sucks at times. You can’t question the arbitrary nature of “stoppage time added” without being called a xenophobic American. That’s like saying that you want democracy instead of monarchy makes you xenophobic. How about we just have an idea for a way to make things better? Nah, that can’t be it. Xenophobic it is.
So when I threw out my distaste for penalty kicks on the Facebook machine yesterday the soccer establishment was out in full force:
“The world cup is more watched than any American sport. And they don’t do penalty kicks on every game.”
See that right there? Soccer defense mechanism. Bros, it’s OK to criticize a game if you see something you don’t like. Changes happen all the time in sports. Imagine the NFL without instant replay or the forward pass. People fought those too, but they ended up being very, very wrong because those are some really good fucking rules. So instead of admitting that part of the game is flawed the soccer establishment points to the ratings.
Here’s another pro-penalty kicks comment:
Because after running, kicking the ball, taking the ball from someone, head butting the ball, with only one big break in between for 120 mins straight will kick the living shit out of you. Only soccer players understand that. I was one. All my football and hockey player friends always busted my balls and never understood what it was like to do those 120 mins. Doesn’t matter how great you think you are, after a while your body just can’t take it.
Too many things wrong with this I don’t know where to start. For starters the concept that there is only one big break in the game is laughable. What do you call the two minutes of rest time after every goal? How about the two or three minutes we spend watching some weenie squirm around on the ground every time he falls down? Or when you’re a defender and your team has the ball on the attack, how much are you running then? Yes there is a lot of running in soccer, but there’s also a lot of standing around.
Secondly, the soccer establishment loves to point out that they played soccer and you didn’t. For the record Turtleboy has played many a soccer match in his day, but that’s not the point. The point is that this is a really, really shitty way to try to prove your point. I Had some stooge on Facebook tell me the other day that I’ve obviously never played soccer. As if playing varsity soccer for Shrewsbury High School before a stellar career at Worcester State is some sort of PH fucking D in soccer.
Lastly, all I ever hear from the soccer proletariat is that soccer players are the best conditioned in the world. So the fact that we have penalty kicks because they’re too tired to continue pretty much debunks that as complete bullshit right? Oh you’re tired? Let’s just stop playing and kick the ball from 10 feet away at a giant goal.
How bout you play to the last drop? How bout the player who is too exhausted to continue is the player that loses? I swear LeBron James played the wrong sport. With its emphasis on flopping, skills competition, and timeouts for dehydrating, LeBron would’ve been a perfect fit on a soccer field.
But I’m willing to compromise, unlike the protectors of soccer’s integrity. But that’s only because I’m a rational human being who likes to improve things that suck. Here’s my alternative for penalty kick shootouts like in yesterday’s Brazil-Chile game:
- Each team gets a 3 on 2 advantage with exactly one minute to put the ball in the net. If the ball doesn’t go in after one minute then you don’t get the point. If it does then you’d get 1 point, or the equivalent of a penalty kick. At least that way you have to actually play soccer to win the game.
- If Brazil goes first and scores on the 3 on 2 then Chile gets to go on the 3 on 2 next. They have the opportunity to tie it up if Brazil had scored, or take the lead if Brazil did not.
- If the ball goes out of bounds it’s automatically a throw in for the team with 3 players, no matter who kicked it out. There are no corner kicks.
- You alternate 3 on 2 situations five times, just as you would in penalty kicks. or until you have a winner.
Boom. Problem solved.
Now go ahead soccer establishment and let me know what an ignorant American I am. Bonus points if you mention something about your soccer playing days in the comments. Go.
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Turtleboy has gone mainstream. Check out our blogs for WEEI.COM’s Dennis & Callahan’s Producer’s Blog.
3 Comment(s)
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you called it soccer, therefore, i didn’t read and will assume your whole article is bullshit.
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