Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 9, 1990 TAG: 9007100434
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MOHAGEG
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Let's start with his comments about soccer. He claimed soccer "is bereft of basic ingredients that make any sport enticing to a spectator." Obviously, the creative passing and ball handling, the athletic ability and balance of the players, the skill in shooting and heading the ball, the aggressive tackling and body checking, and many other intricacies of the game are lost on the blind eye.
The game is constantly in flux. Momentum shifts, strategies change during the course of the match, and no lead is safe (unless it's a blowout). That is the beauty of soccer: Every possession of the ball is a potential scoring opportunity. Every attack on goal is exciting because it could lead to a score, or, perhaps, a great defensive play, or an athletic attempt on goal that goes astray.
While goals are important to the soccer fan, the execution of a brilliant set of passes could be just as exciting - as a double play in baseball, for instance, is equal in excitement to a home run.
The fact that the author judged soccer with a yardstick developed through years of nurturing by baseball, football and basketball illustrates his lack of flexibility and our typically American egocentrism.
I love those sports. But imagine trying to judge baseball, for instance, using a soccer mind-set. You constantly have to wait: for the pitcher to prepare himself, the batter to prepare himself, the umpire to adjust his gear, the third-base coach to send his signals, the catcher to send his signals, the outfielders to position themselves.
Let's say batters swing at half the pitches,which they usually don't. Assume the average batter hits .250. That means the probability of getting a hit on any given pitch is 12.5 percent. Hey, you can't beat those odds, huh?
Obviously, this is a simple-minded analysis of the delightful sport of baseball, yet it does more justice to baseball than Twomey's explanation does to soccer.
The World Cup is a different story. The World Cup is a tournament with specific rules of qualification. When entering the first round of this tournament, the aim of all teams is simply to move on to the next round with a minimum of injured and/or booked players.
The intention isn't to go on wild scoring sprees; it's just to qualify. No doubt the matches in Group F were boring even for a soccer fan. However, the strategies used by the teams in Group F were dictated by the events in other groups and the very rare 1-1 ties in both opening matches of the group.
For three of the four teams, ties would have qualifed them for the next round. You can't fault a team for adjusting its strategy to the rules and events of the tournament, and you can't judge a sport by such a narrow slice of the action.
The World Cup is not simply a goal-scoring showcase. The event is a fantastic occasion for people, the world over, to gather in the spirit of friendly competition and have some genuine fun. A few idiotic British hooligans, who call themselves soccer "fans," cannot ruin the preciousness of the spectacle.
Finally, the inconsistencies and paradoxes in the author's self-centered arguments reach their climax when he asserts that the billions of people around the world who adore soccer are mistaken and hopeless, but that we Americans who number only 250 million are righteous.
First, there are millions of soccer fans in the United States. The fact that TV ratings have been low is a reflection of the inconvenient timing of the matches (11 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays).
Second, if majority were to rule in the world community as it does within the United States, those voting for baseball or football would be outvoted.
Third, to postulate that life is hopeless in every country except the United States is ludicrous. We have a great deal going for us in America, but so do others.
Has it occurred to any of us that, with a few exceptions in South America, the powerhouses in world soccer are economically sound countries whose citizens enjoy lifestyles and benefits that we Americans only dream of.
I envy the lifestyle of the residents of soccer powers such as West Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. Our society's crime, poverty, economic limbo, racism, lack of affordable medical care, illiteracy rate and infant mortality (highest of any industrialized country) - and egocentric attitudes such as Twomey's - make our lives more hopeless than any West German's life.
U.S. isolationist policies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to a self-imposed exclusion from world soccer. This isolationism led to the development of other great American sports such as football and basketball.
Soccer is not as popular in the United States because there is no money devoted to it. Why should a youngster seriously follow soccer when there are no American role models or a professional American league offering the millions of dollars that the NBA, NFL or the Italian soccer leagues offer?
Our way of analyzing problems and issues is not always the best, our sports are not always the most exciting, and the planet Earth does not revolve around our country.
by CNB