Squishy Soccer
Aug. 13th, 2026 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bigmogDuring the 2026 World Cup, I watched only a few notable matches. My preference is for the Women’s World Cup; a tournament that team USA has actually won multiple times. The women aren’t as fast as the men but they play a sound game without as much flopping. Sports-woman-like better describes an athlete that plays with integrity.
When Denver announced a new women’s professional soccer club, I was excited to be an early fan. The Denver Summit FC are playing their inaugural season and I’ve been going to many of the home games at the temporary new stadium just a few miles from my house. Riding my bike to see a soccer game evokes some latent European inclination that maybe someday I’ll require further.
As a casual fan trying to get more into the sport however, I’m struggling. The biggest hurdle is that officiating is subjective and the referee doesn’t explain their decisions. I gather that a foul was committed and that’s all the info provided. This makes it really difficult to understand the finer aspects of the sport. For a game with such a simple premise, there are a lot of nuances to the rules that are vaguely defined.
Time is the easiest example. A time judge tracks how much time is left in the match but it’s more of an estimate. I’ve accepted that strangeness in exchange for not having constant pauses in the game. Harder to understand are perplexing calls that decided the outcome of the game yet no explanation was ever supplied. It just seems too arbitrary for my computer coded brain to follow. My mind likes rules that are well defined and enforced with consistency.
I had a similar, though less severe complaint with baseball. The umpire mistakes about balls and strikes are a given and simply overlooked. Now though, they rely on computers and the calls are accurate. Soccer lacks accuracy and also transparency, and as a result accountability. Whatever the ref decides in their head, is canon. For all we know, they flipped a mental coin to determine who was at fault.
This is changing a bit with VAR (Video Assistant Referee) but still isn’t used as much as I would like. They worry it will slow down the game and ruin the flow that keeps the fans engaged. Still, I believe it’s better to get the call right than to simply accept a bad call to keep the game moving along.
I may keep going to some games for the atmosphere but I don’t think I’m capable of enjoying soccer unless they change the officiating significantly. The rules are simply too “squishy”.
When Denver announced a new women’s professional soccer club, I was excited to be an early fan. The Denver Summit FC are playing their inaugural season and I’ve been going to many of the home games at the temporary new stadium just a few miles from my house. Riding my bike to see a soccer game evokes some latent European inclination that maybe someday I’ll require further.
As a casual fan trying to get more into the sport however, I’m struggling. The biggest hurdle is that officiating is subjective and the referee doesn’t explain their decisions. I gather that a foul was committed and that’s all the info provided. This makes it really difficult to understand the finer aspects of the sport. For a game with such a simple premise, there are a lot of nuances to the rules that are vaguely defined.
Time is the easiest example. A time judge tracks how much time is left in the match but it’s more of an estimate. I’ve accepted that strangeness in exchange for not having constant pauses in the game. Harder to understand are perplexing calls that decided the outcome of the game yet no explanation was ever supplied. It just seems too arbitrary for my computer coded brain to follow. My mind likes rules that are well defined and enforced with consistency.
I had a similar, though less severe complaint with baseball. The umpire mistakes about balls and strikes are a given and simply overlooked. Now though, they rely on computers and the calls are accurate. Soccer lacks accuracy and also transparency, and as a result accountability. Whatever the ref decides in their head, is canon. For all we know, they flipped a mental coin to determine who was at fault.
This is changing a bit with VAR (Video Assistant Referee) but still isn’t used as much as I would like. They worry it will slow down the game and ruin the flow that keeps the fans engaged. Still, I believe it’s better to get the call right than to simply accept a bad call to keep the game moving along.
I may keep going to some games for the atmosphere but I don’t think I’m capable of enjoying soccer unless they change the officiating significantly. The rules are simply too “squishy”.