I love it. :rofl: I hope the entire damn team quits. :thumb: 2010 FIFA World Cup: France team director Jean-Louis Valentin resigns, says team refused to practice - ESPN Soccernet
I'm a fan of Reilly, but that was not one of his better offerings. I agree with him on the dammed horns, though they made up 3 of his 10 points. I also agree with him on the injury drama. However, in what other sport do guys run out with a stretcher, and take the injured player - not to the bench or locker room, but to the nearest point off the playing field, and have play continue while they work on the guy a yard off the field? I think that's cool. I also agree with his point on stoppage time. It may be only the impression you get from watching on TV, but there doesn't seem to be an air of desparation from the team down a goal in stoppage time. If they could look up at a clock and see, "holy cow, 15 seconds left, we need to make one last mad rush at the goal RIGHT NOW!" that could make for some pretty cool endings to matches. That point brings up a larger issue that I think, in part, keeps soccer from really blowing up in America. There's an air of "what the hell happened?" in soccer that doesn't exist in our American sports. We still don't know what that idiot referee whistle'd us for to take away the winning goal, and FIFA doesn't make him tell. Stoppage time - how much time is left? In football, we know down to the second, in basketball, down to the tenth of a second. We used to information overload from our sports, and that doesn't exist in soccer.
And to add on, the out of bounds line seems to be very lax as well. You never know when the official will call it out. The game of soccer is very self-regulated with the free kicks and throw ins. But it's kinda cool to see the backyard rules still there on the professional level, IMO. Like when a player gets injured, kicking the ball out and having the other team kick it out as well. Love that kinda stuff
That's because you are taking it too serious, imho. Not trying to call you out, or be a jerk, just saying that Rick Reilly pieces are meant to be mostly entertaining, although, he usually has pretty good points, too. He used to be better when he was writing the end piece for SI mag, but still. From you reactions, one can glean that you are serious about your soccer, are a traditionalist, and are not open minded about outsider "non-expert" viewpoints.
I think we should start passing out those horns at LSU home games just to piss off every whiner in this thread.
Going to be interesting to see if the Kaka red card has any bearing on the game between Brazil and Portugal, both are advancing, now they are playing for positioning.
