Every four years or so, more than 300 countries strive to qualify for soccer’s World Cup – except Canada, which is too busy watching hockey during the season, and the hockey draft and trade, in the off-season.
Soccer, a name adapted by North Americans, because ‘Football’ had been taken by a bona-fide sport that is exponentially more popular with fans. Besides, a vast majority of people surveyed knew little about soccer anyway. It was a game perceived to be played on a field that must be a few kilometers long since it takes nearly a dozen minutes to get that ball all the way to the opposition’s end, then kick the ball at a gaping net almost as wide as the field itself with a goalkeeper attempting to block the shot as if in the middle of the ocean frantically trying to swim to shore.
I knew very little about the game when growing up. I did know that Manchester (wherever it is located) had the greatest team in the world and that Stanley Matthews was the greatest player that ever lived, yet I didn’t know the team he played for. I knew he was knighted by the Queen while still trying to score a second goal in his career. Also, that the rivalry between the Celtics and Rangers teams in Scotland was so intense, praise for the wrong side in soccer circles could initiate a full-scaled brawl over religion – I doubt if the Big Guy up above gave a damn over who won or lost.
From what I fathomed, the object was to feet-handle the ball toward the opposing goal. Isn’t that the same as hockey only without the bloodshed? Since most games end scoreless (0-0), they are decided by a shoot-out. Right from the get-go, fans in sheer boredom sing songs and sway back and forth sometimes in synchronization until the shoot-out finally arrives. Afterwards, the real action of the day is fighting crowds and traffic to get home and boast to family and friends, if they will listen – all about the greatest game in the world.
The three main positions are strikers, mid-fielders and defenders but we in the Valley refer to them as centres, forwards and defencemen. Players can use any part of their body except their hands. As well as their feet used for a shot, they smash the ball with their head called a knuckle-header or is the player called that – not sure! Intensive training in acting is mandatory for every player, sometimes referred to as “Fool the Referee”. These actors fall down during the game, writhing in pain while curled into the most awkward position imaginable, hoping for a bogus infraction called against their opponents. At the very least, it incites rousing cheers from supporters. Now that Hollywood scouts attend key games, lucrative acting careers for the best fakers can await them.
A free kick means that the remaining players form a human wall and block the goalkeeper’s view, all the while to carefully protect their private parts. Unlike in police states, soccer referees give out warning cards, yellow and red, for the best acting performances. The aim of players is to collect a complete set of these certificates for trading with friends.
This same vague notion of soccer continued on until someone relocated to the area that a lust for soccer poised like the needle of a compass, in one direction only. He quickly picked up on the wretched lack of interest around and made it his mission to educate his new neighbours. To most of them, when he plugged soccer as the greatest of all sports, they got their backs up and told him to get a life – hockey was boss. When he brought up soccer terms such as FIFA and Strikers, people thought he meant Fifi the local stripper. He did make some in-roads though. A small number became admirers. With the others there was eventually a scoreless standoff. If the soccer buff watched a complete hockey game, they would watch a soccer game! However, he just couldn’t swallow the idea of gliding skates to replace sprinting feet.
We all felt empathy for the goalkeeper; a net too wide, no humongous leg-pads or huge trapper mitts to help block the hall. And his need to decide which side of the net to dive towards, even before a foot boots the ball. Thanks to the NHL for getting the net size correct right from day one.
On average a good team will score a goal or two every year or so. Standard equipment is a shirt, shorts, sneakers and clean underwear. The maximum substitutions is three — provided notes from their mothers are on hand. For some bizarre reason, soccer players go by singular names like Ronaldo, Pele, Cher and Madonna etc.. I guess so their governments can’t track them down for unpaid income taxes.
I understand soccer was invented in the mid-14th century in France when a serf realized he could escape by pretending to kick a cantaloupe in front of him. In seven centuries the game of soccer still hasn’t modernized. To make matters worse, time clocks work forward so a match seems to be never-ending. The referee, also the timekeeper, only guesstimates when time runs out. That would be unacceptable in sports played in the Valley.
