Cup Stuff

You know what must be a really hard sport to officiate?

Soccer. Especially at the World Cup. For everything that goes into putting together the World Cup, or major international and professional soccer in general, why in the world is there still only one referee on the field?

If TigerBlog ever found himself as a soccer ref, he'd miss pretty much every call, since he'd spend most of his time trying to stay out of the way of the ball. Even for the best refs, though, how in the world are they supposed to properly call one of these games, especially when every game can turn on the closest of calls?

First of all, things happen so fast that it's hard for one person to see it all. Second of all, there's TB's least favorite part of the World Cup - the constant flopping that goes on in every game. Players go down to the ground like in agony that suggests that they will never walk without a limp again, only to pop back up 10 seconds later.

What percentage of those players are even the slightest bit hurt?

Then there's offsides. The referee's assistant stays even with the offensive player closest to the goal, so that he is sort of in the same offside position as the player. Then, presumably, if he doesn't see a defender between himself and the goal when the ball is played, then he raises the flag.

The problem with that is how do you watch both at the same time, especially when trying to see whether the ball is played at a time when there is a defender keeping the player onsides can be next to impossible on video, let alone in real life. Maybe they have to rely on hearing the ball played while watching the positioning of the players?

The World Cup has used video well so far, with penalty kicks called or a goal disallowed without having the game crawl to a halt. That's what TB would suggest to the NFL or college or pro basketball - watch it once and if there's nothing obvious, the call stands.

One way to help the refs would be to make the time clear to everyone on the scoreboard. Stop it on goals. Stop it when the ref signals to stop it. When it gets to 0:00, the half or game is over.

Also, in how many games do you have a referee and two teams who all speak the same language? What are they saying to each other when the players all get in the refs face, wagging their fingers at him, if they don't speak the same language?

Despite those little flaws, TigerBlog continues to thoroughly enjoy the World Cup. Way more than Lionel Messi, TB supposes, though not as much as Cristiano Ronaldo. Or the Iceland fans.

One thing about having games on Fox in any sport is that the network loves to do cutaway shots to fans who are watching the stands, getting their reactions to the twists and turns of a game. Usually they are too much, but at the World Cup those shots are tremendous. There's just so much emotion to them, way more than at any other athletic event TB knows.

Oh, and TB heard about fans of several countries - specifically Japan and Senegal - who bring plastic bags with them to the games and then clean up all the trash in their sections, leaving the stadium cleaner than when they got there. That's pretty nice.

Anyway, there are nine more games between today and Sunday as the group stage rolls along. Keep in mind - the tiebreaker for the group stage is goal differential and then goals scored, not head-to-head. That means the late goals that Argentina allowed to Croatia in the 3-0 game could really come back to be haunting, since Argentina is now at minus-3 (with just one point) with one game left. Iceland could take a real step towards advancing should it beat Nigeria today.

The World Cup final is still three weeks away. The first Princeton sporting event of the 2018-19 academic year is nine weeks from today.

That's awhile. If you go back nine weeks, it takes you back to the last weekend of April, which is when Princeton's men's lacrosse season ended. That seems like a long time ago.

In reality, the new athletic year will be here soon. The countdown to kickoff clock shows that there are 85 days until the first Princeton football game of 2018, which also seems like a lot but will be here soon enough.

Now it's time for summer camps here. There were young fencers and young football players at Princeton yesterday, and young squash players and young basketball players earlier in the week.

For the most part, it's quiet around here though.

And it's the first full weekend of summer. Whatever you're doing, TigerBlog hopes it's a good one.