PARIS, FRANCE – For those of you tuning in to see another brilliant Angry Ward expose on douchebaggery of the umpteenth degree, you’ll be stunned to know that he’s been sent by MTM Management to cover the Women’s Soccer World Cup. Now that we have the attention of the the three remaining Americans still reading this post (along with many of you in soccer-friendly nations), let’s take a look at what @Angry_Ward may find and in the meantime, breakdown the elements of the following: How To Fix Soccer So It Doesn’t Suck.
CHECKING: It’s simple, implement NHL-style checking. You have a 2-Mississippi window to knock into someone from the time they last touched the ball. If the sissies among you want, we can limit it to checking with your hips or butt. But that limitation will fade as more and more fans see how cool it is. Shoulder-to-shoulder checks will soon be allowed, as is the bane of soccer…
DIVING: This makes the game of hairy shins and skinny arms unbearable for any red-blooded American fan of football, hockey, baseball and even basketball. Hell, the latter even has a foul call built for this act against sports humanity. So what do we do? Simple. We make it illegal. You get an Pink Card (your guess as to why) for a dive. That leaves your team shorthanded for 10 minutes. If you do indeed get away with a dive during a match, you go in front of a Dive Board (TM) that reviews said crime repeatedly from different angles. If found guilty after the fact, you get a two-game suspension. The referee that missed it gets a 1-game suspension.
CARDS: Make the frogging cards mean something! A Yellow Card in rugby, for instance, gets you Sin-Binned for 10 minutes. Your team plays a player down during that time. That’s the equivalent of 5 NHL minor penalties. Make it the same in #Futbol. And a Red Card in rugby gets you tossed from the match, up for a post-match review and leaves your team playing short a player the rest of the match. Your second Yellow should be an automatic Red. Oh, and why the rugby comparison? Because #rugby started when a kid name Webb Ellis was bored to tears at soccer practice, picked up the ball and ran with it. Kids tackled him. They all stood up, looked at each other with glee and the realization they invented a new, much cooler game. Since they were at the school called Rugby in the town of Rugby, they proved they shot their creativity load in the creation of the game, and lamely named it after the school and town. It could have been called, Coxsackie.
PLAYERS: People punch each other in the face, knife one and other and even kill at soccer matches. You know why? Because they are bombed and frustrated by 1-0 games. You spend all that money on travel, tickets, food and beer and your team continually scores 2 runs or less. You listening #Mets fans? Rugby fans from warring nations can sit with each other at the game because there is more scoring, physicality and ROOM FOR STARS TO SHINE. Watching soccer is like watching the NJ Devils and Florida Panthers play Neutral Zone Trap hockey in perpetuity with star goalies like John Vanbiesbrouck and Martin Brodeur making getting a puck through the Great Wall of China an easier task. What to do, guy?! Easy, teams play with one less player. That makes more room for Messi and the other guy… the one that poses for underwear ads and waxes his eyebrows.
And there you have it. We’ve fixed soccer AND pissed off Angry Ward by being tardy to the publish button and talking rugby.
Come back tomorrow for a man that earns Red Cards on the subway every day just by being himself, Buddy Diaz.
