Thoughts on the World Cup

The World Cup is finally over and Italy beat France in a penalty kick shootout to win the championship.  Is there a worse way to end a game than by penalty kicks?  Watching these penalty kick shootouts it all appears to be mostly luck who scores because the goal keeper has to guess which side of the net to dive to.  Then what happened to Zidane?  The Italian player definitely put on his best flopping performance after the head to chest butt, however he should have known the Italians were baiting him to do something with all the grabbing and holding they were doing to him.  That is a boneheaded way for a soccer legend to go out.  Watching this game I really can’t say the best team won because it appeared France was the better team and Italy held on to penalty kicks.  There has to be a better way of ending these games.

Overall, though this World Cup is a perfect example of why I think soccer will remain a second tier sport in America.  The team with some of the best floppers won.  The honors for the best floppers goes to Portugal, which got them all the way to the semi-finals, but Italy isn’t far behind in the quality of their flopping.  For Italy to just tie the US team they had to rely on the US playing half the game a player short due to crappy officiating and a goal taken away from the US not to mention the stupendous flopping of the Italians the entire game.  The Italians used the same formula to beat the Australian team as well when with 5 seconds left a flop near the net resulted in a penalty kick for them.  After games like these, countries like the US and Australia that are soccer outsiders are left feeling that since they are not well known soccer countries they have no chance of beating the big names due to flopping and poor officiating.  Flopping and poor officiating are enough to turn off new viewers to soccer and that is why I think the game will remain a second tier sport in America.