Soccer is boring. One of the misconceptions non-soccer fans have about soccer fans is that we don't know this. The classic Simpsons parody of a soccer match — "Fast kickin'! Low scorin'! And ties? You bet!" — hangs on the joke that the game puts Americans to sleep while somehow, bafflingly, driving foreigners wild with excitement. Calling the game for Springfield TV, Kent Brockman practically grinds his teeth with frustration: "Halfback passes to the center … back to the wing … back to the center. Center holds it. Holds it. [Huge sigh.] Holds it." One booth over, the Spanish commentator is going nuts: "Halfback passes to the center! Back to the wing! Back to the center! Center holds it! Holds it!! HOLDS IT!!!"1
It's a great comedy bit, but it's not really accurate as a depiction of soccer culture. Soccer fans know soccer is boring. Soccer fans have seen more soccer than anyone. We're aware that it can be a chore. Fire up Twitter during the average Stoke City-Wigan match and you'll find us making jokes about gouging out our own eyes with wire hangers, about the players forgetting where the goals are, about what would happen if we released a pride of lions onto the pitch. (Answer: The game would still finish 0-0.) When Ricky Gervais recorded his "David Brent on Football Management" clip for the BBC during the first run of The Office, he snuck in a similar dig at the tedium of some of Liverpool's greatest teams:
So why do soccer fans do this? Assuming we follow sports for something like entertainment, what do we get out of a game for which the potential for tedium is so high that some of its most famous inspirational quotes are simply about not being dull?
I keep thinking about this question lately, maybe because I've been finding myself drawn to more and more boring games. This past weekend, I sat through the slow cudgeling death of Liverpool-Stoke. The final score was 0-0, but the final emotional score was -5. During Swansea's deliriously fun 3-2 upset of Arsenal on Sunday, I kept switching over to Athletic Bilbao's mundane 3-0 win over Levante. Why am I doing this? I thought, as Fernando Amorebieta whuffed in a gloomy header and Levante pinned themselves into their own half. But I kept checking back.
There are two reasons, basically, why soccer lends itself to spectatorial boredom. One is that the game is mercilessly hard to play at a high level. (You know, what with the whole "maneuver a small ball via precisely coordinated spontaneous group movement with 10 other people on a huge field while 11 guys try to knock it away from you, and oh, by the way, you can't use your arms and hands" element.) The other is that the gameplay almost never stops — it's a near-continuous flow for 45-plus minutes at a stretch, with only very occasional resets. Combine those two factors and you have a game that's uniquely adapted for long periods of play where, say, the first team's winger goes airborne to bring down a goal kick, but he jumps a little too soon, so the ball kind of kachunks off one side of his face, then the second team's fullback gets control of it, and he sees his attacking midfielder lurking unmarked in the center of the pitch, so he kludges the ball 20 yards upfield, but by the time it gets there the first team's holding midfielder has already closed him down and gone in for a rough tackle, and while the first team's attacking midfielder is rolling around on the ground the second team's right back runs onto the loose ball, only he's being harassed by two defenders, so he tries to knock it ahead and slip through them, but one of them gets a foot to it, so the ball sproings up in the air … etc., etc., etc. Both teams have carefully worked-out tactical plans that influence everything they're trying to do. But the gameplay is so relentless that it can't help but go through these periodic bouts of semi-decomposition.
But — and here's the obvious answer to the "Why are we doing this?" question — those same two qualities, difficulty and fluidity, also mean that soccer is uniquely adapted to produce moments of awesome visual beauty. Variables converge. Players discover solutions to problems it would be impossible to summarize without math. The ball sproings up in the air … and comes down in just such a way that Dennis Bergkamp can pull off a reverse-pirouette flick that spins the ball around the defender and back into his own path … or Thierry Henry can three-touch a 40-yard pass in the air before lining it up and scoring a weak-foot roundhouse … or Zlatan Ibrahimovic can stutter-fake his way through an entire defense. In sports, pure chaos is boring. Soccer gives players more chaos to contend with than any other major sport. So there's something uniquely thrilling about the moments when they manage to impose their own order on it.
by Brian Phillips, Grantland | Read more:
Photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images
It's a great comedy bit, but it's not really accurate as a depiction of soccer culture. Soccer fans know soccer is boring. Soccer fans have seen more soccer than anyone. We're aware that it can be a chore. Fire up Twitter during the average Stoke City-Wigan match and you'll find us making jokes about gouging out our own eyes with wire hangers, about the players forgetting where the goals are, about what would happen if we released a pride of lions onto the pitch. (Answer: The game would still finish 0-0.) When Ricky Gervais recorded his "David Brent on Football Management" clip for the BBC during the first run of The Office, he snuck in a similar dig at the tedium of some of Liverpool's greatest teams:
Do you think that Alan Hansen or Mark Lawrenson would have had the careers they had if they'd had the skills but not the discipline? If they didn't have the concentration?Translation: Those guys were good. Now please, God, someone release the lions.
It's not easy passing the ball back to the goalkeeper every single time you get it. For ninety minutes.
So why do soccer fans do this? Assuming we follow sports for something like entertainment, what do we get out of a game for which the potential for tedium is so high that some of its most famous inspirational quotes are simply about not being dull?
I keep thinking about this question lately, maybe because I've been finding myself drawn to more and more boring games. This past weekend, I sat through the slow cudgeling death of Liverpool-Stoke. The final score was 0-0, but the final emotional score was -5. During Swansea's deliriously fun 3-2 upset of Arsenal on Sunday, I kept switching over to Athletic Bilbao's mundane 3-0 win over Levante. Why am I doing this? I thought, as Fernando Amorebieta whuffed in a gloomy header and Levante pinned themselves into their own half. But I kept checking back.
There are two reasons, basically, why soccer lends itself to spectatorial boredom. One is that the game is mercilessly hard to play at a high level. (You know, what with the whole "maneuver a small ball via precisely coordinated spontaneous group movement with 10 other people on a huge field while 11 guys try to knock it away from you, and oh, by the way, you can't use your arms and hands" element.) The other is that the gameplay almost never stops — it's a near-continuous flow for 45-plus minutes at a stretch, with only very occasional resets. Combine those two factors and you have a game that's uniquely adapted for long periods of play where, say, the first team's winger goes airborne to bring down a goal kick, but he jumps a little too soon, so the ball kind of kachunks off one side of his face, then the second team's fullback gets control of it, and he sees his attacking midfielder lurking unmarked in the center of the pitch, so he kludges the ball 20 yards upfield, but by the time it gets there the first team's holding midfielder has already closed him down and gone in for a rough tackle, and while the first team's attacking midfielder is rolling around on the ground the second team's right back runs onto the loose ball, only he's being harassed by two defenders, so he tries to knock it ahead and slip through them, but one of them gets a foot to it, so the ball sproings up in the air … etc., etc., etc. Both teams have carefully worked-out tactical plans that influence everything they're trying to do. But the gameplay is so relentless that it can't help but go through these periodic bouts of semi-decomposition.
But — and here's the obvious answer to the "Why are we doing this?" question — those same two qualities, difficulty and fluidity, also mean that soccer is uniquely adapted to produce moments of awesome visual beauty. Variables converge. Players discover solutions to problems it would be impossible to summarize without math. The ball sproings up in the air … and comes down in just such a way that Dennis Bergkamp can pull off a reverse-pirouette flick that spins the ball around the defender and back into his own path … or Thierry Henry can three-touch a 40-yard pass in the air before lining it up and scoring a weak-foot roundhouse … or Zlatan Ibrahimovic can stutter-fake his way through an entire defense. In sports, pure chaos is boring. Soccer gives players more chaos to contend with than any other major sport. So there's something uniquely thrilling about the moments when they manage to impose their own order on it.
by Brian Phillips, Grantland | Read more:
Photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images
