Soccer is Fundamentally Flawed

2008 June 5
by CajoleJuice

I assume I have your attention now. No, this is not a “soccer is boring” post. This is about PKs (Penalty Kicks to most Americans), and how it is ridiculous that championship soccer matches come down to them.

Like ending a baseball game with a home run derby, like ending a football game with a field goal contest, like ending a basketball game with a free throw shooting contest (oh wait, that happens a lot). Those are the analogies most people throw out there, and it’s understandable. Soccer fans of course would argue that they aren’t the same thing at all, and they’re probably right, but I still think PKs are extremely dumb.

No matter how you slice it, PKs are a mini-game. Championship soccer games often come down to a mini-game. I’ve used the argument about hockey games going on as long as they need to go, but I concede the point that it is definitely harder for a soccer team to score a goal. My friend Chris also said that teams would just play defensively, and that the soccer players are much more fatigued than the hockey players: continuing to play indefinitely is just not realistic. Fine, I’ll take that premise to be true, even if many Canadians would argue. I played soccer up until high school and I know that I was winded like the entire time, and I’ve never played hockey.

So how about taking a player or two off the field? Would that make it easier to score? How about making the field smaller? Of course, neither of these things is going to happen, as soccer seems very grounded in tradition, like baseball. But if the basic format of soccer doesn’t realistically result in a winner all of the time, and has to resort to a mini-game, doesn’t that mean the sport is flawed? It needs to be easier to score, goddamn it!

I’ve heard fans on both sides of the argument when it comes to PKs, but I can imagine that the players hate them almost to a man — especially goalies. PKs are ridiculously close to the goal, it’s just insane. But this whole post was pointless. Nothing is going to change. Americans like myself will continue ridiculing soccer, and the rest of the world — and Americans who want to live in the rest of the world — will continue rioting at soccer matches.

Related posts:

  1. So I’m Supposed To Get Excited About Soccer Now, Right?
  2. Soccer Players are Pansies
  3. We Can Stop Caring About Soccer Now

  • notjustin

    its also spelled futbol

    whats up with that?

  • Pele

    I think on every play that looks somewhat close I’ll pretend to get injured and fall over to stop gameplay! Then after they carry me off the field in dramatic fashion on a stretcher like I got my neck broken, I’ll come running onto the field 5 minutes later to save my team! Yay soccer!

  • asdsa

    I know its patriotic to be condescending to foreigners and soccer, but really what are you trying to achieve? Soccer has billions of fans who love it with or without the PKs, why does that bother american sports fans so much? Do you really think soccer will change in any way and do you really think it will stop being the most watched sport in the world? Get over it already.

  • http://thesomewhatmanlynerd.wordpress.com/ CajoleJuice

    The answer is no to all your questions. The last paragraph even says that. Controversial posts are just the ones that get the most comments on my blog.