Rick Reilly Hates Soccer, Nuance

Over the course of his time at ESPN, Rick Reilly has penned some asinine columns.  He’s rewritten old columns, making what was once original into self-plagiarized tedium.  Recently, his dubious columns (which, in light of his undeniable writing talent, suggest a dubious work ethic) have stretched into the realm of soccer, undeniably for the worse.  He’s not alone in this phenomenon, lazy sportswriters all over the country take this time to bash soccer under the pretense that they’re helping to “fix” the world’s most popular game, as if somehow it were broken to begin with.  The NBA is broken.  The NHL is broken.  Hell, America’s most popular sport, football, has its professional league headed toward a lockout.  Those are problems that need fixing.  But no, Reilly has decided to issue these critiques of the World Cup.

1. That pesky cerebrum-blowing incessant buzzing sound coming from the TV set. “Babe, something’s wrong with the TV,” my wife said Saturday. But there wasn’t anything wrong. It was the dreaded vuvuzelas, the yard-long plastic horns (voo-voo-zella) that South African fans blow all the time, without rhyme nor reason, when something is happening and when it’s not (it’s usually not), during timeouts and time ins, during halftime and at the breakfast table and while they’re on the bus and while doing their taxes, until you just want to stab two fondue forks deep into your ears and stir. They never stop. It’s like having a desk in the center cubicle at American Bee, Inc. They sound like 80,000 yaks getting sick. They are the leading cause of Tylenol sales in the world today.

Alright, raise your hand if you thought he’d start with the vuvuzelas?  Yeah, me too.  Hell, everyone hates them.  Except Ohio State, who wanted to use them at their home date with Penn State in the fall. It’s a low drone that eminates from the television, but it certainly doesn’t make me “want to stab two fondue forks deep into [my] ears and stir.”  Ever spend more than 30 seconds at a park playground after school lets out?  That’s an annoying sound.  A baby crying is an anoying sound.  A low drone?  Mildly annoying at first, but after a game I barely notice them.  In fact, when listening to the games at work I can still use crowd noise to gauge when I should pull the video up and risk being caught by the boss.  I’ve yet to watch anyone eat breakfast.

2. The embarrassing photographer bibs the guys on the bench have to wear during the game. They’re very purple and dorky. My God, who knew you could make a World Cup team and be made to look like a geek? Hey, are you on the American national soccer squad or do you throw bags for Northwest Airlines?

Who knew you could make a world cup team and be made to look like a geek?  According to soccer haters, making the team MAKES you a geek.  But I digress.  Really, Rick?  The bibs draw your ire?  What about basketball warmups?  Baseball pitchers that run the bases in jackets?  Or sit in the dugout with one shoulder in the sleeve, the rest of the jacket behind them?  I just don’t understand this one.  This is more of a “hey, I’ve never seen this before!” comment, not so much a complaint.  And do baggers for Northwest Airlines wear purple dorky vests?  I thought airplane baggers wore reflective vests…you know, for safety.

3. The Twinkie-fingered gloves goalkeepers wear. No wonder the English goalkeeper allowed that easy shot to give America a 1-1 tie in the Group C opener. You couldn’t stop a beach ball with those big goofy things. What, is Hamburger Helper a sponsor? Why must they be so huge? Doesn’t Roger Rabbit need them back? And where do the batteries go? How are goalkeepers expected to hang on to the ball with them on? And is it difficult to play goalie while also taking things out of the oven?

Twinkie-fingered gloves?  What about the leather-face gloves that baseball players wear, or the zebra fingered gloves football players wear?  Is that catcher’s hand going to pull out a chainsaw and massacre my whole family?  Do Brandon Marshall’s hands belong in a sub-Saharan wildlife preserve?  At least these gloves serve a purpose: protection.  Every keeper that tips a 90 km/hr shot over the bar using the tips of three fingers can thank these “Twinkie-fingered” gloves for keeping his joints and finger-bones in 1 piece.  And where do the batteries go?  I haven’t seen any of these light up.  Did your kid write this one?  And while I’m at it, a Roger Rabbit reference?  Seriously?  What, was Dick Tracy too current?

[Bonus points here for ESPN selecting the Roger Rabbit reference as worthy of a sidebar quote.  Really.]

4. The godforsaken vuvuzelas! Make them stop! One of the charms of soccer is the singing that fans do. There is always loads of singing and chanting because every game is 1-nil, so there’s plenty of time for singing and chanting. Soccer fans sing and chant inane hilarious things like, “We are from Norway! We came on a plane! And we are very drunk!” But we don’t get to hear the singing and the chanting because of the horrible, hideous, heinous vuvuzelas! My god, they should take them into the mountainous caves region of Pakistan and play them until Osama bin Laden comes running out, screaming, “OK, OK! I give!”

Whoa, another vuvuzela complaint.  And we’re only on #4.  So he’s had 3 complaints…well, 2 complaints and an observation…well, really, 1 complaint and 2 observations through #4.  Remember what I said about lazy writing?  Yeah.  Maybe I’ll just rewrite this column tomorrow, wait for ESPN to come calling, and then sit back and collect the checks.  Reilly isn’t cheap, I hope someday to make 1/100th of what he does for writing.  As long as we’re talking about terrorist strategies, we can just start mailing Reilly’s columns to Hamed Karzai until he agrees to clean up the corruption, then we’re in.  There, I just solved Afghanistan.  And Rick made fun of vuvuzelas.  You tell me who should be making the big bucks.

5. All the faking. I haven’t seen this much bad theater since I saw former “American Idol competitor” Ace Young starring in “Hair” on Broadway. These guys collapse as though they’ve just caught a javelin in the groin every time an opponent so much as asks them for the time. These guys make Paul Pierce look sincere. Sell it somewhere else, Sven. We live in the U.S., where hockey players pop their eye back into their socket without missing a shift. This will be the new rule when I’m made president of FIFA: If you stay on the ground longer than 30 seconds, you’re out of the game; 45, you are taken directly to the nearest hospital; 60, you get a telethon.

Alright, back to a real complaint.  Wait, hold on.  He saw Ace Young starring in Hair on Broadway?  Maybe that’s what he’s been doing instead of, you know, writing well.  And why did he feel the need to “put American Idol competitor” in quotes?  Maybe he was typing with the twinkie-gloves on, I’ll let that slide.  But here’s a complaint I have with complainers–you try dribbling a soccer ball full speed and take a small shove.  It’s not easy.  It doesn’t take much to knock a guy with the ball off balance, and he has no reason to stay upright if he feels he’s been fouled.  It’s largely the only way to draw a foul.  In the NBA I hear someone yell “AND 1!!!” every time they drive to the basket, or scream whenever they jump for a rebound.  Did Rasheed Wallace tuck a steak knife into the wasteband of his shorts?  No?  Okay, then shut up.  Players in every sport mug for calls.  Soccer could do without it, but a lot of it is reputation.

6. The yellow cards. I love the way the refs come running up to the player as though he has just taken out a chainsaw and sawed somebody’s hand off. The ref looks very stern and upset. And then all the ref does is snap his little yellow piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and stick it in the offender’s face, as though the little yellow card has some kind of superpower. As if to say, “Ha! you are powerless against my little yellow piece of paper, which shows your less-than-average marks from third grade!” I’d love to see that in the middle of an NBA fight. Can you imagine seeing some ref come running up to Rasheed Wallace after laying out Carmelo Anthony with a roundhouse right and sticking that yellow card right in his face? He’d soon be digesting it through his ear hole.

Yes, the little yellow paper does has a superpower.  It’s the same superpower that a referee putting his hands in the face of, say, Rasheed Wallace or Carmelo Anthony, and making a T has.  It means one more equivalent offense, and he’s gone.  Has any NBA referee had his hands “digested through his ear hole?” No?  Okay then.  And when has an NBA player roundhouse kicked another player?  Or a soccer player, for that matter.  When it happens, it ends up on YouTube with a million views.  It almost NEVER happens.  And you know what happened?  I’m sure after that flying kick, he was shown a red card.  That’s like two of those little yellow superpowered cards, so it must be super-superpowered!  This is another common thread among soccer haters: the players are pansies, but the fans are so violent!  The inherent contradiction goes unrecognized.  Also, do you think referees wear helmets, Rick?  Because if you just mean “ear,” that’s kinda redundant.  It’s like saying he’d have his card shoved down his mouth hole.  Though, I can think of another hole that this column should be digested through.

7. The ties. In the NFL in the past 10 years, there have been two ties. As of Tuesday morning, in the first 11 games of this World Cup, there have been five ties. You will not see more ties at a J.C. Penney’s Father’s Day sale. I hate ties. Doesn’t anybody want to win in this sport? All these ties are about as exciting as a Jonas Brothers roundtable on sex.

Doesn’t anybody want to win?  Yes, everyone wants to win. What prevents one group of people that want to win from winning is that the other group of people wants to win too.  Surely you can see where that might be an issue.  Perhaps the best analogy here is hockey–hockey resorts to shootouts to resolve ties, and that’s great when there’s an 82 game season.  The winner gets their extra point, and it’s fun for the fans.  But here?  It’s entirely unncessary.  You’re telling me that if the Charlotte Bobcats played the Los Angeles Lakers and the game ended in a tie, they wouldn’t be happy with that if there were some structure that rewarded it in place?  I’d say they would.  When you’re playing a team that you perceive to be better than you, a tie isn’t half bad.  As someone on Twitter said (and if you can remember who, I’ll gladly credit them) after the USA / England game: “this isn’t a ‘kissing-your-sister’ tie, this is a ‘kissing-your-sister’s-h0t-friend’ tie.” A tie is better than a loss, but not as good as a win.  If you’re expected to lose, a tie ain’t half bad.

8. The World Cup itself. Really? All this running and vuvuzela-ing and pulling off shirts for that trophy? It looks like somebody soldered it together in their basement — after drinking a handle of Jack Daniel’s. It looks like something you’d use to prop open your Tuff Shed door during spring cleaning. It’s gold and small and looks like somebody accidentally melted it somewhere along the way. I mean, there IS chocolate in the middle of that thing, right? Maybe I just don’t get it.

Yeah, and why does my paycheck come on this really small piece of paper that has a bunch of numbers on it?  It should be a giant check like they give to the winner on a game show, dammit!  I mean, it looks like something I’d use to keep my place in a my John Grisham novel.  I think “Maybe I just don’t get it,” might be the best part of writing in this column, and we had to wait until #8 to get to it.  Way to bury the lede, Rick.  And have you seen the NBA Championship trophy?  Somebody welded the ball on crooked.  This seems appropriate right now:

1. 9. Stoppage time. Why can’t we know how much time is left? Why must it be such a mystery? Whose idea was this? Why do only the refs get to know? Wouldn’t it be more exciting if we all knew? You tell me which is more exciting:

A. “Ten seconds left now! Kaka needs to get a shot off here or it’s over! Five seconds! Kaka wheeling! Two seconds! There’s the shot! And … “

B. “Well, the ref should be calling this game shortly. A minute or two. Maybe more. Actually, I don’t know. Nigel, do you know? Kaka seems confused. He’s dribbling. Wait. Now he’s stopped to examine a small scab, and well, that’s it. The ref says it’s over. I guess that’s it, then.”

All we get is B. Somebody needs to put some stoppage to stoppage time.

This is the almost-as-annoying corrollary to the “they just stand in the corner with the ball, that’s annoying!” complaint.  Here’s the deal with stoppage time.  When the clock hits 45 minutes or 90 minutes, there’ll be a little +X sign next to the clock.  That X is usually <5.  That is the number of minutes that will be added to the end of the half.  It is not set in stone, because something else may happen that extends the game.  Imagine this scenario:

Kaka has the ball with 15 seconds left…he kicks the ball out of bounds so Brazil can make a sub…and he slowly walks off…and that’s the game.  Yeah, that’s much better.

And usually, the referee allows that amount of time, plus one last gasp for the losing team, if it’s a 1 goal game.  That’s fine by me, and it’s only worked FOREVER.

Sigh.  Last one.  Hope it’s good…

10. The vuvuzelas from eardrum-hellas! Don’t tell me it’s discrimination to want them to stop. Don’t tell me it’s an essential part of South African culture. If it is, it’s an annoying part of their culture. Yes, I know that centuries ago, the vuvuzelas were made from animal horns to call the village elders in for a meeting. And I’ll bet you five wildebeests that when the elders finally got to the meeting they said, “Would you STOP already with the blowing? You’re making me crazy!” I’ve been to Africa four times. They do some of the most beautiful singing you can imagine. At the World Cup, I’m hearing no singing. I’m hearing no chanting. I’m hearing 80,000 kazoos on steroids.

OHSWEETJESUS…Vuvuzelas again?  So you had a list of “10 ways to fix the World Cup,” then 3 of them are the same, at least 3 are mere observations, and maybe, MAYBE one of them is coherent?  This is unbelieveable. And “vuvuzelas” and “hellas” don’t even rhyme.  Oh, I see.  You added an abritrary ending to “eardrum” to make them rhyme, even though “hellas” is an actual word in and of itself.  That’s brilliant writing.

Maybe I’ve gone overboard here, but this is one of the reasons I don’t want soccer to catch on too much. There are more than enough lazy columnists out there that are willing to play the part of Prototypical Ignorant American when it comes to soccer, and Rick Reilly is just the one with the biggest megaphone.  But we also give the biggest megaphones to the guys we expect to have the most to say, and there’s nothing of value here.

In fact, I’d rather hear a vuvuzela than Reilly via megaphone, amirite?!?!

Advertisement