Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

A busy weekend in sports.  First the World Cup.  There has been more scoring.  Also couple of upsets, particularly Spain losing 5-1.  There were also a few games where a team comes from behind to win, not very common in soccer.  The new goal technology seems to be working well, without slowing down the game.  So a lot of positives so far.  There are still the usual problems with the game, however.  One is the calls on possible penalty kicks.  Soccer is still very low scoring,  So a penalty shot which is successful over 80% of the time, can very well decide a game.  Brazil benefited from such a call in its game against Croatia.  Then there are a lot of times, particularly on corner kicks where everybody is fouling each other and no calls are made.  In basketball where there are two hundred points scored, one bad call does not make that much of difference.  In soccer where there are only about 10 legitimate chances of scoring in a game,so one bad call is a big deal.

I suggest a rule change where unless there is an intentional hand ball or a vicious open field foul, the penalty will not be a direct shot from 12 yards.  Instead, you get a regular free kick from the spot of the foul.  If it is less than 10 yards from goal, the wall can be set up half distance from the shot.  In exchange for the less harsh penalty, the defense will be called for fouls in the box where maybe the referee would have let go in the past because he thinks a penalty shot in this instance is too harsh.  So basically I am calling for more fouls called in the box but less penalty shots.

The other controversy is the offside call.  It is very difficult for the side judge to see a pass that starts from 40 yards away and at the same time see if anyone got behind the defenders at the exact same time the passer strikes the ball.  Unless they come out with something similar to the goal line technology, I suggest that each coach gets one challenge per game for a video review.  I don't think that would slow down the game too much.

The U.S. starts their World cup chase tomorrow.  Klinsmann said that it is not realistic for the U.S to win the cup.  I agree with that.  But then I also agree with Bruce Arena who said that if we have 23 players better than Landon Donovan, we should be able to win the World Cup!

Alert!  Above paragraphs were written yesterday.  I decided not to publish till after the U.S. game today.  It appears to be a good move since the U.S. won!  Without jinxing the team, I think we have a very good chance to move out of group play with Portugal losing badly today.  If we can tie Portugal, I think we will be in because Germany would have locked up advancing before they play the U.S.  They may well play their B team.  We have beaten their B team before and even if we lose, it should not be anywhere close to 4-0!  So we need to tie Portugal!

The Spurs clobbered the Heat again to win the championship.  The Spurs are the ultimate team.  They are so well coached.  But I notice that they have 9 players who were born outside the U.S.  Could it be that these foreign born players are easier to coach than Americans?  I have not done any scientific research on this so I can't say for sure.  But my hypothesis is that foreign born players are happy that they made to the NBA and if they don't work hard and listen to the coach, they will not last.  Contrast that with young American stars who have been pampered way before they got to the NBA.  Also Americans who have poor work ethics are given more chance to succeed.  Witness Andrew Bynum and Kwame Brown.  So maybe the Spurs look for guys who are willing to sacrifice in the Popovich system and as a result they ended up with a lot foreign born players.

The Spur and Heat series also points out the importance of point guard play.  The Heat had none.  Basically, James ended up with the point guard work plus the scoring load.  This failed miserably against a championship caliber team.  Something for the Rockets to think about when they try to use Harden to run the offense while their point guards stand outside the three point line.