UNDERSTANDING SPORTS
World Cup Football — A Primer
For American watchers of other stuff
Mom’s family was from Wisconsin and even lived in Green Bay before I arrived. We always rooted for the Packers while watching games on the grainy black-and-white TV.
So it was only natural that as a high school freshman, I’d want to go out for football. American football. People smashing into each other for the fun of it.
While my parents were happy I would be out of the house for a few hours after school and come home tired, they frowned upon participation on the pigskin playground. That my small frame would be involved in collisions with classmates twice as large weighed heavily on their minds. That and the litany of others they knew of who had been seriously hurt on the field prompted them to suggest an alternative.
“No. No football. Play soccer.” A life-long relationship began.
You are hereby spared the stories of participation in high school and college and beyond. The stories are legion and esoteric, and perhaps entertaining to those who know the game. They may also provide interesting reading while you’re waiting for your skates at Hades Ice Palace. But not now.
The following is provided for those of you who scratch your heads or say, “Ho-hum” when you blunder across highlight videos of the upcoming FIFA World Cup.
The Venue
Qatar is a fully-erect protrusion on the Arabian peninsula. It is roughly the size of Connecticut but does not have any of the lovely lakes and rivers that make the 5th state so appealing. Or trees. But Qatar beats the hell out of CT on the high-rise, sand, and coastline scales.
Qatar was selected in 2010 as the setting for the 2022 World Cup. Even Sepp Blatter, FIFA President at the time, states that this was a mistake.
By the way, Mr. Blatter is a very rich man. Of course he would not accept bribes to help award the biggest sports tournament in the world to a tiny country without existing facilities in a place where participation will be potentially life threatening for the players.
Most of the world takes the summer off from professional football. Foreign experts, watching the summertime American Major League Soccer (MLS) level of play, often say that the US does the same. Insults aside, Qatar is HOT! So in an unprecedented move, the tournament has been moved to November and December to inconvenience everyone as much as possible.
At this point, the stadiums are in place and an estimated 1.5 million fans are ready to descend upon a country with less than 400,000 citizens. But many decry the price. It is estimated that thousands of immigrant workers have perished in forced labor camps employed to meet facility timelines for the cup, creating a macabre double meaning to the term “deadline.”
If you wish to quaff a pint while watching a game in person, you’d better get all you want to drink within the stadium perimeter. Due to strict adherence to Islam, there is usually no alcohol in Qatar. But it appears that some practicality has snuck into the Qatari version of Sharia law, and a limited dispensation has been made. But not too much. Though “Everyone is welcome,” homosexuality is illegal.
The logistics alone bear a look. Let’s see what an athletic tournament looks like in a small and screamingly-hot country with stadiums built with blood. And whatever will hooligans* use to fuel their rage in the absence of alcohol?
How national teams get there
Finish well in your group to get into another group to earn the right to represent your nation in a group in the World Cup. Got it?
Each national team must place in the top few teams in a local round-robin qualifying group to earn the right to play in a regional qualifying group. Placing in the top few in that group qualifies the team to play in the World Cup. It generally does not matter much what the order of finish in the regional group may be, since the drawing for membership in each of the eight separate groups in the World Cup is largely a crap shoot.
So in the two-year qualification period, the idea is to win enough games to make the cut. If that doesn’t happen, the coach is shown the door. Except in Italy, where their 1–0 loss to North Macedonia (who?) kept them out of the Cup they’ve won four times. Sei fuori!
The rules
The rules are simple. Don’t touch the ball with your hands, and don’t push, shove, grab, or kick your opponent while you try to coax the ball into the opponent’s goal.
There are only 17 “Laws of the Game,” and only about half of them are concerned with the actual play.
And of these rules, only the offside rule creates confusion. In essence, it is quite like that of American tackleball. Do not get behind your second-last opponent (second last usually due to the goalkeeper being well back) until the ball is played.
You should ignore offside calls altogether.
Just know that all of the offside calls against the team you are rooting for are wrong, and that any time a goal is scored against your team, the ref missed the offside call. It’s easy to tell when this has happened because all the players on the victimized team will raise their arms in a simulation of what the assistant ref (who is the linesman running up and down the side or “touch” line) should have done with his flag to indicate an offside infraction.
The skills
As with any sporting activity, a combination of athletic prowess and a certain variety of intelligence provides success.
Here’s an exercise for non-players who wish to understand a bit more about the game.
Look up. Hold a ball in place on your hairline. Any ball will do if you don’t have an association football (from which the name “soccer” arises). Bowling balls are discouraged. Let go. Now move your head however necessary to keep the ball balanced on your head for at least 10 seconds.
Note that at the level of player you’ll be seeing in the world cup, this little activity is child’s play. While you won’t see anyone doing this on the field, it is indicative of the magic that is happening at every instant.
Scoring
Americans prefer offense to defense. Combined scores in NBA games average over 200 points. NFL games average over 40. In Major League Baseball “the average for home teams is 4.44 runs vs 4.28 runs for the away team.” The average number of goals scored in an NHL game is around six. American forces in WW2 were almost completely on offense from day one.
There will be numerous 1–0 and 0–0 games in the World cup. 2.6 was the average number of goals in the most recent World Cup in Russia. Wow! Remember when Russia was not a war-mongering imperialistic pariah fighting for a negative-negative draw in Ukraine?
As you might guess, scoring is difficult in football. And to keep it that way, the rules allow one person per team to use hands in front of the goal. That person is the goalkeeper. He can use his entire body to keep the average score low. Forwards tasked with goal-scoring must fend off vicious defenders while maintaining control of the ball and then get it behind an uncooperative goalkeeper and between the sticks and into the old onion-bag**. No simple task.
So if all you care about is scoring, don’t even bother to tune in. And don’t bother complaining about the lack of scoring to a football fan. Scoring is not the only reason to enjoy the game.
The play
At its heart, football is a simple game of keep-away. Each team makes every effort to maintain possession of the ball, thus depriving the other team of the chance to score. If your team has the ball, the other team can’t score except in very unusual instances. And in the World Cup, those who score against their own team may not live long.
The best teams try to maintain possession of the ball as much as possible. 30 passes in a row are common while a team probes the other’s defense. Among other effects, this cautious strategy of denial results in minimal scoring opportunities. But it also provides fluid geometry as players move to create an advantage.
Success is largely a result of movement without the ball. Yes, skilled ball handlers (No, wait. Shouldn’t it be footlers?) are valuable, but they are most so when playing the ball into a favorable space created by another player’s movement. So if you just watch the ball, you’re missing much of what is going on.
The players
At the international level, they are all extremely fit, skilled, and willing to work hard for 90 minutes or more for the benefit of their team. What sets a few apart is their quickness, their vision, and some special skill.
But there is no body type that guarantees greatness. Pele, one of the all-time greats, was a pretty average guy in terms of physique. Lionel Messi, who will be playing with Argentina (finally with a supporting cast that won’t stand around and watch him), augmented his height with growth hormones to reach a towering 5' 7". Erling Haaland, currently tearing up the English Premier League, is a skillful 6' 5" behemoth who will unfortunately not be in the World Cup because Norway did not qualify.
So every kid in the world who grows up watching football believes it is possible to join the national team. And even when reality sets in for the vast majority, there is still identification with those who reach the highest levels. It is more plausible for Arnie Average to secretly believe he could have reached the national football team than to have grown a 20 centimeters and put on 25 kilograms of muscle to gain a spot in the NFL or NBA. He can tell himself, “If things had only been a little bit different…”
And many transplants to the football-poor USA will tell you they did. And it’s not until you watch them try to bend one to the far post*** that you know the truth.
Team USA
The current stable of players available to the USA is uncharacteristically accomplished. Traditionally, the US team has been made up of far-to-few standouts and a complement of players who work hard but do not have the quality needed for the international level.
For this cup, the US has numerous players who are doing quite well for top teams in Europe, where most of the best teams play. South American participants may dispute this, but many of the finest South American players appear in European leagues.
This is not to say the US pool of talent is on par with that of Brazil or Argentina or Germany, but for this cup, the US has a core of really accomplished players. World Class players.
And they are young! Several of the players are in their teens, and most of the team is younger than 25. The future looks bright!
But reality has reared its ugly head. In the final two games of preparation, the US team looked horrible. No, not that good. Abysmal. In two games against Japan and Saudi Arabia, two teams that are not expected to do well in the cup, the US gave up two goals while managing none for itself on three shots. Three shots in 180 minutes! And even worse, the games were boring, lending credence to American prejudices.
The team looked disorganized and unprepared. Some of this may be attributed to the US coach, who has never settled his lineup. At the point in time when all the other teams have their preferred starting team getting a chance to gel by playing together, Coach Berhalter was still auditioning players for the team. One critic is convinced that “we have world-class talent, but an MLS coach.”
Regardless, don’t ignore other teams from our region (called “CONCACAF,” which sounds like a bad cough). While Canada has less talent on paper, they play well together and won the qualifying group. Motivated and disrespected, they’re out to prove something.
And Mexico is underperforming much like the US. Maybe worse. Their football tradition is much stronger than that of the US, but they have been struggling and generally do not perform up to expectation in the World Cup. But should they gel, their team will be a force.
Carry on!
So now that you know everything necessary, you have an opportunity to join the citizens of the earth in second-guessing your national team coach. “He started WHO?” and “So-and-so never got off the bench!” and “Certainly this highly skilled team can play better than what we just witnessed,” (paraphrased without obscenities) are all sentiments that will be iterated many times in many languages throughout the world during the tournament.
Let your voice be heard!
*Hooligans are fans of violence who follow a football team. They are much less interested in the games than vandalizing the localities where they’re played while beating up opposition fans.
**Putting the ball between the sticks and into the old onion-bag is an expression for scoring that notes the similarities between goalposts to sticks in the ground and the goal netting to bags for carrying onions.
***Bend one to the far post — imparting forceful spin to the ball to keep it as far from the goalie as possible while the path of the ball curves goalward.
Bonus: A meeting with a national team member
Youth coaches and players were often allowed down on the field prior to professional games in Rochester, NY. Before the game between New York MetroStars and the Rochester Rhinos, the youth team I coached was in the double line awaiting the arrival of the players, who jogged between. Tab Ramos, another average-sized guy, was a star of the MetroStars and US National team who had struggled with injuries. When Tab ran by, I shouted, “Hey Tab, stay healthy!”
He paused, looked directly at me, and said, “Hey, thanks,” and then ran on.
The boys on my team were amazed. “You know him?” they asked with awe in their voices.
“Oh, yeah! We go way back.” Why waste a misconception that might make them listen better at the next practice?
