World Cup Update Or Something: Second edition

So, it seems the lesser of two cheaters advanced to the World Cup Finals. Yay, Dutch! It reminds me of one of my favoritest lines ever from a movie: “If there are two things I can’t stand, it’s people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures and the Dutch.”  ~ Nigel Powers (Austin Powers: GoldMember.)

But really, every time I see anything Dutch I think of this line, so it really has nothing to do with anything, I just like it. And you could replace “Dutch” with any race (including my own) and I’d think it’s equally funny. The Dutch just got unlucky with this one.

Anyway, good riddance, Uruguay. I wrote a post about wussy-girl soccer cheating last week before the quarterfinals. And what does Uruguay do in the very next game against Ghana? Well, to prevent Ghana’s winning goal from hitting the back of the net, a Uruguayan player (not the goalie) swatted the ball away with both hands. The player would get a red card, Ghana would miss the penalty kick and Uruguay would go on to win.  That, my friends, is bs of the highest order and proof that I have made no headway in persuading the Uruguayan team to not be wussy-girl cheaters.  Furthermore, this was the biggest play of the game and ripped the heart out of an entire country.  Why? Because one man took it upon himself to to so blatantly cheat that it would result in him being ejected. Oooo… ejected. How about…”GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLL!”  That’s what should happen.

The problem seems to be the rules and how it allows a certain amount of cheating. For example, the Dutch are known floppers, their star being the biggest culprit. Here’s how flopping works: Fall down, hold your leg, cry, look around and see if anyone’s buying it, uh oh, everyone’s still running, give it another second to show them you’re in serious pain, make it convincing, crap, they’re still running, ok get up and run, but hold your hands out real wide and yell at the ref in your native tongue.

And it’s that very piece of acting that often determines whether or not a yellow or red card is given to the player who accidentally brushed the victim on the shin guard while they were both trying to kick the same ball. The better the act, the more likely you can get a player ejected or suspended from the next game. It’s not just about penalty kicks, it’s about eliminating the other players through cheating. To me, the equivalent would be a boxer faking being headbutted or punched below the belt in order to get the other fighter disqualified. It’s just dirty pool and a gross manipulation of the rules.

When the Uruguayan player knocked that ball out of the net with his hands, he knew very well what he was doing and, in the end, it resulted in his team winning. This is so wrong on so many levels. If you can’t trust the players to not cheat, you have to govern them, not place the game’s fate on their honor. In basketball, this would have been “goal tending” and resulted in a score. Simple. Boom. No controversy, no cheating, goal. Period.

I have some other ideas, but I’ll save them for my draft to the FIFA board. You see, it’s not a bad game, but I’d like to see some changes for me to watch it regularly. For example, if they had helmets, full pads, could pick up the ball and run with it, tackle each other and only one guy was allowed to kick it and nobody liked him, then I’d probably watch it more.

So, Netherlands is in the finals and Germany plays Spain today. I like Germany because they seem to be the one team that realizes the value of putting the ball in the net. And if they advance, we’ll have a rematch of the ’74 finals, and we all remember what happened then. Wow. I’m still tingling. We should all take a moment to reflect…

Was it as good for you as it was for me?

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