Futbol is ‘the beautiful game’ that’s not always pretty but fun to watch

Futbol is ‘the beautiful game’ that’s not always pretty but fun to watch

The final goals have been kicked (or headed) and the Euro2024 and Copa America 2024 tournaments are now history.

Those tournaments, run-ups to the Paris Olympics, remind us why soccer is such a great game. We call it soccer, while the rest of the world calls it football, but by any name it’s a terrific sport to play and an even better one to watch, particularly on TV.

Unlike baseball, where everything is measured and dissected, and American football, where there are a million timeouts, soccer is played non-stop. And it’s not over-officiated. If a throw-in is a few yards off, who cares? Incidental fouls are usually ignored. Headers are almost always contested without fouling.

And the action is continuous. So be sure to use the bathroom before kickoff, and don’t take your eyes off the action. You might miss a goal. And there’s nothing in sports more beautiful than a well-played goal – which is celebrated by people shouting “Gooooooooal!”

I have a family connection to soccer. My cousin Jerry, a former high school teacher, became an international soccer expert – a writer, columnist and sometime broadcaster. His son Jamie carried on the tradition. Jamie’s wonderful book, “Love and Blood,” is a can’t-put-it-down account of events surrounding the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

TRECKER

Where did this marvelous sport come from? Soccer, it’s said, is a game invented by gentlemen and played by hooligans. A terrific TV series, “The English Game,” chronicles some of the history. And if you want heart-rending entertainment, watch the TV blockbuster “The Keeper,” a real life story of a famous goalie.

Every true fan has special memories, and I’m no exception. I’ll never forget Carli Lloyd’s hat trick in the 2015 World Cup final the Americans won against Japan. It doesn’t get any better than that.

What in the world is a hat trick, my wife asks. It’s three or more goals scored by a player in a single match. Other strange terms are “side” (team), “pitch” (playing field), “clean sheet” (a goalie not allowing a score), “nutmeg” (a pass or shot between an opponent’s legs) and many others.

But don’t be intimidated. You pick up the jargon pretty fast, particularly when listening to European announcers.

Adding to the strange sounds are the names of soccer heroes, global hall-of-famers etched in history – Messi, Cruyff, Renaldo, Maradona, Zidane. While not familiar to most Americans, those are household names elsewhere in the world.

What about the downsides of the sport? Although called “the beautiful game,” soccer has some real imperfections. First off, players fake injuries. It’s said that in order to play high-level soccer, you must first go to acting school and learn to fall, writhe and moan whenever an opposing player comes close.

Sometimes there are real injuries, but not often.

Worse is the violence off the pitch. Fans from opposing sides fight pitched battles in the streets and often in the stands. Stoked by alcohol, the brawls can be horrific.

The women are more civil. They don’t fight but they’ve found other ways to get into trouble, the U.S. National Team most notably by dissing the American flag and national anthem. Some players are still doing it. We’ll see if patriotism returns in time for the Paris Olympics.

The spotlight on the Olympics is always intense. For Toyko 2020, Canada fielded a side that included a trans woman, a person that went by a single name and referred to him/herself in the plural. Opposing countries went bananas.

I wonder what we’ll see in Paris.

In futbol, you just never know. ¦

Dave Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Florida.

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