The Weekly Screed (#681)

World Cup soccer: Designed to be dull

by David Benjamin

MADISON, Wis. — Most sports become more interesting as the skill of the players matures. This is why NFL football is more compelling than watching sixth-graders play the game. The striking exception to this general rule is World Cup soccer. In soccer, the higher you go, the duller it plays.

I say this despite decades of sportswriting (including soccer) and really trying to enjoy the world’s most popular and accessible game. I go back far enough to fondly recall the voice of Danny Blanchflower, the color guy for CBS’ pro soccer broadcasts in 1967. (Yes, America had soccer in ’67.)

But high-stakes soccer is a troubled sport that exposes its underbelly every four years in the dreariest, costliest, most predictable tournament on earth.

How bad is soccer? I wrote this on 15 June. The tournament ends a month later, but I know already who’s going to win. (Think about it. You do, too.) I know the final score will be either 1-0 or 2-1. Or it will be a 0-0 or 1-1 tie decided by one of these silly kicking-contests because — after two brief overtimes — “the world’s best-conditioned athletes” are just too tuckered out to play even five more measly minutes. (Although “extra time” is something athletes in other sports do regularly. There’s no tying in baseball — or basketball, volleyball, tennis…)

Soccer’s basic problem is that it’s not fun to watch. It’s maddening with suspense, but fun? I remember sitting in a London pub during a big Premier League game — pitting two insurance companies, AIA vs. AON — against each other. It was on all the TV screens. I wasn’t watching, but I couldn’t help hearing these long stretches of tense silence, interrupted by an occasional hopeful shout from fans around the bar, followed by a group chorus of “Aaaaaaw,” punctuated by a few uniquely British epithets like “Blimey” and “Bugger!”

The reason for these predictable noises is that nobody hardly ever scores. In the Premier League last year, only two (of 20) teams averaged two goals a game.

I’ve long held the theory that the paucity of scoring in soccer explains the violence of its fans. There are many games bloodier on the field — football, rugby, wrestling, girls field hockey — but no fans more thuggish, brutal and vicious than the frustrated maniacs who follow soccer but rarely get to high-five a goal.

For example, in World Cups from 1934-54, games averaged more than four goals. In ‘54, the average per game was 5.38. Since then, scoring has dwindled to the point where the typical Cup match is a 1-1 tie. There have been 167 World Cup ties (in 412 games — 40 percent) since 1986. Of these, 58 were scoreless ties. Meanwhile, thousands of Major League Baseball, NBA and NFL playoff games have recorded hundreds of “extra time” periods without one tie.

So, have soccer players’ scoring skills deteriorated that much since1954?

Actually, the players are better. The coaches are worse. Today, soccer is willfully designed to be low-scoring. Your typical bigtime soccer coach prefers not to risk offensive thrusts once he has a 1-0 lead. Better to retreat into a nearly impenetrable defensive formation and stifle the opponent’s offense — boringly and tediously, but “beautifully” — for 50, 60, 80 minutes.

And if, miraculously, the other team scores? No big deal. From then on, a tie gives each team a point in the standings. Soccer coaches help each other out. They never worry about getting creamed, 6-0, and trying to explain the disaster to the press. When every final is 1-0, 1-1, 0-0 — even, wow! 2-1 — where’s the shame? The whole spectacle is duller than special-ed Scrabble, but the job is safe.

All this tedium seems to gratify FIFA, soccer’s flagrantly corrupt ruling body. I say “ruling” advisedly because — unlike most other pro sports bodies — FIFA hasn’t updated a rule in decades. As coaches went to absurd lengths to strangle scoring and protect their prestige (and drive fans to drink, followed by felony assault), FIFA did nothing to reverse the sport’s defensive crouch.

But soccer is perfect already. Unlike the eternal kvetching among baseball, football, basketball, hockey fans, soccer fans swallow the “beautiful sport” propaganda and defend their primadonnas with blind devotion. How could you possibly improve “real football?”, they ask. 

How? OK, raise the crossbar 12 little inches. This would be like the introduction of the three-point shot in hoops. The possibility of a long-distance kick slipping just under the bar, above the outstretched goalie’s hand, would loosen up defenses dramatically. And imagine the joy in the stands.

Or, better yet…

… Eliminate the rule — offsides — that penalizes the sport’s fastest players. (Imagine basketball without fast breaks. Imagine wide receivers in the NFL waiting for linebackers to catch up. Imagine baseball without base-stealing.)

Shrink the field by 20 percent. Reduce the number of players on the pitch. Allow unlimited substitution. Throw away all those cockamamie colored cards and install a penalty box. (Imagine LeBron James getting suspended two games — by a five-foot ref! — for knocking somebody down.)

Better yet, hire honest officials. Get corporate logos off the uniforms.  (Let Man U be Man U. Let Tottenham be Tottenham!) Maybe teams should stop signing gambling conglomerates (dafabet, Marathonbet) as sponsors. Return Qatar’s bribes and hold the 2022 Cup in a country where it isn’t 120 degrees every day in the summer. Break up FIFA and ship Sepp Blatter to a nursing home.

Think about letting players catch the ball before kicking it. (Mike Ditka: “If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn’t have given us arms.”)

But first, above all, ban ties. Make the millionaires play ‘til somebody scores — in sudden death, with each team removing a player in each extra period. (Imagine going to a soccer game KNOWING that one of the teams is going to win. You might decide NOT to kill someone afterwards!)