In just about all team sports, there are certain plays that are considered to be “heady,” those that would seem to go against the natural instinct of the player but are beneficial in attaining the desired result. Some of these
In just about all team sports, there are certain plays that are considered to be “heady,” those that would seem to go against the natural instinct of the player but are beneficial in attaining the desired result.
Some of these include intentionally walking a batter in baseball, taking a knee at the end of a football game, using up the shot clock with a lead in a basketball game.
Most of the time, it’s just the way the sport is played. There’s nothing sinister about it. These scenarios are within the same rules that everyone plays by, thus making them simply strategic.
I have to say, soccer is walking a fine line between strategy and sinister.
The end of the Ghana-Uruguay match during Friday’s quarterfinal round of the World Cup left a bitter taste in my mouth and made me re-think some of the basic rules of the sport.
In the final minute of extra time in the final overtime period, with the score tied at 1-1, Ghana’s Dominic Adiyiah put a header on net as Uruguay goalie Fernando Muslera was off his line and out of the goal. It was a sure score, a miraculous game-winner that would have sent the only remaining African nation into the semifinals on its home continent.
And then it wasn’t.
What turned out to be a “heady” play by Luis Suarez saw the forward stick out his arm and keep the ball from crossing the goal line, momentarily preserving the tie.
The first rule of soccer seems to be: Don’t use your hands.
Yet Suarez ended up keeping his team alive by breaking the most commonly known rule in the book.
It wasn’t as if it went unpunished. Suarez drew a red card for the incident, which sent him off the pitch and would eliminate him from playing in the following match, if Uruguay were to advance.
Ghana was also awarded a penalty kick, which was taken by Asamoah Gyan — he who scored the game-winner against the United States in the Round of 16. The accomplished player has scored three goals in the Cup.
On the PK, Muslera dove to the right, Gyan shot straight down the middle but hit the top of the crossbar and sent the ball into the stands. The clock had run out and the match would be decided by penalty kicks.
Suarez, watching from the tunnel, began to almost convulse when he saw the failed attempt. His instinctive reaction, though completely illegal, had paid off. If he had kept his arms down, as every player is taught when near their own net, Ghana would be making the first semifinal appearance by an African nation in World Cup history.
But they’re not.
Uruguay went on to win 4-2 in the penalty kick phase and will advance to take on the Netherlands in the semis.
Different sports handle these types of occurrences differently. But in soccer, where goals are so infrequent, shouldn’t the punishment for such an obviously egregious act be an automatic score?
Just imagine that in an NBA game, a team trailing by two points takes a 3-pointer at the buzzer. The leading team’s center, standing under the basket, sees that the shot is about to go in. He jumps up and knocks the ball away from the rim, getting called for goaltending. What if the reward for the shooter was to step to the free-throw line and have to knock down three pressure-packed foul shots with no time on the clock? Wouldn’t that be thought of as something of an injustice?
If soccer insists on having the player actually have to put the ball in the net themselves, let them take a shot from wherever they struck the ball, but with no goalie. Sort of like a free throw, only way easier.
I don’t feel so terrible for Ghana because they used their own “heady” play at the end of their USA victory by going to the ground constantly in the final 10 minutes of extra time. It was as if they had all eaten the same fish served to the passengers in “Airplane!” and were simultaneously feeling its effects. It’s amazing they were able to celebrate at the final whistle after such obvious agony.
That’s another rule that needs to be re-visited and properly enforced by the officials.
But for today, I do feel for the African continent.
For close to a hundred years, the rest of the world has tried to sell Americans on the virtues of the one sport where hands are unimportant.
Except, apparently, when it matters most.
