Some observations on Euro 2008 and soccer in general

With my computer out of commission due to some kind of fault in the charger or power socket, I have been forced to watch more local television. This would not be so bad if I were in the US or even Russia, but here... there's not much to watch. Luckily, though, Euro 2008 is going on, and so I've watched most of the games so far. The commentators are Lithuanian, so I kind of have to draw my own uneducated conclusions about things. Said uneducated conclusions are as follows:

(1) France, this year anyway, is about as good at winning soccer matches as they are at winning major military conflicts (sinking Greenpeace boats, though awesome, does not count). That terrible game against Romania aside, the Dutch absolutely murdered them last night. I mean, losing 4-1 is bad enough, but the silly-looking orange tide from the Netherlands absolutely devastated (in the IU sense of the word) the French side. France had potential for an awesome highlight when one dude acrobatically behind-the-back-passed to Henry. Henry was basically home free but muffed the shot horribly, shooting high over the crossbar. Aside from that, France just seemed absolutely flat and their defense was terrible. Gotta give credit where it's due, I suppose, and say that the Dutch were pretty damned good at counterattacking. But the point is... France is pretty awful.

(2) I'm not a huge soccer fan, i.e., this is the first soccer I've watched since the last World Cup games. But I really don't like how much the game can change just because of penalties. I also don't like how much the outcome depends on the referees. Take, for example, the Poland-Austria game, where Poland was forced to eat a tie because of a very questionable call and the resulting penalty kick -- in injury time, which in and of itself seems to be pretty aribtrary and easily manipulated.

I suppose the case could be made that a lot of American sports are similarly dependent on objective calls made by refs. The way I see it, though, is that soccer refs make, at most, a dozen calls per game that actually matter. Offsides is an important call, as it can take back a goal. Penalties inside the box are also a very important call, as the Poland-Austria game showed. Other than that, though, fouls in the open field rarely result in game-deciding changes.

As I said, people might make the case that American sports depend just as much on objective calls by refs -- I disagree. Umps in baseball make hundreds of calls in a single game (balls, strikes, etc.), so if they muff one, chances are it's not going to be irreversably game-changing. Furthermore, if it is a major flub, it's less likely to be deciding. Also, most baseball games have many runs scored compared to goals scored in soccer. For example, the average number of runs scored in yesterday's MLB games was 4.47, the most being 20 and the least being 0. Soccer does not have that kind of average or that kind of spread.

When a ref makes a stupid penalty call inside the box, and the benefactor of that call scores on the penalty kick, the magnitude with which that game is affected is much greater. Furthermore, Buffon's crazy save against Romania notwithstanding, chances are that the kick is going in. That article indicates 70-80% of penalty kicks go in. I tried to find a reliable statistic of how many go in, overall, but I can't find one. So, if anyone out there has a source that gives a specific percentage of penalty shots taken vs. penalty shots made, I would like to see it. The point is that penalties inside the box, which very much depend on the ref's discretion, affect the game profoundly and often irreperably, a detraction I don't really feel exists with the same magnitude in American sports.

(3) So much seems to depend on chance in soccer. Obviously a whole shit-load of skill is involved, and the prettiest goals are indeed pretty. But a good portion (I'd say 40% or higher) of the goals I've seen so far in Euro 2008 seem to have a lot of luck involved. Things like the ball bouncing at a weird angle from the goalpost only to get headed in by a guy in the right place at the right time. Stuff like that. By no means am I trying to demean soccer as not being equal to other sports (like golf), believe me. It's a hell of a sport, I'm just saying that a lot of goals have a lot of luck involved, and in such a low-scoring game it's rough, I'm sure, as a player (and as a fan), to have so much uncertainty. But then again, I suppose hockey is like that, too.