From the How To Make ‘soccer’ Unboring Department
Don’t call it ‘soccer’ in European countries or you will find yourself on the next slow boat traveling west – in steerage! It’s called ‘football’ there. (Futbol es International!) With World Cup ‘Soccer’ at a fevers pitch, we thought a few extreme rule changes might make the game more interesting to us dumb Americans in the future.
Q: Why do so many Americans play soccer?
A: So, they don’t have to watch it on TV.
It’s not just me, nearly everyone in America will agree that ‘soccer’ lacks excitement, especially for the non-soccer connected person. I’m not speaking of the soccer Dad or Mom that lives and breathes their kids soccer games. I’m talking about the Pro games shown on TV. The rules are more confusing than hockey, the game seems to be incredibly slow with endless hours passing before anything happens.
After each goal the player celebrates wildly with his teammates like a dog does when you come home. A moment when the game has a spark.
IMO Soccer needs a real overhaul, not the sarcastic nonsense we post here about changing soccer’s rules to make it more interesting to watch on the tube. But I have to admit it is funny to imagine these ‘scenes we’d like to see’ new rules of soccer.
Soccer is the Muzac of sports, in a sports bar it’s on for the noise, nobody is really watching, waiting for golf to come on!
Conversation overheard in a Denver sports bar: “Soccer is so boring for Americans that if we wanted to watch a bunch of guys running around the field without scoring, we’d just watch the Denver Broncos.” Ouch!
Here are ten simple ways to make soccer interesting, and a few more we would like to see added:
This list was compiled by our friends at The Babylon Bee with additional rule changes suggested by Dex.
- Goalies must be double amputees – no more scoreless draws! Any two limbs will do.
- Supply one “enforcer” on each team with a taser – finally, the guy thrashing on the ground won’t be faking!
- Add quicksand so that anyone who takes too long on a free kick gets sucked in – move or die.
- Have a drunk hobo decide when each half starts and ends – bound to be more sensible than whatever the current system is.
- In the event of a tie, the coaches must have a duel at midfield – if it ends in a tie, it’s not a sport.
- If players pass the ball 10 times without shooting, the ball detonates – would put a stop to this asinine backward passing once and for all.
- Release an enraged bull onto the field if things get boring – “Mbappe steps up to take the free kick and OH MY GRACIOUS HE JUST GOT GORED IN THE LIVER!”
- Anyone who flops will be thrown into the Sarlacc Pit where they will discover a new definition of pain and suffering – there is no flopping in the Sarlacc Pit.
- Give half the players jetpacks and half the players surface-to-air missiles – built in Lockheed-Martin sponsorship.
- Instead of kicking a round ball towards a goal, players will carry or throw a more oblong ball towards a kind of “end zone” – definitely onto something here.
With just a few of these changes, soccer might have a real chance to finally catch on! Let us know any changes to the so-called “sport” that you would make!
Ok, you asked! A MAD version of “Scenes we’d like to See” you heard it here on the Swamp. Soccer Rules for Idiots our latest and soon to be banned book of rules to make soccer more interesting.
1.Widen the Goal and add another double amputee goalie, any limbs will do. Motorized wheelchairs for the goalies provided during the 2nd half.
2. Intro bikini clad soccer girls who issue the yellow cards cheekily! The players trying to conceal what’s happening inside the crotch area of their tight little soccer outfits will be entertaining for the lady fans.
3. Instead of exploding when ten or more passes are made, the ball shrinks to the size of a golf ball- everybody loves golf! There is a raging debate going on with sports fans, which sport is more boring to watch on TV, Golf or Soccer? So far soccer is winning – being more boring than golf.
4. No ties, each team gets a last possession with no time outs, ties after that decided by an applause meter. by this time the fans who took advantage of the free beer with their ticket offer have been reduced to a slobbering mob, the refs are looking for the exits, the cops are nervous. It’s a cocktail for disaster.
5. No rules, no penalties, no refs. Why not? Every other ref in any sport is second guessed, mostly by drunken armchair quarterbacks. That’s why the instant replay was invented – to make refs look stupid.
6. Free beer at every match included with ticket price, bombed fans are happy fans. Unless their team is losing, in which case the alcohol may ease the pain of the rioters soul. One can only hope!
7. Busty ladies (or well-endowed) streakers during halftime bouncing across the pitch. Without any kind of half-time show what would you expect, costume malfunctions shown on the jumbotron?
8. Show continuous soccer stadium fan riot videos on the jumbotron with an OSHA sign ‘ number of days without a fan riot’ posted. This will inspire the more safety-conscious fans to want to keep the record intact, at least until they left the stadium.
9. Floppers are required to put ‘kick me’ signs on their backs for the duration of the game. Other players are invited to take their shots at will.
10. Add a halftime show that features hip hop songs by a transgender artist. This will appease the folks that ‘identify’ as soccer ‘fans’ for a day. Soccer lives matter!
11. Change the meaning of FIFA to mean Fully Into Free Admission If the bosses at FIFA only understood the value of a good promotion.
12. Hockey type player fights encouraged. Legs tangled in the ball, punch the sucker out! If it bleeds it leads!
13. Eliminate headers and allow players to use their hands. (see change #5) If a player could use their hands to throw or block the ball like a goalie in defense of the goal it would speed up the game considerably. Take out the use of the head and eliminate the concussions suffered when two players bash their skulls into each other.
14. Supply the ‘enforcers’ with real guns instead of just tasers. The bodies of the drama queens disguised as soccer players will cease their thrashing on the ground after a fake injury. Bikini clad scorecard girls on the sideline will rate the performance of each flopper’s demise from one to ten.
The creative folks at the Babylon Bee asked for our opinion, maybe after seeing our suggestions they will wish they hadn’t asked! Now we are asking for yours. What do you think (realistically or humorously) could be done to make the game of soccer more interesting to watch on TV?
UPDATE: The day after this article was posted, this also appeared on the Babylon Bee, with the headline:
Nation relieved they no longer have to pretend to like Soccer
I linked to the complete story in the header but here is the gist in a nutshell:
After twelve grueling days of trying to get excited about a ball mostly being passed backward, celebrations broke out across America as its World Cup run came to a close.
“I know we only have to fake being soccer fans every four years, but it’s been a brutal couple of weeks,” said local bar owner Greg Jaster. “We scored three goals in SIX HOURS of soccer! And I have it on good authority from a Brazilian buddy of mine that our last goal was actually an accident. I’m trying to be a good patriot and cheer for our team but come on.”
All the more reason for some radical rule changes be made to the game of soccer.