Real Football

How do we recover from the fascination of the World Cup to return to our own sports, which seem so parochial and slow by comparison? Perhaps we can try to incorporate some of the attractive aspects.

• No commercial breaks. Go get your beer at the risk of missing a key play.

• Game time. 90 minutes playing time plus “stoppage time” is about right, our games are way too long, with a 60 minute game taking 3½ hours on TV. How can it take nearly twice as long for a 1 hour game than a 1½ hour game? Commercials.

• Continuous action. Don't gimme a break, please. American football is 12 seconds of action followed a minute standing around. Soccer is almost nonstop.

• Importance. We have “national champions” but they are not the champions of the nation.

• Vuvuzela. Forget the cowbell, gimme more vuvuzela. The buzz is the buzz. Ok, maybe not, because that Pavlovian cue of the expectation of great sport will fade (eventually).

• Fitness. Soccer athletes look almost normal but fantastically fit. Instead of fantastically big and out of shape.

On the other hand, soccer could learn a couple things from American sports.

• Bad referees/calls. Many American sports allow the referees to review and potentially reverse their call, greatly improving fairness.

• Scoring. While it is true that the low score in soccer makes the “GOAL!” all the more exciting, a few more scores per game would reduce the fickleness of the outcome. How can this be done? Remove the offsides penalty and thereby encourage offense over defense and, incidentally, avoid over half the referee mistakes.

I think I'll look for a pick-up game in a local park and kick it around a bit. Maybe see what they think of getting rid of the offsides rule.