Sirened

To start off, my beef does not include hot Swedish women or attractive women from wherever the hell this other girl is from. But seeing as how I’m a big sports buff living in Europe and Euro Cup is currently heating up, here is another post on soccer, my in-depth analysis on why it bugs me. This list includes my major annoyances, but my grievances are not limited solely to this list and are in no particular order.

1)The clock never stops and thus there is no accurate time. Ok, so many foreigners argue that Americans go too far with the accuracy of the clock, particularly in basketball where the clock goes down to tenths of a second in the final minute. But hell, at least we get it right! In soccer, the clock just keeps going and the referees add some ambiguous injury time, stopping the half and match by totally guesstimating. WTF??

2)Championships Decided by Penalty Kicks! Are you kidding me? This is my biggest pet peeve with soccer. I’ve seen several championships decided by a total bastardization of the sport. Just this year Manchester United won the Champions League over Chelsea via penalty kicks. In the 2006 World Cup, Italy beat France via penalty kicks. It’s absolutely outrageous and I recently expressed this sentiment to a Dutch friend who said “what, do you want to see them play all night?” To which I replied “YES!” I’m a hockey fan, they play ALL NIGHT if they have to. Hockey championships never have and never will be decided by penalty shots.

3)Guys who shank balls and put their hands on their head, staring into the sky in grimacing agony. This is the international soccer move for when a guy royally screws up by blasting a great scoring chance 20 feet over the net. Seriously dude, you weren’t even close, get over it, hustle back and try to at least get a little closer next time!

4)David Beckham. That guy just bugs me.

5)Guys who commit dirty as hell penalties, then immediately get all Shakespearean to act like they didn’t do anything. This happens in every sport, but it just seems fruitier in soccer. I mean seriously, you’ll see a guy step on the back of another guys foot (a move that could tear an Achilles Tendon) and then immediately wave their finger at the official yelling “No, No!” Umm, yes yes, please take your red card and sit on the bench.

6)Dumb Shit in Big Moments. One of the biggest was French soccer star Zinadine Zidane head butting an Italian player in overtime of the 2006 World Cup championship game. He was red carded for that, forcing him to leave and leaving the French team a man down, to which they lost the championship. During this year’s Champions League Final, the game went to overtime between Chelsea and Manchester United. So naturally one of the Chelsea players gave a little bitch slap to a Man U. player that resulted in his ejection, and again, Man U. won the championship. Now I know these other guys must have said something really dumb, but seriously, it’s overtime in the championship game, get your shit together!

7)Diving. This happens in every sport but again, it’s particularly fruity and frequent in soccer. Guys love to trip over and pretend to be in agonizing pain in an attempt to draw a yellow card for their opponent. Bro, I know you’re not used to playing fair, but when there’s a billion people watching, can you perhaps try?

8)The 3 Man Substitution Rule. This rule does not bother me during regulation time, it makes the game interesting by making it even more of a chess match. Besides, these guys get paid fantastic money so they should be sweating balls by the time they exchange jerseys at the end. What bothers me is that the rule extends to overtime. Because of the limited substitutions it’s too much of a physical toll to ask players to play beyond 30 additional minutes. I say increase the substitutions to allow the guys to play through, or fuck it, just have them play through anyways. Eventually someone will blow their assignment by collapsing and allowing the other team to score, thereby going home to have rotten fruits and vegetables thrown at their head.

9)Coaches who win championships and immediately get fired. This happened to the coach of Inter-Milan this year. After he won the Italian League championship he was fired because he had talked some crap earlier in the season. To ownership: Get over it, he just won a championship for you.

10)Fans forced to throw the ball back. Can’t the fans keep the freakin’ ball? I mean seriously, they pay good money to get in and the balls don’t cost that much. Let a few people go home with an amazing souvenir, one they might actually cherish for the rest of their lives. God forbid!

photo credit: flickr creative commons

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