I started to have this conversation with Casey, but I thought it was worth putting up here just to get feedback from whoever wants to comment.
First some background. For the record, Casey watches as much soccer as anyone I know. I can watch it, but I tend to watch more when the U.S. national team is involved. But having gone to what was a decent soccer school (Evansville), I picked up a few things here and there. I’ve never played the game outside of P.E. classes in grade school and high school (where, coincidentally, I took the worst hit of my LIFE, but that’s another story), and never had any coaching, so what I know tends to come from what I’ve seen and heard.
There’s a host of reasons that people have suggested why soccer hasn’t taken hold in this country the way it seems to in the rest of the world: Lack of scoring, no breaks outside of halftime, arcane offsides rules, etc. There’s some validity in most of these. However, I’d like to add one more. Top level soccer players act like complete wussies.
Don’t get me wrong. Soccer players are probably among the best conditioned non-triathletes in the world. They basically have to run and get bumped around almost non-stop for 90 minutes. At Evansville, I’ll guarantee you that the soccer team could have run circles around the basketball team, or anyone else for that matter. They definitely get bumped and banged around. But soccer players have no respect for themselves. In a street fight, give me a hockey player, even without the sticks. Hockey players have to basically be dismembered or paralyzed before they’ll let someone cart them off on the stretcher. They’ll get 24 stitches on their face (without anesthesia), try to pretend to not be concussed, and be pissed off if they miss a shift or two.
Soccer players, though, are carried off the field more frequently than Chris Webber calls time out. Then somehow, they’ll hop off the stretcher and want back in the game. Do that in a hockey game, and I guarantee you the next time the guy’s out on the ice, he’ll have a REASON to be carried off. Touch a soccer player on his shoe or shin, and he’ll go down like he’s just been shot by 3 different snipers. He’ll then roll around on the ground long enough to get the referee’s attention and pray for a foul to be called on the guy who probably just breathed on him sideways. Once either a foul is called or it becomes obvious that no call will be coming, they pop back up as if nothing happened.
In order to try to stop some of this diving, Casey has proposed fining guys for dives. I think these guys make too much for that to be effective on anyone but the lowest paid guys. So my proposal is this: Create a “Bulls-eye band”. Or you can make it just an armband with an “X” on it. This armband is given to a player who took a dive, or just acted like way too much of a pansy after being hit. The player with the armband is allowed to be tackled, elbowed, shoved, or if you’re Zinadine Zidane, headbutted when he’s in possession of the ball…without fear of repercussion. That’s right. You can visciously tackle a guy from behind, and you won’t receive a red or yellow card. You won’t even be whistled for a foul. However, this only applies to the first “contact” with the player. After he’s taken one of these hits, he gives the armband back to the referee. That’s assuming, of course, that he’s still able to walk/conscious/not dismembered/dead.
Does this seem a bit harsh? Yeah, probably. But all it would take is one (maybe two or three for the dumb ones) season ending hit resulting in a torn ACL or severed Achilles tendon to get the message across that NOBODY WANTS TO SEE YOU ROLLING ON THE GROUND LIKE A 3-YEAR OLD.
Next time…How to make golf into something a sports fan would want to watch.
