COLUMN: And now it is futbol’s turn
Last week, The Statesman published an article by Ms. Kayla Clark that generated more public response than any other sports article that has been published this year. Most of the response was, on the whole, negative. Now, I am here to give a voice to those who would advocate that football is indeed the superior sport, but I do so with the stern admonition to the reading public to not abuse the fact that my e-mail address is listed at the end of this article. Also, to futbol (soccer) fans – leave Kayla alone. You’re making everyone else who loves the beautiful game look stupid.
And yes, I’ll be calling the beautiful game of futbol by its proper name at the risk that I’ll stir up the ire of American football fans. Take it easy, guys. I’m an Aggie football fan too. I love the gridiron. For this article, however, I am placing my comments in a global context. Since the game is referred to as soccer only in this country, I’m calling the sport by the name that at least 90 percent of the world calls it.
Take deep breaths. It’ll be OK. After this article, you can blast me to death on the comment boards at aggietownsquare.com.
Now, let me step onto my soapbox and into the obvious answer of this controversial question. Here’s the blow by blow, counting down from 10 to one.
10. The value of a single futbol match, regardless of league, tournament or season, is a hundred times more important than any baseball game. Baseball features 160 some-odd games in the course of a season. I understand that fanatics exist to support every club in every sport, but even I get tired of watching baseball after so many games, especially when I find it difficult to place the value of that single game in the course of a season. Every futbol match in every European and American league is worth something significant, regardless of the final score.
9. Futbol requires athleticism. Futbol players must be on guard to move quickly and immediately. Futbol players can never stop over the course of the game. Futbol is truly a physical challenge. The average midfielder in a futbol match sprints nearly six miles every match in the course of his duties, if not more. Let’s try making Carlos Zambrano or C.C. Sabathia run like that for 2.5 hours. I guarantee you, if they did, those big boys would be puking their guts out by the 20th minute.
8. The officials in baseball have little to no control of a match. I will be the first to admit that a bad call in futbol can determine the outcome and cite the recent outrage that took hold after the France v Ireland World Cup Qualifier in which Theirry Henry handled the ball on the baseline en route to making the pass that assisted the game-winning goal and prevented Ireland from advancing to the World Cup Finals. However, I’ll take that over having to watch an umpire call timeout so that Mr. Itchy Fingers can readjust his batting gloves after every swing of the bat. The umpires let baseball players do just about anything they want in a game as long as they get back to the game … eventually.
7. Futbol requires more contribution from each individual player on the pitch than baseball. Joe Left-Fielder doesn’t need to do anything for about half a baseball game beyond watch the pitcher pitch and watch the batter ground into inning-ending double plays. Let’s not forget the six or seven pitchers in the rotation who play one of the team’s six scheduled games during the week and then take the rest of the week off while the rest of the team pulls the weight. Yeah, those guys really contribute from the pine – certainly much more than the sub who must come in to provide fresh legs to a futbol team that might find itself two goals down with fewer than 10 minutes remaining. It’s not like that guy has any weight on his shoulders, right?
6. Baseball games can last forever. Four hours for a single game is too much to ask a sports fan for a regular season game. If a futbol game can’t be decided, both teams take a point for the standings, and we all go home.
5. In what other sport can a team with a losing regular-season record win a league championship? In what other sport has it ever been done? The very fact that Real Salt Lake upset the LA Galaxy with their triumph over David Beckham (who has played for his the English National Selection more than 110 times in his career) and Landon Donovan (the all-time leading goal scorer in the history of the U.S. National Selection) is a testament to the unpredictability of futbol. Look at the monumental upset of Portugal in the final of the 2004 Euro Cup. Portugal v Greece in Lisbon. That’s like a Yankees-Royals matchup for the World Series. In baseball, it’s a no-brainer. Yankees will win. But not in futbol. The Greeks left Cristiano Ronaldo in tears (the boy literally cried) and left Lisbon with the Euro Cup in tow. Anything can happen in futbol.
4. The loyalty of futbol fans is impossible to overcome. Some take the beautiful game to be more than what it is, but I don’t blame them too badly. In most of the world where the standard of living is much, much lower than the U.S., futbol is what many people live and breathe for. Fans from every nation in the world will travel to the World Cup to watch their team that has made it to the biggest stage in sport for what may be the first and only time ever. More than 100 teams try to get to the World Cup finals, and only 32 teams make it there over a four-year qualification process. Watch how many fans travel from Brazil, Japan, Mexico, the Ivory Coast and Serbia to watch their team in the World Cup and tell them the 2,000 mile trip wasn’t worth it.
3. Nations grind to a halt when the Cup is on. The Portuguese parliament postponed important governmental functions so that the members of the government could watch the team when Portugal made it to the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup. Nations everywhere will be putting up projector screens in their town squares to support their nation in a bid to defeat the world. Such things have never happened for baseball.
2. Foul balls matter in futbol, because nothing can top the drama of a penalty-kick shootout. After 22 men have run their guts out trying to get that blasted ball into the back of the net for nearly three hours, it all comes down to who can get the ball past the keeper more times. This is the ultimate of all one-on-one matchups. The keeper must decide in a split second which way to jump. If he’s a millisecond too late, the ball goes off his fingertips and into the net. On the other hand, the kicker can pull his shot and shoot down his team’s dreams of glory in an instant. For baseball fans, there’s always one more pitch if the ball goes foul. Football fans call foul balls missed PKs, and they matter.
1. The ultimate championship in futbol is truly a world championship for which nations of the world compete. The World Cup is practically a substitute for war. World Series? Until I see a baseball team from Ghana trying to take the World Series trophy from the Boston Red Sox, I’ll never believe the World Series is truly a World Championship. The World Cup is where it’s at, and, thank the stars, it’s only two mere months away.
Landon Hemsley is a senior majoring in business and broadcast journalism from American Fork, Utah. Landon is single and his grandmother says he’s quite the catch. Read last Friday’s controversial article which sided with baseball and share your feelings on the debate at www.aggietownsquare.com.