Theme Week, Part 1

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Soccer Improvements Week!  #5 - Implement Instant Replay, but only for injuries


Wow...Jeremy's actually making sense for once.  This is a rare and special gift.


The number one thing that people complain about when watching soccer is the number of embellished injuries.  By that, I mean blatant dives in an attempt to draw a penalty of some sort.  One of the most important rules of sports is that if people can take a play you make and set it to "Yakkety Sax," you've made a bad play.  Well, here are a series of Soccer Dives Set To Yakkety Sax.   

That's awful.   


Here's Another Video, apparently recorded on a toaster, which is only amusing because of the music...which appears to be the Imperial Death March played by a bass, a guitar, and a penny whistle.   




The problem with soccer injuries is that there are so rarely actual injuries in soccer that nobody ever believes the players when they fall down clutching at something.  Almost exclusively, the player will spring right back up as soon as the ref acknowledges their situation.  On exceedingly rare occasions, the player will stay down for a while until a trainer comes over, gives them a drink of water, gives them a shot of that magic spray stuff they use and helps them back to their feet.  Either way, there is almost never an injury, yet the players act as if they have been shot, and nobody believes them.  The image of honesty among soccer players is completely gone.  Something must be done to return integrity to the game, and as usual, I'm the only one willing to step up and make it happen.  


So, here's my proposal.  Implement an Instant Replay system whenever a player acts as if they have been injured.  If the ref is able to determine that contact was made that could have resulted in the described injury (even if the "injury" may be embellished a bit), then play goes on as it normally would.  If, however, the player is deemed to have taken a dive in order to draw a penalty, they are assessed a substantial penalty of their own.  I have a couple suggestions.  The most obvious and least creative is give them an immediate red card, removing them from the game and forcing the team to play shorthanded the rest of the fixture (I learned that word not long ago...it means "Game.").  You can also award the offended team a penalty kick which would not only discourage diving, but would potentially increase scoring, which is something else soccer desperately needs.  Or, you can award the offended team a free kick...wherein the player deemed to have taken a dive is forced to act as a one-man wall only 5 yards from the spot of the ball, and they have to hold their hands behind their back until the ball is played.  I'm nothing if not creative.  




So, with that amusing mental image comes the end of this Theme Week.  We hope you've enjoyed our improvements to the great game of soccer, and enjoy watching Euro 2012.  Come back on monday for more fun!