Be a Good Sport

So the US men’s team had a goal taken away from them during a recent World Cup match. That goal made the difference between tying the game and winning the game. It may also be the difference between the US moving into the next round. Fans are obviously upset. However, the big discussion in America is why the US can’t challenge the referee’s on field ruling or even ask for an explanation of why the call was made. After all, you can do that in American football, baseball, basketball and all our other sports. Seems unfair that what the ref says goes in soccer. Soccer doesn’t even utilize instant replay to help with the ref’s decisions ensuring that at least some of the calls will be bad.

What seems to have American sports pundits in a tizzy is that everyone who likes the sport is ok with the fact that bad calls are made that will impact the outcome of the tournament. Even the members of the US team are unconcerned about what was obviously an arbitrary bad call. Don’t they care? Well, of course they do. But what these critics of the soccer system don’t seem to understand is that soccer players, despite all the professional fouls and faking of injuries to get a ref’s attention, are actually good sports. At the end of the day, they accept the ref as the final arbitrator of the game. Understanding that the ref is indeed human and can and will make mistakes and that those mistakes will sometimes go against you. That’s just part of the game. If you don’t like it play something else where people actually want to listen to you whine.

A big part of being a good sport is accepting the outcome of the game and not being a whiney baby when things don’t go your way. I’m not saying that football players are big fat babies; I’m just saying that soccer players approach their game in a more mature way. And besides, on field instant replays would spoil the flow of the game. Seriously.