Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Congratulations to... Me!


It's Official. I have dominated my Fantasy FIFA World Cup League. To spice up the World Cup, my buddy Pat put together a 12 person league under the name "Soccer Sucks". With little to no knowledge of Global Soccer, I was able to demolish the competition. I have to credit the fact that before the league started I searched around the internet and found some other fantasy FIFA leagues, ones where they essentially ranked the players for you, and used that info to my advantage. At any rate it helped me enjoy the World Cup a little more and I found myself watching "matches" I might not have watched.

My quick 2 cents on why soccer is not big in the US. I have a rule, if it is common for teams to tie in your sport, it sucks. Do you remember hockey before the lock out where they recorded Wins, Losses, Ties, and Over Time Losses because they all weighted towards your points!?!?! With a straight face on ESPN Chris Berman would say things like "The Bruins are 3-4-1-2 in their last 10 games" or "The Bruins remained unbeaten in 20 games going 11-0-9-0". Soccer is the same deal. If you can have "Friendlies" and tie and walk away, it kinda stinks. Also, the fact that the World Cup championship came down to penalty kicks is a bit of a let down. Oh sure, it's as exciting as penalty shots in hockey, but it's hard to feel good about a win like that.

3 comments:

Dale said...

You hit it on the head... I was at a party where the US tied Italy. An obviously Italian guy walked in with an Italy shirt on, and I didn't know if I should talk smack or not...

I think they should move the penalty kick spot back a few yards so it's not automatic... that way a bad call in the penalty area isn't that damaging.
Also makes the penalty kicks to win the game more of a challenge.

Tom said...

Dale - I agree, I was thinking they could take the average percentage of goals per shot during the game (likely 20% or so) and move the penalty shot back until they meet that percentage. That would be exciting!

Dale said...

Ooh, good one... Bringing data into the system!