Soccer and Basketball
Yesterday, I watched a high school girls soccer game coached by one of my friends and teammates in college. It was incredibly exciting. Within the first 2 minutes of the game, the opposing team earned a corner kick. The girl hit a beautiful corner to the back post, another girl headed it toward the goal and it went post and in. The player on the post missed the chance to block it. 3 minutes later, the left wing on the team I was rooting for, hit a long cross that lobbed over the goalie and into the back of the net. Tied 1-1 within 5 minutes of starting. About 15 minutes later, the forward on the opposing team got the ball in the corner of the box and looked to make a cross, but she cut the ball back and the defender stuck her foot out and tripped her. PK. It was an obvious foul, just barely inside the box. The crowd went berserk with anger, but as a somewhat neutral observer, it was an easy call. They made the PK and the score was 2-1 at halftime.
And that was also the score by the time the game ended, but the 2nd half was tension filled. Almost from the first 5 minutes, our team was stressing out and feeling desperate to score. About midway through, they brought up one of the defenders to forward to apply additional pressure. The opposing team got two chances after that to put the game away, but hit post twice. Our team got in a few crosses that were dropped by the goalie that a lucky bounce could have resulted in a tying goal. But it wasn't to be.
Like baseball, soccer can be incredibly exciting whether a team scores or not. Now, I love basketball and the NBA playoffs, but there is flaw in these games - you don't need to watch the first half. Almost no matter what, the opposing team will make a second half run. So the game is either put away in the 2nd half of the 3rd quarter, the beginning of the 4th quarter, the last 6 minutes, or the final seconds. The first half is strangely irrelevant to basketball because of the rhythm of the NBA game. Only in rare instances is the first half worth watching -- generally if there are story lines preceding the game at hand -- perhaps games 5, 6, or 7 in a 7 game series.
1 comment:
My biggest frustration in basketball lies in the officiating. More than any other professional sport it's the referees who affect the final results of the game. It often seems as if a foul could be called each time down the court.
I'm not a hockey fan per se - but I happened to watch the Rangers and Capitals OT game the other night and I was struck by how restrained the officials seemed to be. It was wonderful. Those players were just going at it and there might be ten minutes of game time without a single penalty being called.
The continuous play - as opposed to the NBA's constant stopping and the lack of the game changing penalty shot - which any soccer fans live in fear of (especially if it's wrong, which happens all too often) - really made the game one of the most compelling sporting events I've seen in a while.
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