Theme Week, Part 2

Jeremy's Sametime Status Proudly Presents:  Soccer Improvements Week!  #4 - Put a glass or net barrier along the back line to keep balls in play if they miss the net

Jeremy Is In The Office continues our celebration of Euro 2012 with the fourth in a series of improvements to the game of Soccer, other than calling it "Football," which will broaden its appeal to the general sporting fanbase.  Today's tip...wait, really?  I don't know about this one.

Well, they can't all be gold.  

Today's suggestion comes from the realm of hockey and/or arena football in which a barrier of glass (technically Lexan, but that may be splitting hairs) or netting to immediately return balls to play when they're kicked past the goal.  In the case of hockey, the puck bounces right back into play, wherein Arena Football can see the ball thrown into the net and drop directly into the end zone for a touchdown.  These ideas are great for the game of soccer, where often times, players will direct a hard shot in the general goal-ward direction, but miss completely and have the ball sail far out of play.  This results in a substantial stoppage in play during which time a new ball is tossed onto the pitch, players arrange themselves for a corner kick, one player places the ball in the corner kick area, then moves it, then gets ready to kick it before moving the ball again, signalling to his teammates before moving the ball again and finally kicking it, the goalie catches it, and play finally resumes.  Of course, at this point, the goalie usually nutses around with the ball for a while first, but that's beside the point.  

All of this nonsense and dead time can be avoided by simply having the ball bounce immediately back into play, forcing people to continue to work hard on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, and resulting in non-stop soccer action.  

I guess this isn't SO stupid...it's better than adding a water hazard on the sidelines.  

That would be AWESOME!!!!  

Sorry I mentioned it.  

Also for your edutainment today, I realized something not long ago.  For highly-anticipated sporting events, people spend long hours well in advance to create official logos which will be printed on commemorative t-shirts, books, pennants, keychains, balls, hats, and whatever else souvenir retailers can make some money on.  You'll be pleased to know that the official logo for the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament has been painstakingly designed, and has resulted in 100% Fail.  Yes, folks..the official 2014 World Cup Logo, coming soon to merchandise everywhere, is pretty much identical to the iconic Captain Picard Facepalm: