Sunday, July 09, 2006

How Would Spike Lee Fix Soccer?

FIFA's site can answer that question!

America, we've reached the tipping point. Spike Fucking Lee cares about soccer!


These teams, these players, have busted their asses for four years to get to this tournament, and everybody wants to see the best players. Even though Michael Jordan used to kill the (New York) Knicks, I still wanted to see him. I don’t want him to be put out the game or get hurt - you want to see the best players perform, even if there is a chance that it might hurt your team.
I might sound like an imperialistic American, but they’ve got to bring in instant replays. You also need a scoreboard in the stadium that has the official time instead of players running around and having to guess how much time is left. That doesn’t make any sense to me.


I mean, what harm is it going to do if the players, the fans, everybody could just look up at the scoreboard and see how much time is left instead of just trying to guess what it says on the referee’s watch?

Also, the field is too big, the game is too fast, and the play is too fast. Twenty years ago, one man could referee a game. Now it’s too fast. You need more than one referee on the field and you need instant replays.

This is nothing to do with me being American or trying to Americanise the game. I just think you would find people the world over who think that you need to move the game forward.

4 comments:

Greg P said...

In regards to the numbers of refs, the same thought crossed my mind. As is, with one ref, flopping is a necessity since one man has to be incharge of 22 men across a huge field. If they added maybe one or two more refs on the pitch and a few done each sideline, wouldn't help remove some of the need to flop when one gets fouled and make it easier to nail people for simulation. I admittedly don't know a whole lot about soccer so would something like this work?
Thanks

Muumuuman said...

Well you couldn't add a bunch of officals, they'd get in the way and no one wants the action to stop for the refs to converse for 5 to 10 minutes. However, you could add a box offical who has the final word only on penalties committed in the box. Many of these games were settled by the spot, getting the right call there is important. The game would have looked much different if Malouda would have been given a yellow - he wasn't touched. Also, there should be a heat butt - ball stomp ref. Figo got a yellow for his head but to the face, but Zindane got a red for one to the chest - can we get some consistancy here?

Big Blue Monkey said...

I've played in games where there was one referee for each half of the field, and that works pretty well. The only problem I see with it is the consistency of the officiating. They would have to be on the same page as to what a yellow card is, etc.

There's enough subjectivity there that it could make for a very unhappy game.

Anonymous said...

In terms of getting in the way, it seems reasonable that 2 or 3 men actually on a field the size of a soccer pitch could remain out of the way, especially if they made a conserted effort to stay away from the goal area were an accidental touch could have a greater impact. They manage it in the (American) football. Having a few guys on the sideline in the out of bounds area would definitely be out of the way. I think a 50% reduction in diving would be worth it even with the occasional ball deflected off an offical at midfield.