Monday, 30 June 2008

The Problem With Soccer

Yesterday I watched the finals of Euro Cup 2008. For those who don't know the Euro Cup is the European soccer championships. Working from home, I was fortunate enough to watch many of matches. During which, I tried to become a fan of soccer. I really did.

Soccer has a lot to offer. It has some really cool aspects that can't be found in most American sports. For one thing they have interesting tournament formats. They almost always have some group play aspect to determine which teams move into the playoffs. To best understand how this works, imagine the NCAA basketball tournament where the tournament starts with sixteen groups of 4 teams. The are assigned by the normal seeding process. The 4 teams would play each other. The team with the best results from the 3 games would move on to the sweet 16.

Another aspect I find interesting is their use of home and home games to determine who wins a round in the tournament. A home and home is where two teams play one game at each team's home field. The winner is determined by the aggregate score between the two games. Can you imagine NFL playoffs where teams would play a home and home and the total score from the two games would be combined to determine who moves onto the next round of the playoffs.

I also like the concept of promotion and relegation. The worst teams in a higher division drop down and the best teams from the lower division move up. Imagine if the worst three teams in major league baseball dropped down to Triple A while the best three teams in Triple A move up to the major leagues.

I would be sold on the game if the actual games didn't suffer from some serious deficiencies.

First, there isn't enough scoring in soccer. The finals were 1-0. That is like watching a 3-0 football game. Sure it is OK occasionally, but if that was the results of over half the football games it would not be fun to watch. I am not asking for 10 goals a game. But the games need to average 5 goals a game and not 2. The most memorable games in the Euro Cup were the 3-2 games and not the 1-0 games. The easiest move would be to make the goals bigger. Not a lot, just another couple of feet wider and taller. If all of the shots that hit the goal posts went in the scoring would have been more reasonable.

Secondly, the officiating is bad. I don't think the officials are necessarily bad, I just think it is hard for one person to see the entire game. The are inevitably going to be in a bad position during a play and miss an important call. Are there any other sports which have so few officials on the field? If soccer added two more officials on the pitch I think they could be able to make better calls and have less errors.

Lastly, soccer needs to rid itself of what I call the wimp factor. I don't know how many times I saw a player who was barely touched fall down on the ground writhing in pain only to hop up and continue playing 15 seconds later. In basketball you have guys flop in order to draw a charge. But they don't roll on the ground and act like they have been knifed in the stomach either only to hop up a few seconds later and continue playing. The player would be rightly ridiculed forever.

Until they can address these issues, soccer will continue to be anything but the "beautiful game" to me.

Posted by brians at 7:45 PM in Sports Topics
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Friday, 29 February 2008

No Excuse Too Small

I haven't done much sporting news in a while and this story is a couple of days old, but I thought it was so lame it needed to be addressed. The fact that UK won't play the football game next year against U of L on Labor Day. Here is the gist of the story.

ESPN has offered to place this year’s season opener between the two teams at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium in its “Monday Night Football” time slot on Labor Day night. As U of L announced its full 2008 schedule today, head coach Steve Kragthorpe said the Cardinals “would love to do it” and were just waiting for UK’s approval.

But Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart told The Courier-Journal this afternoon that the Wildcats won’t agree to play that Monday night.

“We’re willing to play that game Thursday through Sunday, and we’ve communicated that to the people at ESPN,” Barnhart said. “We’re not going to play that on a Monday night and give ourselves that short turnaround on a Saturday game. We’re going to have a young team, and we feel it’s in the best interest of our program to guard that prep time and that recovery time.”

So, the U of L vs UK game has the chance of being the prime time football game next year. This is a slot that has hosted FSU vs Miami matchups in years past. This is an outstanding opportunity for both teams to show their programs in the spotlight.

But, UK is worried about a "short recovery time". I would consider this a valid concern if they had to play a conference game the following week. But, when one takes a look at the schedule. Kentucky plays Norfolk St the following weak. If you are asking yourself who Norfolk St. is then you aren't alone. They play in the mighty MEAC conference in Division 1-AA. The Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference isn't even a power conference in 1-AA. Heck, EKU is a stronger matchup than Norfolk St.

The fact of the matter is UK is chickening out of playing U of L on a prime time stage. For a school that talks about being so much better than U of L, they sure don't provide the walk to back it up.

Posted by brians at 5:43 PM in Sports Topics
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Wednesday, 5 December 2007

Death to the BCS

The BCS finally got the nightmare scenario that illustrates the complete futility of the system. This year you have 9 teams that have a legitimate argument for being in the title game. And all of them have flaws that should keep them out of the title game. Let's take a look at the list

Ohio St (11-1)
Pro: The are a one of only three teams with one loss or less and they won the Big 10.

Con: They won the weakest of the BCS conferences and played a non-conference schedule that can only be described as pitiful. The played a Div 1-AA school and two bottom feeders from the MAC. On top of that they lost the next to last game of the season when they controlled their own destiny. The beeping sound you here is OSU backing their way into the championship game.

LSU (11-2)
Pro: They won the SEC. Arguably the best conference in the country this year. In addition their two losses came in overtime games. The computers think they are the second best team in the country.

Con: They lost two games against unranked opponents. The loss to Arkansas was at home during the last game of the regular season. And like OSU they controlled their own destiny at the time. They struggled against a number of teams down the stretch and were outplayed in the SEC championship game. Yet,pollsters jumped them ahead of teams that were a head of them the previous week. I want the pollsters to please explain to me how they can think 7 teams are better than LSU one week and not the next? (This "jump" illustrates how stupid and sheep like the polls are. It also shows us why we would be better off relying on the computer results to determine the top 2)

Virginia Tech (11-2)
Pro: The won the ACC and are ranked number one by the computers. They have been dominating since their home loss to BC a month ago. Both of their two losses are against ranked teams.
Con: They lost two games and a head to head match up with LSU.

Georgia (10-2)
Pro: One of the hottest teams in the country down the stretch. They are arguably the best two lost team in the country.
Con: They didn't win their conference nor their division. How can they play for a national championship if they didn't even win their conference.

Hawaii (12-0)
Pro: The only undefeated team in the country. They have a legitimate gripe. They played their schedule and won all of their games. More than any other team in college football can say.
Con: They played the weakest of weakest schedules. Their schedule makes Kansas's look strong. On top of that they struggled to beat some really bad teams.

Oklahoma (11-2)
Pro: They won the Big 12. They destroyed the second best team in the conference, Missouri, twice in the process.
Con: They had a couple of bad losses including the melt down at Colorado. They have two losses and controlled their own destiny before getting waxed by Texas Tech.

USC (10-2)
Pro: The won the PAC 10.
Con: They have a bad loss against Stanford and a weak strength of schedule. They played no one good outside of conference play.

Kansas (11-1)
Pro: They are one of two 1 loss teams.
Con: They didn't win the Big 12. Heck, like Georgia they didn't even win their division. They were the number 1 team in the country before they got beat by Missouri in the last week of the regular season. Can we say choke? On top of that they only played a couple of teams with winning records this year. Ouch.

West Virginia (10-2)
Pro: They won the Big East and played a decent out of conference schedule.
Con: They had their destiny in their own hands and choked. Actually that is a common theme among all but two of these teams. How can you put a team in that lost their last game of the season to Pittsburgh.

How can we decide who plays in the national championship game when all of these teams have glaring flaws? The answer is you can't! That what makes this season's championship a joke. The proponents of the BCS say "look at all of the drama". I say look at all of the crap. Notre Dame has a longer winning streak than either team playing in the championship game.

The only solution is to expand the current playoff systems from 2 teams to 12, 16, or 32. The best we can hope for is the NCAA to expand the playoff to four teams. Once Pandora's box opens it will only be a matter of time before the playoffs gets expanded to 8, 12, 16 or more. In the mean time I'm going to scoff the idiocy of the current BCS system.

 
Posted by brians at 7:32 PM in Sports Topics
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Saturday, 15 September 2007

U of L vs UK

I don't get a chance to blog much about sports, but I figure today is a good chance to rectify the situation and talk about the biggest football game in Kentucky this year and make some predictions.

This game has a interesting feel because on one side the UK fans really think they are going to win this game. Heck many of the national pundits are calling this game a potential upset special. On the other hand Louisville feels they are an unstoppable force and will overwhelm UK.

Coming into this year, the game wasn't supposed to be close. What happened to change the perception? What is fueling UK's new found hope. One simple thing. U of L's defense in the first two games was porous. It I hard to understate how bad the defense looked and became the stimulus for all of the growing doubt surrounding U of L.

What do I think about the game? For me the difference in this game is going to be the offensive line. Which ever team which can control the line of scrimmage will win. Why? Because they will be able to run, throw, and score lots of points. In this regard U of L has a distinct advantage. They have a more experienced and more heralded line. Ultimately, I believe this advantage on the line will be the difference in the game. I think U of L wins this game by double digits.

Of course the X factor in every game is turnovers and penalties. These are mistakes that can turn a game regardless of how dominating one team might be.

What should you look for in this game? Can UK get out a head of Louisville in the early stages of this game. Because of the explosiveness of U of L's offense, UK must play most of this game with the lead. If UK gets behind by more than two scores this game it will be over. They won't be able to keep up with UL's ability to put points on the board. From behind UK will be forced to take chances and you can only press so much before mistakes happen. The pressure to score will only mount the longer they trail and cause them take to many chances. Errors will occur and the game will turn into a route.

Regardless of what should happened, you still have to play the game.

Posted by brians at 5:16 PM in Sports Topics
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Sunday, 4 February 2007

Super Bowl Sunday

Unfortunately I actually sat down and watched the Super Bowl tonight. I love football and I have to say that the commercials were better than the game. And the commercials weren't that good. I don't know what was worse, watching every Colts drive stall out inside the 20 or watching the Bear's anemic attempt at offense.

My only thought after watching that train wreck was wow, the wrong quarterback was awarded the MVP for the Colts.

By the way, my top three commercials were:

1) Ultra-Garmin vs Mapzilla
2) Connectile Dysfunction
3) Bud Light's Rock/Paper/Scissor
Posted by elendil at 11:39 PM in Sports Topics
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Tuesday, 16 January 2007

Why Would Brohm Come Back?

I have been listening to a number of call in shows that have been flooded with talk about Brian Brohm's decision to come back for his senior season. Almost everyone seemed to think he should have gone pro instead of coming back. They all were citing the fact that he could be injured and out the millions he would have received coming out early. Most seemed to think that this was great for U of L, but bad for Brian. Personally, I think he decided to come back for his senior year because of the money and not from loyalty to the school.

Why? Because his draft stock is going to only go up next year. Now that Brohm comes back he vaults himself to the top of the quarterbacks in next year's draft. If he has a great year, he will end up a top 3 pick. That would secure him 30 - 50 million dollars instead of the 10 million he would have made this year. So you see he could very easily make "more" money by coming back for his senior season.

But what about the possibility of being injured? Minimal. He is a quarterback and not a running back. Quarterback's just don't get hit very often. On the other hand I understand why Bush left early, the chance of injury is much greater for him.

So I don't buy the "he did it for the school" routine. I think him and his family made the shrewd business decision by staying in school. And by doing so Brian gets the nice perk of having his status elevated to legendary in Louisville.

Posted by elendil at 11:36 PM in Sports Topics
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