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Monday, July 12, 2010
World Cup Sportsmanship
There was a play where the Dutch kicked the ball toward the Spanish goalie. The ball bounced in front of the Spaniard, and was going to go over his head, and into foul ground. The goalie however reached for the ball, and, if there was any contact, it was the tip of the tip of his fingernail. Nonetheless, the referee called for a corner kick to the Dutch team. The Dutch team however did not line up for a corner kick, and instead, the Dutch player softly kicked the ball to the Spanish goalie, to give him back possession. (In addition, the Dutch kicker placed the ball outside the corner kick spot by a few inches, likely to insure a foul on himself.)
In a World Cup game.
Maybe I’m making too big a deal about this, and maybe I missed something during the game. The announcers made a quick mention of the sporting play, but that was it. Giving up a corner kick is a big enough deal. I don’t know what the win value of a corner kick is (I’ll guess that 5% of corners lead to goals, and a goal is probably worth about +.30 wins, so +.015 wins?). In baseball terms, that would be +.15 runs, or basically turning a ball count into a strike count (say turning a 2-1 count into a 1-2 count). Or refusing a hit batter, and taking a called ball instead. Something like that. You’d never see that in a game. Much less the World Series.
Is it just ingrained in soccer players to be more sporting? Or is it the lack of rigidness in the rules that brings in the sportsmanship in the players? For example, if an injured player goes down, the opposing team will kick the ball away to get the downed player attended to. Then the injured team, with rights to the ball, will kick the ball back to their opponents.
Anyway, I was impressed and bewildered that not more was made of it.
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