June 19, 2014 • 59 mins
Maybe you hail from a soccer crazed country - or from the U.S. Either way, there's lots to discuss about "the beautiful game", from its prehistory, rules and strategy to, of course, the World Cup. Join Josh and Chuck as they wade into football, aka soccer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with Charles W. Chuck Brian. That's weird. I know.
I was thinking like I'm gonna come it with something
(00:22):
not YEA halfway through somebody said I sounded burned out
on the Sugar episode. Let's sad because I was kind
of burned out. I was right before vacation. Oh yeah, sure,
we've been going and going and going and going and
going and going, but now you're recharged. Yeah. Oh man, yeah,
yeah good. I somehow transferred from like a type A
(00:43):
person to a type V person on vacation. It was
like that hardcore of a vacation. Wow. And that lasted
a couple of days. Yep. I still got a little
bit going on. Hang on to that be I still
have the corn rows in my hair that I had
put on the beach. Thank you. You like this shaking
them around? Yeah? Uh so, Chuck, Yes, do you ever
(01:04):
play soccer when you were a kid. I did not
as a kid. Oh yeah, no, I didn't start until
high school. So you played for your high school team.
I played for B team and uh for a couple
of years. And then at red And High School are
the class in front of me was loaded with star
talent like that you met like no, no, well that too,
(01:30):
but um, yeah they were really good and so and
I wasn't a very good soccer player. I mean I
was okay, just because I'm fairly athletic, but I wasn't
like these guys had played since they were kids and
they all got scholarships to college and like they went state.
So I was the type that was like, why bother,
I'll never be that kid. Yeah, I like, you know,
(01:51):
I'll sit on the bench and I you know, that
was my role. So did you get any like did
you score any goals or anything? Now? I had an
assist one game, which was pretty excit my eighth grade year.
And uh that's just the fact that I remember and
assist in my eighth grade year shows how bad I
wasn't soccer no, I know to me, and I got
a football story like that. Yeah, I played for a
(02:12):
little bit like um forty five minutes I think at
the y Um, I was all ready to go like okay,
a new sport, let's play this, and um we were
playing We're like first day I got my T shirt
on and like was learning how to dribble the ball,
and um, some kid asked like when we're gonna have
(02:33):
our first game, and the coaches like, oh, there's stuck
going to be any games. We're just gonna scrimmage one
another in our team and we're it's just practice. That's
all you're ever gonna do is practice. There's not gonna
be a game ever, that's weird. I was like, see
you later. How long until my mom comes and gets like,
I'm only in this to beat down someone else exactly,
I'm so competitive, you know. But that was my experience
(02:57):
with soccer and I never, like, uh, had a thing
against it. It It. It just always seems so like European
to me. It definitely is that where its origins came from.
So I was sensing something. It's the world though it
is now for sure. Well, I mean it always has been. Man,
this that is a good setup. But to call it
European though, I mean it's America's, you know, kind of
(03:20):
one of the only nations that hasn't fully embraced soccer. Yeah,
for sure, it's the soccer and the imperial system of measurement,
that's right. Yeah, And I have theories on that, which
we'll get to. Oh, I want to hear that, and
why the USA hasn't embraced it like other folks. Well,
we have three perfectly good other sports. Yeah, well four
(03:42):
if you count hockey, which is like soccer on ice.
It is a lot like soccer on ice. When I
was researching this, I realized, like, wow, you know there's
basically one game, and then everything is a variation on
that basic game. Yeah, it's uh to take an object
and to try and drive it into an opponent's area. Yes,
(04:02):
the same with American football, really right, same with basketball. Yeah,
baseball is the one that's different. It is different, but
technically if you look at the field as switching sides
depending on who's on offense and who's on defense, and
the outside of the stadium is like their goal, it's close,
(04:23):
but like field hockey, lacrosse. You're right, the hi I yeah,
And I think there's stem from the same prehistoric games,
which were you know, took took in the gang running
around with a rock trying to throw it at you know,
whatever they use as a goal. Not took took in
this case, but chick mo all all playing uh, what's
(04:44):
what is it? Popped up polk go ahead, and I
don't know what that is. That's a mind game, was it?
It's possibly the hardest game anyone's ever created, and they
were playing it for two thousand years. Basically, it was
a nine inch diameter heavy ball that couldn't touch the
ground else the game was over. But you couldn't use
(05:06):
your hands. I don't believe you hit it with your
hip Yeah, I think I have heard of that. To
win the game, you had to hit it through a
ring that was like high overhead and like once somebody
got it through the ring, the game was over. But
like that sounds impossible. Hip ball hip ball exactly? You
get a medicine ball and a hoop and and hip
(05:27):
surgery afterwards. Yeah, I mean it sounds awful. But the
Maya weren't the only ones who were who were playing
a game like that, like kind of all over the
world there were instances of soccer being played. Yeah, and
China third century BC is where they have the oldest
scientific evidence. Uh, and it was an exercise in a
(05:49):
military manual. And then um, the Han dynasty had something
called suchu, which is a leather ball filled with feathers
and hair lighter. I guess than the Mayans. They probably
learned a thing or two like that, this ball is
way too heavy. Well, apparently the Chinese started out using
human heads supposedly, really yeah, supposedly that predated succhi. Is
(06:12):
that real though? I don't know, but I saw it
in several places I know, but it was definitely worth repeating.
I can't say if it's real or not. Well with succhi,
that was a small net onto a bamboo cane, so
like the net wasn't on the ground, no, but still
pretty close to soccer, but you couldn't use your hands. Uh.
And then in Japan they had kamari um, which they
(06:34):
still play today. Actually, is it apparently a little more
ceremonious than um succhi like Succi is a little maraucous,
is the impression I had? Yeah, And I'm meant to
actually see what kumari looks like. But the description here
is that they stand in a circle and you pass
the ball uh around to each other without letting it
touch the ground. So it sounds like a Hackey circle.
(06:56):
It sounds a little bit like pucked up poke yeah exactly. Yeah,
but I think all this lends creates the fact that
it's sort of variations of similar games in different cultures
at similar times. The Greeks the Romans had games like that.
They did UM and then in England. England considered the
birth of modern soccer slash football yeah, but can't be
(07:18):
traced to a single person, which is kind of neat, No,
it can't. Um And for centuries they played a game
that was, I guess the predecessor of um soccer. And
it was like inter or inter village play, so like
in a holiday, one village would be like, hey, let's
play this game. That's gonna be soccer one day. Yeah,
(07:40):
And so like the whole town was involved, and like
the literally geographically and population wise, the whole town was involved,
and there's a lot of damage to property and apparently
it was outlawed from like the thirteenth century to the
seventeenth century. It was the hooligans were playing the sport
up exactly. They weren't just the fans, and even though
(08:05):
even though it was banned, it didn't go anywhere. And
finally the band was lifted and school kids kind of
took over from there and started making more formal rules. Yeah,
which I think is really neat. Like you know, other sports,
like I said, you can trace it back to a
single inventor, but soccer is it was a game still
as a game of the people, invented by kids who
(08:26):
just like you said, started started like you know, narrowing
down rules and as being kids, you know, yeah, being kids.
In fact, the origin of the word soccer. Yeah, I
like this. Most people think like, oh, Americans invented that. Nope,
not true. Soccer was the word for it eighteen years
before the word football was used for it by the English.
(08:52):
They invented the word soccer. Supposedly, although this is one
as a matter of debate. Charles Redford Brown was an
Oxford student. Uh well, I guess let's tell the story.
It was um. At one point they had a meeting
two at a I think at Cambridge, now at a
well in Cambridge, but at a I believe it was
(09:13):
a Freemason lodge, I think so. So they had this
meeting and they basically said, all right, we gotta get
real with these rules and really determine what this sport is. Yeah,
because like each each team, each school, UM, they were
all playing something very similar, but they were to have
their own rules, and before when one team wanted to
play another team, they would say they'd have to spend
(09:33):
However long it took to like decide what rule would
overrule what rule, and it was just a big pain.
So they finally came together at Cambridge and said, let's
establish this, let's codify this. We like to pick up
the ball and hit each other pretty hard. Well, we don't.
We like to kick it around. And that's where the
split between rugby and soccer came. Um they called it,
(09:57):
uh well, they called it associate Asian football and association rugby.
And at the time, and of course now kids still
like to shorten things and they would add an e er,
so they called rugby rugger, and they called association football
uh a soccer, and then soccer and that was it.
But it was among like soccer was played among the
(10:21):
wealthier elite. And then once it started spreading to the
lower classes, they called it football. And it spread through
the world among the lower classes, and that's why just
became football, and we have American football, yeah, which is
kind of a silly name, it really is for that
one because really the only person who foots it is
the punter. And the kicker and there everyone you know
(10:43):
knows that they are a bunch of chumps. I mean,
if there's a a name mix up that that we
should have for football, it should should be called rugby. Really,
it much more resembles rugby than soccer. Yeah, man, this
just gut confusing for a second, like it, but never
I had just learned in this show that rugby and
soccer were like, we're sort of the same game until
(11:05):
they split. I didn't realize that. Yeah, I hadn't realized
it either. And I think rugby stayed among the upper classes,
the upper classes. You said soccer was upper classes. No,
Soccer eventually spread to the lower class, and that's when
it became a game of the people. But rugby never
spread to the lower classes. I mean it may have now,
but you would think rugby would be the you know,
(11:25):
rough and tumble. Yeah, I don't know, makes sense to me.
So that was eighteen forty eight, and that whole process
really just kind of occurred over a few decades in
the nineteenth century. Um and apparently in nineteen o four
FIFA came along, the Federation Internationale, the Football Association. I'm
(11:48):
not quite sure what Continental accent that was supposed to be,
but it was a European accent. And by this point
that it was pretty the rules were pretty well defined.
Um like century Well yeah, but they still had rule
changes over the years. But um, in eighteen sixty nine
is when they introduced goal kicks, and then eight seventy
(12:10):
two corner kicks, and then one is when they had
a single referee that would like run the show and
throw people out of game or matches. I guess we
shouldn't say games even though we're Americans. Their matches played
on a pitch pitch out of field. Uh, but that's
when they started like giving penalties and assigning free kicks
(12:31):
and umpires who were previously overseeing the game became linesmen
and it really and that's where the field itself took
shape too, because they were like, well, we're gonna start
in the middle of the field, we should draw a
circle around it. Yeah, it'll everybody know where to be. Yeah,
not let guys in there. And the gold penalty box
if we're gonna have penalties, and if the goalkeeper can
touch it, maybe he shouldn't be able to touch it
(12:53):
out in midfield. And like it grew very organically, it
seemed like from the shape of the lines of the
field to the rules, right, pretty neat. Yeah, well apparently
it's even still taking shape. Like they recently up there
changed their rule where it used to be, um, if
you were a forward, you there had to be a
defender between you and the goal, and now they've changed
(13:15):
it to make it more exciting, so you have to
at least be in line with the defender. Gives more
chances to take shots on goal apparently. Well, yeah, that's
the convoluted and ever evolving off side rule, which we'll
get to later because we'll explain. I mean, I know
everyone in the world knows about soccer, but a lot
of this is gonna be explaining for Americans watching the
(13:37):
World Cup right now. Yeah. World Cup fever America just
won begana did you watch? Are you into it at all?
I'm trying, Chuck, and it's not working. Well, you don't
have to be. Well, you mean I just watched the
NBA finals and and that was a little heartbreaking, that's right,
because you're weirdly in Miami heat fan. Yeah, we're big
heat fans, um and and the Heat didn't win. Are
(13:59):
you gonna be a Heat fan and when Lebron leans
or is that okay? Yeah, we like the whole team.
I'm kind of worried though, because you know, they're talking
about how the bench didn't really show up for the finals,
the bench like the non starters. Well, I know, but
Miami doesn't have much of the bench. Miami should have
a great bench, like they're all great players, but they're
just not. They didn't show up. They did last year.
(14:23):
Uh yeah, well they had different players too. At any rate,
I'm worried about my team. Yeah, that's because they're done.
They're not done. Look, don't bait me on the podcast.
We've had conversations about this before, have we. So anyway,
we were depressed because you below the Miami Heat loss.
(14:44):
So I'm wondering if there's like some sort of weird
sports hangover that's going on right now that's keeping me
from being on the world But at the same time,
it's like, no, I think I'm just not into soccer
that much. So I mean, I'll keep watching here there,
but yeah, I don't have World Cup fever. I this
is what I'm saying, I do because I follow I'm
one of the soccer fans that like I don't follow
(15:05):
the follow the Premier League and we'll get to all
that stuff. But that's the number one league in the
world pretty much, English Premier League. I don't follow MLSHO,
no one does. No, they got their fans. Yeah, and
we're getting a team here in Atlanta, so I'll probably
go to some of those. Yeah, I might go to those. Yeah.
Lot of sports is often better than TV sports, I
(15:27):
think always sometimes Jerry's just laughing everything. It depends on
where you're sitting, especially, Uh yeah, well that's true for
any live event. If you're in the nose bleeds, it's
gonna you're gonna suffer. Um. But I really get into
the World Cup. I watched the f A Cup, um,
and I watched the Olympics. The f A Cup that's uh,
(15:50):
which that's also every four years, but it's in the
two years. That is that European is it? Okay? Yeah?
The Football Association Cup? Is that what that is? I
just always called that a cup, the fock Cup, yeah,
or I guess you'd call it the Euro two and
(16:10):
that right, Jerry. I think there's something else that's the
euro Cup it Yeah, I think there's um, well, let's
talk about this. We we mentioned that FIFA came about
in nineteen o four and that it took over codifying
the rules, setting up regions this for international play. These
(16:32):
aren't professional leagues, and they put together something called the
World Cup eventually in nineteen thirty. And technically I'm sure
FIFA was involved, but really it sounds like Uruguay took
the reins and said, hey, like, we're we got a
really good team. We just beat all of you in
the Olympics, and we want to do it again. So
(16:54):
what if we pay for all of you to travel
to Uruguay and we'll all play. We'll have a nice
little tournament and see what happens. So Uruguay pretty much
paid for everybody's passage to Uruguay and then soundly beat
everyone and became the first World Cup champions in nineteen Yeah,
a common thing that would happen later for the host
(17:15):
team to win. Yeah, big advantage because you're at home. Yeah,
and actually that's if you host the World Cup, you're
guaranteed entry into the World Cup. That's right. Uh, whil
should talk about the World Cup a little bit? Then
why not everyone else has to qualify? Host team gets in,
Like you said, Uh, they're thirty two teams and they
(17:38):
come from six regions and it's it's it's you have
to play your way in basically. Yeah. So those six regions,
you said, like, it's divided differently for each World Cup
because they just want to have a good balance. Right.
So the US, the North American had three slots, South
America had five, Europe had thirteen, Asia had for Africa
(18:00):
had five. Then there's Oceanica which doesn't get a direct spot,
but um, those are kind of up for grabs, like
you gotta play away in Mexico and Uruguay got those
last two spots because Mexico hammered New Zealand, yes, which
is part of Oceana, right, and they had to play
for their spot, that's right. So those those teams that
(18:21):
ended up playing for their spot aer going on to
the World Cup had the opportunity to because over the
last four years they've started accumulating points, correct, Yeah, And
you play qualifying matches right in. FIFA's keeping track of
all this stuff and figure out who's who and who's
doing well enough, and then ultimately thirty one teams plus
(18:41):
the host country are elevated into World Cup play, that's right,
and the World Cup play um divides those thirty two
teams into eight groups of four, and those eight groups
are populated by the top seeds. So they want to
make sure that one group isn't like the first four
seeded teams in the world. Yeah, they're knocking it out. Yeah,
(19:03):
they wanted like to be a good tournament right over,
so as much as you can at least, right. So,
there's a top seed in each of the groups, and
then the other ones are randomly picked, the other three
in each group, and then you have group play, which
is around robin where every team plays every other team
and they're accumulating points during this group play. Yeah, you
(19:24):
get three points for a win, one for a tie,
nothing for a loss. Uh. And with the groups, there's
there's always one group that's super tough. If you've got
three or more good teams in a group, it's called
the group of death. And the US is in that
group right now, Germany, Ghana, US and Portugal. So although
Portugal apparently they're not showing up well, they got spanked
by Germany. But I did see that game and it
(19:46):
was Pepe's fault in part that they got spanks so bad. Well,
Germany is really good. Yeah, but Portugal wasn't supposed to
be like four to nothing back, No, no, not at all.
I mean it was a huge margin of victory. Yes,
I wouldn't say up that, but because I expected Germany
to win, and that huge margin of victory can really
bite Portugal in the end. So when you have UM
(20:08):
on the hind end, right, when you have teams playing
one another, UM, they're accumulating points. If for some reason,
at the end of group play, UM and all teams
have played one another, all four teams have the same
amount of points, you then go to point differential. So
Germany really like help themselves out they did in Portugal
really again got bit in the rear end by losing
(20:31):
forward and nothing. That's a huge point differential. And then
beyond that, if everybody still somehow had the same number
of points accumulated the same point differential, then they'll go
to total number of goals scored. I thought it was
a fashion show. That's that's the fourth If if that
is even, then yes it's a walk off. Yeah, so
(20:53):
that's how they do the group play. And then after
group play comes the uh knockout round. Yeah, then you're
down to sixteen and it's basically just single elimination and
that's where there are no ties. You can have ties
in the group round, um, but you can't in the
knockout round because you've got to knock somebody out you do.
So if you're tied at the end of the game,
(21:15):
you're gonna have a shootout, which is when you alternate
the free kicks or I guess penalty kicks until I
think there's five, and then whoever whoever has the most
wins and that's you know, it's kind of exciting, but
I think purists don't like to see it come down
to the PK's, you know, oh really, Yeah, they want
to decide because I don't know what the the percentages are.
(21:37):
But it's uh, pretty rare to to stop. I'm not rare,
but it's pretty easy to score a p K. Well, yeah,
so a penalty kick. Your goalie is in front of
the eight yard by eight foot goal, yeah, which wants
a lot of ground to cover. Yeah, it is. And
there's he's not allowed to come out from the goal line. Yeah,
(21:58):
he or she you're right, you're right, I'm sorry, is
huge me a ham Uh, well, you're not a fan.
And the pelee right exactly, I've heard of both of them. Um.
And then the soccer ball is placed ten yards, no,
twelve yards away from the goal line, and that's where
(22:21):
you take your kick. So yeah, it's easy, but that's
the whole point to shootout. It gets high scoring. Well,
I mean it is. It is exciting, but um it
it'd be like at the end of a baseball game
if it's tied, to have like a home run derby.
That would be awesome. I would love to see that. Uh. Interestingly,
before nineteen o two, the um the penalty could be
(22:41):
taken and this is for any penalty. You could take
it from anywhere along this twelve. Now they center it
right in the middle. But used to be able to
take it as long as you were twelve yards out,
like the way o where the right left if you
wanted to. Oh yeah, but I mean that was nineteen
o two, so it's been in the center for quite
a while. So, uh, you've got the knockout round that
(23:02):
begins with sixteen teams. Then you have eight teams four
and then the final two and in the final to
play hundreds and hundreds approaching a billion people watched that game. Yeah,
I mean it's the one of the biggest events on
the planet. Um. I think they said the last one
three point two billion people. Uh oh no, that was
(23:25):
just watched part of the World Cup. UM at some
point in time. Yeah, exactly. I think seven hundred and
fifteen million people watched the UM World Cup finals, the
last one in two Thousen, which was Spain and Netherlands.
And that's my other team, Netherlands. If you're American, you've
always got your backup teams because it's just no fun
(23:47):
to be like, no, I won't root for anyone else,
and I've always rooted for Netherlands in Germany and like
England of course. But you know that sad dudes? Why
are they said, Well, it's just a common thing that
England hasn't won a World Cup for so long. There's
sort of like the Chicago Cubs of of international soccer
in English fans or notorious for just being depressed already,
(24:12):
like at the start of the World Cup. Um there, Well,
I probably can't say that joke. There's some good jokes
about it. Yeah, but I mean it's a big deal
to win the World Cup, so much so that like
huge deal. It happens every four years. Twice during World
War Two there wasn't a World Cup, so there's there.
We're in the twentieth World Cup ever, and only I
(24:34):
think eight teams, eight nations have ever won it. Italyst
like four, I can't remember who is three, maybe Brazil,
I don't know. Uh, And then like England and France
each have one and they had it when they were hosting,
so apparently there's a huge home field advantage. But um,
I mean, it's just an enormous deal to win the
(24:56):
World Cup. Like not only are you saying or have
you shown that you're the best team in the world,
Like not just space is involved, but time as well,
Like you're one of the greatest soccer teams ever to play. Yeah,
and it's it's neat because all these all these players,
um play professionally as well, so they're pitted against each other.
(25:21):
Like you know, if you've got a guy from Germany
on your team and you're playing Germany, like all of
a sudden, your opponent or your teammate is now your
opponent because you're playing for your national team. So it's
I don't know, there's it's a more emotionally charged, I
think for that reason. Well, so let's let's talk about like,
let's take a giant step back and talk about the
(25:41):
basics of playing soccer after a message brick, Okay, Americans
and Canadians and Josh, you've got two teams. You've got
(26:04):
eleven players, which includes your goalkeeper on each side. And
the goal is obviously to kick the soccer ball into
the goal. The goal is to make a goal. Yeah,
and the ball has to be completely over the line
if the if the goalkeeper manages to get a hand
on it while it's you know, on the line. And
again he's he or she or she is he allowed
to use his hands in what's called the goal box. Yes,
(26:26):
and that's the only player allowed to use his or
her hands. Um. And you know, it's a sport of gentlemen,
at least it started out that way. So you're supposed
to kind of admit when you've had a handball, although
that doesn't go down quite as much anymore. No. Now
it's usually the other players raising their hand and saying
he touched it with his hand, right, and then the
(26:48):
guy be like, oh, it's so true. It just goes
down from there apparently a player named Diego Maradona. Oh,
the hand of God. Yeah, and the World Cup one.
And then he later said like, yeah, I hit it
with my fist a little bit. Yeah, what are you
gonna do? Well, it's now it's soccer legend. It's like
(27:09):
the immaculate reception in football. It's the hand of God
goal and soccer. But mayor Donne he's one of the
greatest ever so because he used his hands. No, no, uh,
you've got two forty five minute periods. Um. The thing
that Emily likes about soccer is it lasts for a
finite amount of time. You'd think, well, no, it does,
and there's something called extra time. Well it is, and
(27:32):
that's the clock never stops like it does in other sports.
But while players are down, are injured, or there's a
stoppage of play, um for for injury, they will keep
track of that time and they add it on. But
it's never that much. It's like a few minutes usually. Yeah,
so at the end of the forty five minutes, Uh,
you'll see a little guy on the sideline hold up
a digital clock that says like four minutes, and then
(27:54):
so you play for an extra four minutes and that
gets really exciting because you know, if it's coming down
to the wire, you know, like you know you're if
you score a goal to win in penalty time, that's
like huge, That's like triple O t in NHL hockey.
But some guys have been accused of like faking injury
to add injury time. Yeah, well, or extra time or
(28:16):
or to keep Yeah. I mean, should we talk about
diving and faking and well traumatic, let's let because it's
a big deal. Uh. Diving is um when a player
either completely fakes we'll say, exaggerates contact or injury or
completely fakes it like not even gets touched, dives on
(28:39):
the field, rolls around on the ground holding their shin
usually like they've got a compound fracture, and um, it's
a it's it's a big controversy in the sport, and
it's I think the biggest reason why Americans don't fully
embrace the sport. Uh supposedly that's yeah, a huge reason
(29:00):
because Americans are used to American football, where you spit
out teeth or tape up a broken bone to play
the game. Like you're not going to see an NFL
player rolling around on the ground screaming unless they have
a bone sticking up through their skin like they're tough.
And uh, Americans are used to that. And I think
(29:21):
when Americans see a soccer player get tapped on the
shin and they roll around on the ground screaming, I
think they don't admire that quality. There's the nicest way
I can say it. It's becoming more more prevalent in basketball.
They call it flopping. Yeah, because of international a lot
of players is one of the theories. Oh is that right, Yeah,
(29:42):
the influx of European players. It's like man who nobly
he's one of the greatest floppers ever. Yeah, it's true.
But the NBA is now finding floppers, which is yeah,
probably not going to change much. No, it's not because
they find them like five grand, yeah, which is no
big deal when you're super rich. But I think it's
very controversial. Um, I'm trying to not insult people, but
(30:06):
speaking very generally, Northern European countries, England, America aren't into it,
except Germany is supposedly big into Germany will dive for sure. Uh.
Southern European and South American countries do it more. Uh.
And while Americans hate it. Every language has a term
for like a complimentary term for what they call gamesmanship.
(30:30):
So it's just a different philosophy and other parts of
the world and we I don't understand it as an American,
it's cheating to me. But UM, I read a good
blog post from this one guy who has a few
theories arranging from the broken window theory to uh where
like if you are exposed to it all the time,
(30:50):
you get used to it, and then if you're not
exposed to it, like you're an American, when you see
somebody do it like you're exposed to in the World Cup,
all of a sudden booms he seems horrendous. Yeah, right,
uh And from that all the way to um he
thinks that just how some countries UH view the law,
even in ethics. Like he traveled to Argentina and he said,
(31:12):
in Argentina, I had a lot of conversations with soccer
players and they were like, in America, you follow rules,
because the rules in Argentina you break rules until you
get caught. So it's you should try and get away
with it unless you get caught. It's part of the game. Um.
He was. He had a conversation apparently with one guy
about the newspapers in the US. How you can go
(31:35):
to a newspaper box and it's just full of newspapers.
And they were like, why don't you take all the newspapers?
You know, I've thought that before, and it's like, because
you really only need one, Yeah, unless you want to
go sell them. I guess. So you have some free time, sure,
go sell some newspapers that you told. Anyway, diving to
put a bow on it very controversial still and some
(31:57):
in England are calling for it now, like hey, we're
falling behind here because we're not embracing this tactic. So
we should be diving more. We should be diving more.
If you can't beat them, join them kind of things. Yeah,
I mean, I don't know if that's the prevalent attitude
because it's um. Like I said, it started out as
the gentleman's sports. You admit when you foul, you certainly
don't fake uh a foul or an injury. Well that's
(32:20):
what happened to Peppe. He didn't like that Thomas Mueller
was was diving. Yeah, pretended like his eyes were gouged
out in the match. It's a lot of pro wrestling
theatrics that happened. Yeah, just look up on YouTube, like
best top ten dives. It's kind of fun to watch
some of these grown men roll around like that. There's
(32:40):
this one when they're clearly not injured. There's one that
was probably the most um fantastical dive of all time,
and it took place in a qualifying match between Chile
and Brazil to get into the World Cup. It was
like the match that you have to win, and um,
the goalkeeper for Chili, Roberto Rojas, suddenly screams and is
(33:04):
grabbing his eye and like a couple of feet away
from him is like a lit flare just going off
on the field right, and like he's bleeding from his
eye and everything, and everyone's like what just happened? Apparently
he lit the flare himself, throw it on the ground,
fell down, screaming, had a blade in his glove, cut
(33:26):
his eye open. That's w yes, and um, he was
just riding on the ground and they took the game
like they technically gave it to Chili and like disqualified
Brazil automatically. And somebody, one camera man happened to have
gotten photos of Rojas, basically of Rojas like cutting himself
(33:49):
and um they Chili got disqualified, Brazil got into the
World Cup, and Rojas was banned from international play forever.
But he started wrestling well. Apparently. Brazil later offered him
a job as a goalie trainer. He was so good,
so like the the country he almost dove into disqualification
(34:13):
offered him a job. Yeah. So you know, it's a
part of the game now. Um, I think what most
UH soccer fans agree on is that it's because it's
a part of the game, then it's the onus is
on the ref to spot that stuff and not allow
it and not be fooled by flailing arms and you know, oh,
(34:33):
my eyes, my eyes. Yeah, that's just crazy. Like that's
a ref job is to keep an eye off for deception. Yeah,
and it's a big pitch. I like, I don't I've
always lobbied for more refs. I don't see why they
don't have. I mean, they have linesman stuff, but I
don't know. There's a lot of room out there. I'd
have two or three dudes. There's a lot of room.
Do we say how big the field is? Yeah? It varies,
(34:54):
which is odd. Yeah, there's not a regulation field yeah,
but it's uh, typically a hundred yards by fifty yards
like an NFL football field. I also saw another typical
one is a hundred and twenty yards by seventy five yards,
which is that's big. That's like two football fields almost
into a square. I should have looked up for World Cup, um,
but I did not. I think that might be the
(35:15):
regulation size. So it's a lot of ground to cover.
And each side has ten men or women or eleven
ten eleven including the goalie, right, Okay, and um, the
the personnel is divided into You've got a goalie on
each chan, and then you also have three different other
(35:37):
types of players. You have um fullbacks also known as defenders.
You have halfbacks, which are known as midfielders. And then
you have forwards and they do different jobs depending on
their name, and you can have different numbers of them.
It's up to the coach. There's not a regulation like
you have to have this many fullbacks, this many forwards.
(35:59):
Play to your strengths, right, and then the formation that
you're using can be described in numbers. So the example
of the grabster gives them this one is four or
four two formation would be four full backs, four midfielders
and two forwards. Right, that's right, So what are the
full back to chuckers? The full backs are generally the defense,
the defenders. They hang closer to the goal. On a
(36:20):
full attack, they will cross you know, the center line
and and you know, try and score. But generally the
fullbacks are defenders. Uh, you're they. If you hear someone
say you're marking your opponent, that just means you're you're
getting up on him and defending him or her right,
rather than like a zone, you're defending the person. Yeah,
(36:41):
well not really. It's not like a Manda manner zone.
It's just if if a player with the ball comes
near you, you go to either mark them or tackle them.
Um or actually you market player without the ball tackle
tackle a player with the ball. But if you're an
American and you don't know much about soccer and you
hear tackle and you think, why are they still standing?
Tackle doesn't mean like NFL football where you take them
(37:02):
down to the ground physically. It means you you're making
a defensive play. Like when you see you guys slide
in like a slide tackle, that's a that's a tackle.
You're making a play on the ball. To a defender,
but that doesn't doesn't mean that anyone's hitting the ground.
You can both be on your feet. Uh, and it
could be considered a tackle. I didn't know that. Um.
(37:27):
Did you know they also call bait that you use
for fishing tackle silly silly josh. Um. All right, so
you've got your goal area. We discuss penalty kicks. Uh.
That is uh, if you follow someone within the penalty box,
then you get that free penalty kick. And that's you know,
I'm not a guaranteed goal, but chances are you're going
(37:49):
to get a goal out of that. Yeah. I would
imagine the percentage is a lot higher. The only time
you're allowed to touch it with your hands is if
it goes out on the side. Uh, and then you
throw the ball in with two hands over your head.
It's called to throw in. Um. If it goes out
on the inline, you're either going to have a goal
kick by your goalkeeper or if the people who are
(38:11):
coming to score on you, the attackers, kick it out,
then the opposing team's goalie kicks it back in right
the defender goalie. Yeah. Yeah. If the defender kicks it out,
then you get what's called a corner kick, and a
corner kick is what you call a set piece, and
that's when you you put the ball in the corner
and you kick it in front of the goal. And
(38:33):
the set of it is is you there are many
different formations, um you'll use for a corner kick, and
the object is to get it up in the air
and try and head it in or get it in
however you can. But um, there's just different formations in
front of the goal. Uh, you're marking your opponent if
you're a defender, you're trying to get free from being
marked if you're an attacker, and when the ball's in
(38:55):
the air, it's kind of every man for himself. That's
where it gets a little rough. That's the and that's
the basic strategy is is so you've got the fullbacks
back protecting the goal virtually at all times. The midfielders
are doing a little bit of that. They run a lot,
but they're also the ones who are like driving the
ball down the field and then trying to kick it
towards the goal so that the forwards who are closer
(39:16):
to the opponent's goal can head it in or kick
it in. And that's the basic strategy. Of moving the
ball back and forth through soccer. Right. Yeah, you'll typically
see an offensive attacker shoot down the wing on the
on the side of the field with the ball and
essentially do what a corner kick is, which is just
get it in the air towards the center of you know,
(39:37):
the field, in front of the goal. Because once it's
in the air, you can head it. Yeah, you can
head it, you can kick it, you can chest it. Yeah,
you probably wouldn't chest the goal in that's generally to uh,
to get the ball back down on the ground. Yeah, yeah,
for you to to you absorb its momentum exactly. Um,
(39:57):
if you if the ball is in the air and
somebody's going to head it and you kick, try to
kick the ball, you might get what's called a yellow card, yeah,
which is a penalty card. So you've got your one
referee running around, right and uh, if he sees you
do that and he decides to give you a yellow card,
he will pull literally a yellow card from his pocket,
(40:18):
hold it up. I'm showing it to everybody, right, and
then he puts it back and he pulls out a
little notebook and he writes down the number, which is
so cute. That you know, it's just not kept up
by someone else, right, exactly thousands of people and and
a huge computer network. But he writes it on a
little bit um, and he doesn't like the way that
(40:41):
never came out, so he'll erase it sometime and try
it again. And um, so that you've got a yellow card,
it doesn't really do anything. It's basically it amounts to
a warning. You've been tagged by the rest. Yeah, and
you can get a yellow card for any um penalty
they deemed severe enough, like any hard foul. They can
give you a yellow card on or uh yeah, or
(41:04):
they can just say it was a regular foul, no
yellow card needed. Uh. And you get a free kick
from that spot. And it's either indirect or direct, meaning
if it's indirect, another player has to touch it before
you can take a shot on goal, before you can
take a shot on goal. But if it's a direct,
the person kicking it can try to kick it into
the goal. Yeah. And that's another set piece. That's when um,
(41:25):
you see someone you know goes to take a free
kick and you see if it's close enough, you know,
if it's down the field, you just kind of restart
immediately and get the game going again. But if it's
close enough to the goal, we can get a shot.
That's when you see the players lined up in a
row ten yards. You can't get closer than ten yards
to the ball, and that's you know, they're covering their
private parts and uh, trying to position themselves. And it
(41:49):
looks weird if you're not used to it, Like why
would you line up in a wall in front of
the guy kicking it. Well, it's because you want a
big wall in front of the guy kicking it and
the goal there is to not even just I mean
you want it. You can't block the ball, which would
be great, but um, it's to mask the getting the
goalkeeper's way. Can they jump at all? Oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, okay,
(42:14):
yeah you can jump at that ball. I mean I
took one to the face one time. It's not fun. Yeah,
you know, I can't even tolerate like a dodgeball or
anything like that. Yeah, you'll see you'll see players jump
and kind of turn their body away from contact so
they don't get mauled. But like I said, it wasn't.
One thing you're trying to do is to shield the
(42:36):
the goalkeeper. So they like a lot of times they
don't even see the kick coming because of the wall,
and then it's in the net behind him and boom,
and then they roll around the ground and say, my eyes,
I'm flopping all right, So chuck um. If you have
a yellow card and uh, you do something else, yeah,
you're probably gonna get a red card. And a red
(42:58):
card means that you're a jet from the games. Red
in a single game or in a tournament, even in
some tournaments. Yeah, or you can go straight to red
if you do something really really bad. That's what happened
to Peppe. Yeah, you can go Pepe mia Ham. And
those are the three soccer players you know? And uh,
(43:21):
can you name one American? Um Americana to know he's
Argentinian American men like the guys on the team right now?
Can you name one? You know? It's sad Is. I
keep wanting to say carch Karai and I know he's
like volleyball. Yeah, I don't know why my brain keeps
going there. Well, you're not a fan. I wasn't trying
to make you seem dumb for not knowing. You're definitively
(43:45):
proving that. I just wondered how little you followed it. No,
I don't know any of the guy's names. The answer
is not at all into it. Landon Donovan is probably
the most famous American soccer player, right yeah, Landon Donovan,
but he was not even named to the team due
to some controversy. Are not due to some but causing
controversy because he's old. Okay, he's like early thirties. Yeah,
(44:10):
it's crazy, that's old, but it is. But America's you know,
the coach came out, you're in Klinsman, the former German star,
and said, we're not gonna win anyway, so we're just
trying to get better. Americans is not there loser attitude? Well,
it is, but it's realistic. You know the Germans, they
they throw down the realism and he's uh, he's you know,
(44:32):
anything can happen. But America is not on the same
level because chances are the kids out there their dad
didn't play, and their grandfather and their great grandfather. It's uh.
When it's ingrained in your society over generations and generations,
you're gonna get better. And it's not a national sport.
It's like fifth. Well, let's talk about England and it's
(44:55):
it's probably the best prime example of having soccer as
a national sport. Yeah, one of I should say, but
it's the one that has kind of set the stage
for how you have a national functioning sport of soccer.
So England and you're talking about their Premier League. Yes, yeah,
the Barclays Premier League is the top soccer league in
(45:18):
the world. Every not every nation, but almost every nation
has their own own professional league. Um. You've got the
Premier League, which is numerous Uno, uh, Spanish Premira, the
Italian league, it's probably the second best right now, Spanish
(45:39):
is probably third. You've got the Bundesliga in Germany, France
has one, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, we've got our own MLS. Um.
But the best players in the world generally played for
the Premier League. Yeah, around the world, not just you
don't have to just be yeah British, you can from
wherever and play for for these teams. Yeah. In the
(46:01):
MLS in the United States is getting better, but it's
generally like where old players go to play. Well, I
have a question for you, did did um? And that's
an old tradition. Apparently Pale finished out his his career
with the New York Cosmos. Yeah, there's a great documentary
on that team. The Beckham played for the Galaxy in
(46:21):
Los Angeles. Um Landon Donovan plays MLS, But that's twice
that you've called him old. I'm sorry, Mr Donovan. If
you're listening to this, well, I mean it's it's up
and comers who aren't good enough to play in the
other world leagues. And it's older guys who used to
play for the Premier League and you know, want to
come to the US and live in l A and
make a little scratch. So I have a question about that,
(46:43):
because it was more than a little scratch, Like they
paid Beckham like quarter of a billion dollars to come play.
Do you know if like they recoup that in any way,
shape or form, Like did it pan out to be
a good investment or was it all for him? Um?
I mean they obviously signed a David Beckham for I mean,
he was good, but he wasn't like England's best player
or anything knows name recognition. They were trying to get seats.
(47:08):
But I'm wondering, like that's a lot of cash. Could
they don't really have made that back because he wasn't
their only player. I mean, I'm still he saw to
feel the team around him. Well, Donovan plays for l
A too, I think, is that right? Yeah? Um, did
you see that the ad of Beckham's from a couple
of years back, the Pepsi ad where he kicks like
three balls into three different trash cans on the beach,
(47:31):
and like, was it real? If it's not, it's the
most amazing, editing job you've ever seen in your life.
It was probably real. Usually don't fake that stuff. It's
crazy what he did. Then, Yeah, and these I mean
the men and women of the international on if you're
playing for your country, the talent is unbelievable. Yeah, because um,
(47:52):
like there's all there's professional leagues and then each FIFA team,
which by the way, has more member nations than the
u n which is really saying that. I think it's
like two. Oh, that's pretty cool. Um, But each fiefa
member team also as a national team that you play for.
So you were saying that, like for the English Premier
League players for the best players from around the world
(48:15):
typically go play there, but when it's World Cup time
they go back to their home countries and like you
were saying teammates will play against one another for their
their nations and yeah, and then when they go back
to their club, teams are just like, hey, good to
see again. Um. So, the Premier League, the prem as
they call it, has other sub leagues, and you, uh,
(48:38):
if you finish in the bottom three in your division,
you were relegated and sent down to another league's you know,
it's sort of like a minor league baseball. Um, but
not a player. The whole team gets sent down. The
whole team gets sent down, which is pretty neat, makes sense. Yeah,
so you're you know, if you have any friends that
follow the prem there, unless they're like, man, you fans
(49:03):
are arsenal fans who are like the big hot teams.
It's like the Yankees, although people certainly take issue with that.
I hate the Yankees. Um. Yeah, you're fighting to not
get relegated. And then if you are in the top
three of the lower division, then you get sent up,
and if you're the top two, you automatically get sent up.
If you're for the third place, the next four the
(49:28):
highest ranked teams playoff. And that's a big deal because
more money, more advertising revenues. Yeah, it's just it's you
don't want to get sent back and relegated. It's bad, bad, bad,
And I didn't really have I I had no idea
about this until researching this article. Um, I didn't really have,
um a sense of like just how bad it is.
(49:50):
I can imagine, like the difference in revenue for a
team between you know, being in the Premier League and
being in the first division the one below. It year
over year just nuts. So I mean like depressing I
think is a team. Yeah, I can imagine how often
does that happen? Well, it depends on your team. So
but every year, every year they go down and three
(50:11):
teams go up. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. And so
if you're an American prim fan, you pick out just
a team. I don't based on like anyone picks out
a sports team when they're not from that country, UM,
based on players you like or whatever, and then you
follow them, and um all all of my American friends
that follow have picked out different teams. It's kind of fun.
(50:32):
But then I'll watch a few, uh, like I watched
the finals and stuff, but generally I just follow like
the international play. It's just the style of game. I
don't have time for all the sports. You know, I
know you're a busy man, busy guy. So Chuck, you
want to talk about the dark side of soccer hooliganism. Yeah, yeah,
(50:53):
it's gotten a lot better. Um. Yeah, apparently really bad though,
like who soccer hooligans or sometimes fighting for their team's
honor and sometimes they're just drunk Englishmen who like the
scrap and use as an excuse. But it got bad
for a while, but they've cracked down on. I think
when they started cracking down on teams and penalizing the
(51:16):
clubs themselves for acts of hooliganism. I think think that
might have caused some changes. Yeah, that's that's crazy. They
the UM, I don't know if it was FIFA who
did it. Maybe it was the was it the Premier
League itself was saying like if your team is associated
with hooliganism, will sanction your team and you guys have
(51:37):
to play in an empty stadium and we'll totally miss
out on ticket sales. That's huge. Um. The hooligans themselves
could be banned from even traveling to where a match
was like, you can't get into this city, Yeah, not
the stadium, the city. Um, and yeah, like you said,
(51:59):
apparently it worked pretty well, but in the interim, a
lot of people died, Like a lot of people have
died because of soccer. Um, well, not only hooliganism, but
uh stampedes and being crushed and yeah, that's gotten a
lot better too. But um, you know, I remember growing
up hearing a couple of times where there was some
(52:19):
like awful smashing of people. Yeah, in hundreds of people
f a Cup match there was um in Britain, fans
were crushed. And remember in the Black Friday episode that
we did, we talked about crushing death and what that's like.
I think in the article that I cited, there's a
(52:39):
picture of somebody being crushed to death, like up against
the fence at that game. It's a pretty famous picture.
It's awful. I can't imagine, yeah, being crushed to death
the worst. Uh. So, I guess we should explain the
off sides rule just because that is a confusing thing
for some Americans who don't follow soccer. Um is it? Yeah,
(53:03):
because it's it's changed some over the years, and uh,
we'll just go ahead and explain it. UM easily stated,
you're off side if an offensive attacking player is UM
in front of all of the defenders. They say, behind
the line of defenders. But if you're watching as if
they're an attacker, then I just call it in front
(53:25):
of um before the ball is kicked to you. So
it originated in the early days basically to keep the
lazy kid from just hanging out in front of the
goal and waiting for the ball to come down there.
They called it um. In the forties they called it
sneaking and sneaker yeah, like you're a big fat sneaker
(53:47):
because you're just waiting there like a lazy get So,
in greater detail, the attacking player you have to be
on the opponent's half of the field. Okay, so you
know the field split down the middle. You gotta be
on the off pens of half of the field. For
it to be called off sides, the attacking player is
closer to the goal line than the last defensive player.
(54:08):
Goalie doesn't count and the ball, so that's important the ball.
You can be off sides, you can be in front
as long as the ball isn't isn't coming your way. Basically,
if you play the ball or interfere or with a defender,
that's when it When it's off sides. As soon as
that players kick the ball and the balls in the air,
(54:29):
you can run in front of that defender or behind
the defender. I know that sounds so confusing. Yeah, I
wasn't confused by it before, but I am now. Uh yeah,
well that's my best way of describing. That's what off
sides is. If you if you want to just watch
the game, simply just remember you can't just be hanging
(54:49):
out in front of the goal. Yes, that was my understanding. Yeah,
that's the clear up. That's the real, basic, most basic
version of the rule without any of the subtleties. And
you can't be all sides. Uh. If it's a throw
in or a corner kick or a goal kick, then
it's you know, every man for himself. You can do
whatever you want. It's only when it's in regular play,
(55:11):
not a restart. Does that makes sense? Yeah, okay, yeah
it does. He explained it pretty well. I think so.
And I know that people are gonna say I butchered it,
but whatever, bring it. Well, I'm sure somebody will explain
it very eloquently. We can read it for listener mail
exactly nothing else. Go USA, we play um and this
is one of the rare shows that we turn around
really quick because it's Newsy. Thanks to Jerry for that
(55:34):
way to go, Jerry. Um, but the US plays a
Portugal Sunday, and if we win that we're looking really good.
But um, yeah, I don't know Portugal, because even if
we played Germany, we'll still have accrued enough points from
beating Ghana and Portugal to go to the final two. Yeah,
it will lose to Germany. I think everyone's kind of
(55:54):
accepted that, apparently the coach, especially who is a German.
I gotta figured it out. Okay, I understand soccer now,
but our our striker, Josie Altador went down, which is
not good strikers are Um. We forgot to mention that
defensive fullbacks you can be a sweeper as well, where
you're just like going back and forth in front of
(56:16):
the goal. Yeah, kind of sweeping. And then there's uh,
some of the offensive Fords can play the striker position,
which is just like a pure offense. You're attacking all
the time, attacking all the time. Attack, attack, But we
lost our striker, which is a big deal. Sure doesn't
bode well. Uh well, thanks for all this, chuck, I
got nothing else, I understand soccer to a t. Yeah,
(56:37):
I mean I wish I was a super expert because
I know it probably wouldn't be nearly as fine. I'm
sure we got some stuff wrong and we'll hear about it. Oh,
we'll hear about it. Yeah. But yeah, go go World Cup.
Here's go World Cup. Here's my prediction. We're all winners.
Actually have no prediction. Maybe everyone will tie from here
on out. Jerry, who do you go for besides the US?
(56:58):
She likes chili, Chili in Germany. Nice going, Jerry, Chili
is a dark horse. Well, we'll see what happens. Huh. Yes,
if you want to know more about soccer, watch the
World Cup. Now that you've listened to this episode, you'll
know what's going on if you didn't before, and possibly
it made it more enjoyable for you. You can also
type soccer soccer, not football. It's gonna bring up a
(57:21):
totally different article in the search bar at how stuff
works dot Com. Don't type in footie. No, no one
knows what that is. Um and uh, since I said
search bars, time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this
props to nurses and our continuing effort to not slight people.
I'm gonna read this one. I couldn't help but notice, guys,
(57:44):
when I was listening to how placebos worked and stood
out to me when you gave Dr Beecher credit for
first noticing the placebo effect in World War Two, but
you completely overlooked the obvious fact that it was the
nurses who had recognized it, and we're putting the placebo
effect you could use before Dr Beacher realized that was
what was happening. They were making keen clinical observations at
the bedside and applying those principles in the field to
(58:07):
the benefit of their patients research and action. Of course,
credit is due to Dr b for formalizing and publishing
the study. Also, I know you guys are sticklers for
accurate language, Please remember that doctors aren't the only ones
who prescribed meds. Nurse practitioners and physicians assistants do as well.
It would be more accurate refer to prescribers in the
context of this podcast as healthcare provider or clinician when
(58:31):
talking generally about the person who determines the patient's plan
of care. What would you guys do? And Jerry uh
s y s k is my favorite keep it up.
And that's from Amy nurse, US Air Force. If this
makes it the reader mail, she says, please give a
shout out to my fellow nurses in uniform, so men
and women around the world and uniform and nurses nurse
(58:53):
it up. Hats off, nurse, hats off. Thanks for that, Amy, Um,
and thank you Chuck. That was a good one. Uh.
If you want to get in touch with us, you
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(59:16):
our home on the web, the Luxurious Stuff you Should
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Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with Charles W. Chuck Brian. That's weird. I know.
I was thinking like I'm gonna come it with something
(00:22):
not YEA halfway through somebody said I sounded burned out
on the Sugar episode. Let's sad because I was kind
of burned out. I was right before vacation. Oh yeah, sure,
we've been going and going and going and going and
going and going, but now you're recharged. Yeah. Oh man, yeah,
yeah good. I somehow transferred from like a type A
(00:43):
person to a type V person on vacation. It was
like that hardcore of a vacation. Wow. And that lasted
a couple of days. Yep. I still got a little
bit going on. Hang on to that be I still
have the corn rows in my hair that I had
put on the beach. Thank you. You like this shaking
them around? Yeah? Uh so, Chuck, Yes, do you ever
(01:04):
play soccer when you were a kid. I did not
as a kid. Oh yeah, no, I didn't start until
high school. So you played for your high school team.
I played for B team and uh for a couple
of years. And then at red And High School are
the class in front of me was loaded with star
talent like that you met like no, no, well that too,
(01:30):
but um, yeah they were really good and so and
I wasn't a very good soccer player. I mean I
was okay, just because I'm fairly athletic, but I wasn't
like these guys had played since they were kids and
they all got scholarships to college and like they went state.
So I was the type that was like, why bother,
I'll never be that kid. Yeah, I like, you know,
(01:51):
I'll sit on the bench and I you know, that
was my role. So did you get any like did
you score any goals or anything? Now? I had an
assist one game, which was pretty excit my eighth grade year.
And uh that's just the fact that I remember and
assist in my eighth grade year shows how bad I
wasn't soccer no, I know to me, and I got
a football story like that. Yeah, I played for a
(02:12):
little bit like um forty five minutes I think at
the y Um, I was all ready to go like okay,
a new sport, let's play this, and um we were
playing We're like first day I got my T shirt
on and like was learning how to dribble the ball,
and um, some kid asked like when we're gonna have
(02:33):
our first game, and the coaches like, oh, there's stuck
going to be any games. We're just gonna scrimmage one
another in our team and we're it's just practice. That's
all you're ever gonna do is practice. There's not gonna
be a game ever, that's weird. I was like, see
you later. How long until my mom comes and gets like,
I'm only in this to beat down someone else exactly,
I'm so competitive, you know. But that was my experience
(02:57):
with soccer and I never, like, uh, had a thing
against it. It It. It just always seems so like European
to me. It definitely is that where its origins came from.
So I was sensing something. It's the world though it
is now for sure. Well, I mean it always has been. Man,
this that is a good setup. But to call it
European though, I mean it's America's, you know, kind of
(03:20):
one of the only nations that hasn't fully embraced soccer. Yeah,
for sure, it's the soccer and the imperial system of measurement,
that's right. Yeah, And I have theories on that, which
we'll get to. Oh, I want to hear that, and
why the USA hasn't embraced it like other folks. Well,
we have three perfectly good other sports. Yeah, well four
(03:42):
if you count hockey, which is like soccer on ice.
It is a lot like soccer on ice. When I
was researching this, I realized, like, wow, you know there's
basically one game, and then everything is a variation on
that basic game. Yeah, it's uh to take an object
and to try and drive it into an opponent's area. Yes,
(04:02):
the same with American football, really right, same with basketball. Yeah,
baseball is the one that's different. It is different, but
technically if you look at the field as switching sides
depending on who's on offense and who's on defense, and
the outside of the stadium is like their goal, it's close,
(04:23):
but like field hockey, lacrosse. You're right, the hi I yeah,
And I think there's stem from the same prehistoric games,
which were you know, took took in the gang running
around with a rock trying to throw it at you know,
whatever they use as a goal. Not took took in
this case, but chick mo all all playing uh, what's
(04:44):
what is it? Popped up polk go ahead, and I
don't know what that is. That's a mind game, was it?
It's possibly the hardest game anyone's ever created, and they
were playing it for two thousand years. Basically, it was
a nine inch diameter heavy ball that couldn't touch the
ground else the game was over. But you couldn't use
(05:06):
your hands. I don't believe you hit it with your
hip Yeah, I think I have heard of that. To
win the game, you had to hit it through a
ring that was like high overhead and like once somebody
got it through the ring, the game was over. But
like that sounds impossible. Hip ball hip ball exactly? You
get a medicine ball and a hoop and and hip
(05:27):
surgery afterwards. Yeah, I mean it sounds awful. But the
Maya weren't the only ones who were who were playing
a game like that, like kind of all over the
world there were instances of soccer being played. Yeah, and
China third century BC is where they have the oldest
scientific evidence. Uh, and it was an exercise in a
(05:49):
military manual. And then um, the Han dynasty had something
called suchu, which is a leather ball filled with feathers
and hair lighter. I guess than the Mayans. They probably
learned a thing or two like that, this ball is
way too heavy. Well, apparently the Chinese started out using
human heads supposedly, really yeah, supposedly that predated succhi. Is
(06:12):
that real though? I don't know, but I saw it
in several places I know, but it was definitely worth repeating.
I can't say if it's real or not. Well with succhi,
that was a small net onto a bamboo cane, so
like the net wasn't on the ground, no, but still
pretty close to soccer, but you couldn't use your hands. Uh.
And then in Japan they had kamari um, which they
(06:34):
still play today. Actually, is it apparently a little more
ceremonious than um succhi like Succi is a little maraucous,
is the impression I had? Yeah, And I'm meant to
actually see what kumari looks like. But the description here
is that they stand in a circle and you pass
the ball uh around to each other without letting it
touch the ground. So it sounds like a Hackey circle.
(06:56):
It sounds a little bit like pucked up poke yeah exactly. Yeah,
but I think all this lends creates the fact that
it's sort of variations of similar games in different cultures
at similar times. The Greeks the Romans had games like that.
They did UM and then in England. England considered the
birth of modern soccer slash football yeah, but can't be
(07:18):
traced to a single person, which is kind of neat, No,
it can't. Um And for centuries they played a game
that was, I guess the predecessor of um soccer. And
it was like inter or inter village play, so like
in a holiday, one village would be like, hey, let's
play this game. That's gonna be soccer one day. Yeah,
(07:40):
And so like the whole town was involved, and like
the literally geographically and population wise, the whole town was involved,
and there's a lot of damage to property and apparently
it was outlawed from like the thirteenth century to the
seventeenth century. It was the hooligans were playing the sport
up exactly. They weren't just the fans, and even though
(08:05):
even though it was banned, it didn't go anywhere. And
finally the band was lifted and school kids kind of
took over from there and started making more formal rules. Yeah,
which I think is really neat. Like you know, other sports,
like I said, you can trace it back to a
single inventor, but soccer is it was a game still
as a game of the people, invented by kids who
(08:26):
just like you said, started started like you know, narrowing
down rules and as being kids, you know, yeah, being kids.
In fact, the origin of the word soccer. Yeah, I
like this. Most people think like, oh, Americans invented that. Nope,
not true. Soccer was the word for it eighteen years
before the word football was used for it by the English.
(08:52):
They invented the word soccer. Supposedly, although this is one
as a matter of debate. Charles Redford Brown was an
Oxford student. Uh well, I guess let's tell the story.
It was um. At one point they had a meeting
two at a I think at Cambridge, now at a
well in Cambridge, but at a I believe it was
(09:13):
a Freemason lodge, I think so. So they had this
meeting and they basically said, all right, we gotta get
real with these rules and really determine what this sport is. Yeah,
because like each each team, each school, UM, they were
all playing something very similar, but they were to have
their own rules, and before when one team wanted to
play another team, they would say they'd have to spend
(09:33):
However long it took to like decide what rule would
overrule what rule, and it was just a big pain.
So they finally came together at Cambridge and said, let's
establish this, let's codify this. We like to pick up
the ball and hit each other pretty hard. Well, we don't.
We like to kick it around. And that's where the
split between rugby and soccer came. Um they called it,
(09:57):
uh well, they called it associate Asian football and association rugby.
And at the time, and of course now kids still
like to shorten things and they would add an e er,
so they called rugby rugger, and they called association football
uh a soccer, and then soccer and that was it.
But it was among like soccer was played among the
(10:21):
wealthier elite. And then once it started spreading to the
lower classes, they called it football. And it spread through
the world among the lower classes, and that's why just
became football, and we have American football, yeah, which is
kind of a silly name, it really is for that
one because really the only person who foots it is
the punter. And the kicker and there everyone you know
(10:43):
knows that they are a bunch of chumps. I mean,
if there's a a name mix up that that we
should have for football, it should should be called rugby. Really,
it much more resembles rugby than soccer. Yeah, man, this
just gut confusing for a second, like it, but never
I had just learned in this show that rugby and
soccer were like, we're sort of the same game until
(11:05):
they split. I didn't realize that. Yeah, I hadn't realized
it either. And I think rugby stayed among the upper classes,
the upper classes. You said soccer was upper classes. No,
Soccer eventually spread to the lower class, and that's when
it became a game of the people. But rugby never
spread to the lower classes. I mean it may have now,
but you would think rugby would be the you know,
(11:25):
rough and tumble. Yeah, I don't know, makes sense to me.
So that was eighteen forty eight, and that whole process
really just kind of occurred over a few decades in
the nineteenth century. Um and apparently in nineteen o four
FIFA came along, the Federation Internationale, the Football Association. I'm
(11:48):
not quite sure what Continental accent that was supposed to be,
but it was a European accent. And by this point
that it was pretty the rules were pretty well defined.
Um like century Well yeah, but they still had rule
changes over the years. But um, in eighteen sixty nine
is when they introduced goal kicks, and then eight seventy
(12:10):
two corner kicks, and then one is when they had
a single referee that would like run the show and
throw people out of game or matches. I guess we
shouldn't say games even though we're Americans. Their matches played
on a pitch pitch out of field. Uh, but that's
when they started like giving penalties and assigning free kicks
(12:31):
and umpires who were previously overseeing the game became linesmen
and it really and that's where the field itself took
shape too, because they were like, well, we're gonna start
in the middle of the field, we should draw a
circle around it. Yeah, it'll everybody know where to be. Yeah,
not let guys in there. And the gold penalty box
if we're gonna have penalties, and if the goalkeeper can
touch it, maybe he shouldn't be able to touch it
(12:53):
out in midfield. And like it grew very organically, it
seemed like from the shape of the lines of the
field to the rules, right, pretty neat. Yeah, well apparently
it's even still taking shape. Like they recently up there
changed their rule where it used to be, um, if
you were a forward, you there had to be a
defender between you and the goal, and now they've changed
(13:15):
it to make it more exciting, so you have to
at least be in line with the defender. Gives more
chances to take shots on goal apparently. Well, yeah, that's
the convoluted and ever evolving off side rule, which we'll
get to later because we'll explain. I mean, I know
everyone in the world knows about soccer, but a lot
of this is gonna be explaining for Americans watching the
(13:37):
World Cup right now. Yeah. World Cup fever America just
won begana did you watch? Are you into it at all?
I'm trying, Chuck, and it's not working. Well, you don't
have to be. Well, you mean I just watched the
NBA finals and and that was a little heartbreaking, that's right,
because you're weirdly in Miami heat fan. Yeah, we're big
heat fans, um and and the Heat didn't win. Are
(13:59):
you gonna be a Heat fan and when Lebron leans
or is that okay? Yeah, we like the whole team.
I'm kind of worried though, because you know, they're talking
about how the bench didn't really show up for the finals,
the bench like the non starters. Well, I know, but
Miami doesn't have much of the bench. Miami should have
a great bench, like they're all great players, but they're
just not. They didn't show up. They did last year.
(14:23):
Uh yeah, well they had different players too. At any rate,
I'm worried about my team. Yeah, that's because they're done.
They're not done. Look, don't bait me on the podcast.
We've had conversations about this before, have we. So anyway,
we were depressed because you below the Miami Heat loss.
(14:44):
So I'm wondering if there's like some sort of weird
sports hangover that's going on right now that's keeping me
from being on the world But at the same time,
it's like, no, I think I'm just not into soccer
that much. So I mean, I'll keep watching here there,
but yeah, I don't have World Cup fever. I this
is what I'm saying, I do because I follow I'm
one of the soccer fans that like I don't follow
(15:05):
the follow the Premier League and we'll get to all
that stuff. But that's the number one league in the
world pretty much, English Premier League. I don't follow MLSHO,
no one does. No, they got their fans. Yeah, and
we're getting a team here in Atlanta, so I'll probably
go to some of those. Yeah, I might go to those. Yeah.
Lot of sports is often better than TV sports, I
(15:27):
think always sometimes Jerry's just laughing everything. It depends on
where you're sitting, especially, Uh yeah, well that's true for
any live event. If you're in the nose bleeds, it's
gonna you're gonna suffer. Um. But I really get into
the World Cup. I watched the f A Cup, um,
and I watched the Olympics. The f A Cup that's uh,
(15:50):
which that's also every four years, but it's in the
two years. That is that European is it? Okay? Yeah?
The Football Association Cup? Is that what that is? I
just always called that a cup, the fock Cup, yeah,
or I guess you'd call it the Euro two and
(16:10):
that right, Jerry. I think there's something else that's the
euro Cup it Yeah, I think there's um, well, let's
talk about this. We we mentioned that FIFA came about
in nineteen o four and that it took over codifying
the rules, setting up regions this for international play. These
(16:32):
aren't professional leagues, and they put together something called the
World Cup eventually in nineteen thirty. And technically I'm sure
FIFA was involved, but really it sounds like Uruguay took
the reins and said, hey, like, we're we got a
really good team. We just beat all of you in
the Olympics, and we want to do it again. So
(16:54):
what if we pay for all of you to travel
to Uruguay and we'll all play. We'll have a nice
little tournament and see what happens. So Uruguay pretty much
paid for everybody's passage to Uruguay and then soundly beat
everyone and became the first World Cup champions in nineteen Yeah,
a common thing that would happen later for the host
(17:15):
team to win. Yeah, big advantage because you're at home. Yeah,
and actually that's if you host the World Cup, you're
guaranteed entry into the World Cup. That's right. Uh, whil
should talk about the World Cup a little bit? Then
why not everyone else has to qualify? Host team gets in,
Like you said, Uh, they're thirty two teams and they
(17:38):
come from six regions and it's it's it's you have
to play your way in basically. Yeah. So those six regions,
you said, like, it's divided differently for each World Cup
because they just want to have a good balance. Right.
So the US, the North American had three slots, South
America had five, Europe had thirteen, Asia had for Africa
(18:00):
had five. Then there's Oceanica which doesn't get a direct spot,
but um, those are kind of up for grabs, like
you gotta play away in Mexico and Uruguay got those
last two spots because Mexico hammered New Zealand, yes, which
is part of Oceana, right, and they had to play
for their spot, that's right. So those those teams that
(18:21):
ended up playing for their spot aer going on to
the World Cup had the opportunity to because over the
last four years they've started accumulating points, correct, Yeah, And
you play qualifying matches right in. FIFA's keeping track of
all this stuff and figure out who's who and who's
doing well enough, and then ultimately thirty one teams plus
(18:41):
the host country are elevated into World Cup play, that's right,
and the World Cup play um divides those thirty two
teams into eight groups of four, and those eight groups
are populated by the top seeds. So they want to
make sure that one group isn't like the first four
seeded teams in the world. Yeah, they're knocking it out. Yeah,
(19:03):
they wanted like to be a good tournament right over,
so as much as you can at least, right. So,
there's a top seed in each of the groups, and
then the other ones are randomly picked, the other three
in each group, and then you have group play, which
is around robin where every team plays every other team
and they're accumulating points during this group play. Yeah, you
(19:24):
get three points for a win, one for a tie,
nothing for a loss. Uh. And with the groups, there's
there's always one group that's super tough. If you've got
three or more good teams in a group, it's called
the group of death. And the US is in that
group right now, Germany, Ghana, US and Portugal. So although
Portugal apparently they're not showing up well, they got spanked
by Germany. But I did see that game and it
(19:46):
was Pepe's fault in part that they got spanks so bad. Well,
Germany is really good. Yeah, but Portugal wasn't supposed to
be like four to nothing back, No, no, not at all.
I mean it was a huge margin of victory. Yes,
I wouldn't say up that, but because I expected Germany
to win, and that huge margin of victory can really
bite Portugal in the end. So when you have UM
(20:08):
on the hind end, right, when you have teams playing
one another, UM, they're accumulating points. If for some reason,
at the end of group play, UM and all teams
have played one another, all four teams have the same
amount of points, you then go to point differential. So
Germany really like help themselves out they did in Portugal
really again got bit in the rear end by losing
(20:31):
forward and nothing. That's a huge point differential. And then
beyond that, if everybody still somehow had the same number
of points accumulated the same point differential, then they'll go
to total number of goals scored. I thought it was
a fashion show. That's that's the fourth If if that
is even, then yes it's a walk off. Yeah, so
(20:53):
that's how they do the group play. And then after
group play comes the uh knockout round. Yeah, then you're
down to sixteen and it's basically just single elimination and
that's where there are no ties. You can have ties
in the group round, um, but you can't in the
knockout round because you've got to knock somebody out you do.
So if you're tied at the end of the game,
(21:15):
you're gonna have a shootout, which is when you alternate
the free kicks or I guess penalty kicks until I
think there's five, and then whoever whoever has the most
wins and that's you know, it's kind of exciting, but
I think purists don't like to see it come down
to the PK's, you know, oh really, Yeah, they want
to decide because I don't know what the the percentages are.
(21:37):
But it's uh, pretty rare to to stop. I'm not rare,
but it's pretty easy to score a p K. Well, yeah,
so a penalty kick. Your goalie is in front of
the eight yard by eight foot goal, yeah, which wants
a lot of ground to cover. Yeah, it is. And
there's he's not allowed to come out from the goal line. Yeah,
(21:58):
he or she you're right, you're right, I'm sorry, is
huge me a ham Uh, well, you're not a fan.
And the pelee right exactly, I've heard of both of them. Um.
And then the soccer ball is placed ten yards, no,
twelve yards away from the goal line, and that's where
(22:21):
you take your kick. So yeah, it's easy, but that's
the whole point to shootout. It gets high scoring. Well,
I mean it is. It is exciting, but um it
it'd be like at the end of a baseball game
if it's tied, to have like a home run derby.
That would be awesome. I would love to see that. Uh. Interestingly,
before nineteen o two, the um the penalty could be
(22:41):
taken and this is for any penalty. You could take
it from anywhere along this twelve. Now they center it
right in the middle. But used to be able to
take it as long as you were twelve yards out,
like the way o where the right left if you
wanted to. Oh yeah, but I mean that was nineteen
o two, so it's been in the center for quite
a while. So, uh, you've got the knockout round that
(23:02):
begins with sixteen teams. Then you have eight teams four
and then the final two and in the final to
play hundreds and hundreds approaching a billion people watched that game. Yeah,
I mean it's the one of the biggest events on
the planet. Um. I think they said the last one
three point two billion people. Uh oh no, that was
(23:25):
just watched part of the World Cup. UM at some
point in time. Yeah, exactly. I think seven hundred and
fifteen million people watched the UM World Cup finals, the
last one in two Thousen, which was Spain and Netherlands.
And that's my other team, Netherlands. If you're American, you've
always got your backup teams because it's just no fun
(23:47):
to be like, no, I won't root for anyone else,
and I've always rooted for Netherlands in Germany and like
England of course. But you know that sad dudes? Why
are they said, Well, it's just a common thing that
England hasn't won a World Cup for so long. There's
sort of like the Chicago Cubs of of international soccer
in English fans or notorious for just being depressed already,
(24:12):
like at the start of the World Cup. Um there, Well,
I probably can't say that joke. There's some good jokes
about it. Yeah, but I mean it's a big deal
to win the World Cup, so much so that like
huge deal. It happens every four years. Twice during World
War Two there wasn't a World Cup, so there's there.
We're in the twentieth World Cup ever, and only I
(24:34):
think eight teams, eight nations have ever won it. Italyst
like four, I can't remember who is three, maybe Brazil,
I don't know. Uh, And then like England and France
each have one and they had it when they were hosting,
so apparently there's a huge home field advantage. But um,
I mean, it's just an enormous deal to win the
(24:56):
World Cup. Like not only are you saying or have
you shown that you're the best team in the world,
Like not just space is involved, but time as well,
Like you're one of the greatest soccer teams ever to play. Yeah,
and it's it's neat because all these all these players,
um play professionally as well, so they're pitted against each other.
(25:21):
Like you know, if you've got a guy from Germany
on your team and you're playing Germany, like all of
a sudden, your opponent or your teammate is now your
opponent because you're playing for your national team. So it's
I don't know, there's it's a more emotionally charged, I
think for that reason. Well, so let's let's talk about like,
let's take a giant step back and talk about the
(25:41):
basics of playing soccer after a message brick, Okay, Americans
and Canadians and Josh, you've got two teams. You've got
(26:04):
eleven players, which includes your goalkeeper on each side. And
the goal is obviously to kick the soccer ball into
the goal. The goal is to make a goal. Yeah,
and the ball has to be completely over the line
if the if the goalkeeper manages to get a hand
on it while it's you know, on the line. And
again he's he or she or she is he allowed
to use his hands in what's called the goal box. Yes,
(26:26):
and that's the only player allowed to use his or
her hands. Um. And you know, it's a sport of gentlemen,
at least it started out that way. So you're supposed
to kind of admit when you've had a handball, although
that doesn't go down quite as much anymore. No. Now
it's usually the other players raising their hand and saying
he touched it with his hand, right, and then the
(26:48):
guy be like, oh, it's so true. It just goes
down from there apparently a player named Diego Maradona. Oh,
the hand of God. Yeah, and the World Cup one.
And then he later said like, yeah, I hit it
with my fist a little bit. Yeah, what are you
gonna do? Well, it's now it's soccer legend. It's like
(27:09):
the immaculate reception in football. It's the hand of God
goal and soccer. But mayor Donne he's one of the
greatest ever so because he used his hands. No, no, uh,
you've got two forty five minute periods. Um. The thing
that Emily likes about soccer is it lasts for a
finite amount of time. You'd think, well, no, it does,
and there's something called extra time. Well it is, and
(27:32):
that's the clock never stops like it does in other sports.
But while players are down, are injured, or there's a
stoppage of play, um for for injury, they will keep
track of that time and they add it on. But
it's never that much. It's like a few minutes usually. Yeah,
so at the end of the forty five minutes, Uh,
you'll see a little guy on the sideline hold up
a digital clock that says like four minutes, and then
(27:54):
so you play for an extra four minutes and that
gets really exciting because you know, if it's coming down
to the wire, you know, like you know you're if
you score a goal to win in penalty time, that's
like huge, That's like triple O t in NHL hockey.
But some guys have been accused of like faking injury
to add injury time. Yeah, well, or extra time or
(28:16):
or to keep Yeah. I mean, should we talk about
diving and faking and well traumatic, let's let because it's
a big deal. Uh. Diving is um when a player
either completely fakes we'll say, exaggerates contact or injury or
completely fakes it like not even gets touched, dives on
(28:39):
the field, rolls around on the ground holding their shin
usually like they've got a compound fracture, and um, it's
a it's it's a big controversy in the sport, and
it's I think the biggest reason why Americans don't fully
embrace the sport. Uh supposedly that's yeah, a huge reason
(29:00):
because Americans are used to American football, where you spit
out teeth or tape up a broken bone to play
the game. Like you're not going to see an NFL
player rolling around on the ground screaming unless they have
a bone sticking up through their skin like they're tough.
And uh, Americans are used to that. And I think
(29:21):
when Americans see a soccer player get tapped on the
shin and they roll around on the ground screaming, I
think they don't admire that quality. There's the nicest way
I can say it. It's becoming more more prevalent in basketball.
They call it flopping. Yeah, because of international a lot
of players is one of the theories. Oh is that right, Yeah,
(29:42):
the influx of European players. It's like man who nobly
he's one of the greatest floppers ever. Yeah, it's true.
But the NBA is now finding floppers, which is yeah,
probably not going to change much. No, it's not because
they find them like five grand, yeah, which is no
big deal when you're super rich. But I think it's
very controversial. Um, I'm trying to not insult people, but
(30:06):
speaking very generally, Northern European countries, England, America aren't into it,
except Germany is supposedly big into Germany will dive for sure. Uh.
Southern European and South American countries do it more. Uh.
And while Americans hate it. Every language has a term
for like a complimentary term for what they call gamesmanship.
(30:30):
So it's just a different philosophy and other parts of
the world and we I don't understand it as an American,
it's cheating to me. But UM, I read a good
blog post from this one guy who has a few
theories arranging from the broken window theory to uh where
like if you are exposed to it all the time,
(30:50):
you get used to it, and then if you're not
exposed to it, like you're an American, when you see
somebody do it like you're exposed to in the World Cup,
all of a sudden booms he seems horrendous. Yeah, right,
uh And from that all the way to um he
thinks that just how some countries UH view the law,
even in ethics. Like he traveled to Argentina and he said,
(31:12):
in Argentina, I had a lot of conversations with soccer
players and they were like, in America, you follow rules,
because the rules in Argentina you break rules until you
get caught. So it's you should try and get away
with it unless you get caught. It's part of the game. Um.
He was. He had a conversation apparently with one guy
about the newspapers in the US. How you can go
(31:35):
to a newspaper box and it's just full of newspapers.
And they were like, why don't you take all the newspapers?
You know, I've thought that before, and it's like, because
you really only need one, Yeah, unless you want to
go sell them. I guess. So you have some free time, sure,
go sell some newspapers that you told. Anyway, diving to
put a bow on it very controversial still and some
(31:57):
in England are calling for it now, like hey, we're
falling behind here because we're not embracing this tactic. So
we should be diving more. We should be diving more.
If you can't beat them, join them kind of things. Yeah,
I mean, I don't know if that's the prevalent attitude
because it's um. Like I said, it started out as
the gentleman's sports. You admit when you foul, you certainly
don't fake uh a foul or an injury. Well that's
(32:20):
what happened to Peppe. He didn't like that Thomas Mueller
was was diving. Yeah, pretended like his eyes were gouged
out in the match. It's a lot of pro wrestling
theatrics that happened. Yeah, just look up on YouTube, like
best top ten dives. It's kind of fun to watch
some of these grown men roll around like that. There's
(32:40):
this one when they're clearly not injured. There's one that
was probably the most um fantastical dive of all time,
and it took place in a qualifying match between Chile
and Brazil to get into the World Cup. It was
like the match that you have to win, and um,
the goalkeeper for Chili, Roberto Rojas, suddenly screams and is
(33:04):
grabbing his eye and like a couple of feet away
from him is like a lit flare just going off
on the field right, and like he's bleeding from his
eye and everything, and everyone's like what just happened? Apparently
he lit the flare himself, throw it on the ground,
fell down, screaming, had a blade in his glove, cut
(33:26):
his eye open. That's w yes, and um, he was
just riding on the ground and they took the game
like they technically gave it to Chili and like disqualified
Brazil automatically. And somebody, one camera man happened to have
gotten photos of Rojas, basically of Rojas like cutting himself
(33:49):
and um they Chili got disqualified, Brazil got into the
World Cup, and Rojas was banned from international play forever.
But he started wrestling well. Apparently. Brazil later offered him
a job as a goalie trainer. He was so good,
so like the the country he almost dove into disqualification
(34:13):
offered him a job. Yeah. So you know, it's a
part of the game now. Um, I think what most
UH soccer fans agree on is that it's because it's
a part of the game, then it's the onus is
on the ref to spot that stuff and not allow
it and not be fooled by flailing arms and you know, oh,
(34:33):
my eyes, my eyes. Yeah, that's just crazy. Like that's
a ref job is to keep an eye off for deception. Yeah,
and it's a big pitch. I like, I don't I've
always lobbied for more refs. I don't see why they
don't have. I mean, they have linesman stuff, but I
don't know. There's a lot of room out there. I'd
have two or three dudes. There's a lot of room.
Do we say how big the field is? Yeah? It varies,
(34:54):
which is odd. Yeah, there's not a regulation field yeah,
but it's uh, typically a hundred yards by fifty yards
like an NFL football field. I also saw another typical
one is a hundred and twenty yards by seventy five yards,
which is that's big. That's like two football fields almost
into a square. I should have looked up for World Cup, um,
but I did not. I think that might be the
(35:15):
regulation size. So it's a lot of ground to cover.
And each side has ten men or women or eleven
ten eleven including the goalie, right, Okay, and um, the
the personnel is divided into You've got a goalie on
each chan, and then you also have three different other
(35:37):
types of players. You have um fullbacks also known as defenders.
You have halfbacks, which are known as midfielders. And then
you have forwards and they do different jobs depending on
their name, and you can have different numbers of them.
It's up to the coach. There's not a regulation like
you have to have this many fullbacks, this many forwards.
(35:59):
Play to your strengths, right, and then the formation that
you're using can be described in numbers. So the example
of the grabster gives them this one is four or
four two formation would be four full backs, four midfielders
and two forwards. Right, that's right, So what are the
full back to chuckers? The full backs are generally the defense,
the defenders. They hang closer to the goal. On a
(36:20):
full attack, they will cross you know, the center line
and and you know, try and score. But generally the
fullbacks are defenders. Uh, you're they. If you hear someone
say you're marking your opponent, that just means you're you're
getting up on him and defending him or her right,
rather than like a zone, you're defending the person. Yeah,
(36:41):
well not really. It's not like a Manda manner zone.
It's just if if a player with the ball comes
near you, you go to either mark them or tackle them.
Um or actually you market player without the ball tackle
tackle a player with the ball. But if you're an
American and you don't know much about soccer and you
hear tackle and you think, why are they still standing?
Tackle doesn't mean like NFL football where you take them
(37:02):
down to the ground physically. It means you you're making
a defensive play. Like when you see you guys slide
in like a slide tackle, that's a that's a tackle.
You're making a play on the ball. To a defender,
but that doesn't doesn't mean that anyone's hitting the ground.
You can both be on your feet. Uh, and it
could be considered a tackle. I didn't know that. Um.
(37:27):
Did you know they also call bait that you use
for fishing tackle silly silly josh. Um. All right, so
you've got your goal area. We discuss penalty kicks. Uh.
That is uh, if you follow someone within the penalty box,
then you get that free penalty kick. And that's you know,
I'm not a guaranteed goal, but chances are you're going
(37:49):
to get a goal out of that. Yeah. I would
imagine the percentage is a lot higher. The only time
you're allowed to touch it with your hands is if
it goes out on the side. Uh, and then you
throw the ball in with two hands over your head.
It's called to throw in. Um. If it goes out
on the inline, you're either going to have a goal
kick by your goalkeeper or if the people who are
(38:11):
coming to score on you, the attackers, kick it out,
then the opposing team's goalie kicks it back in right
the defender goalie. Yeah. Yeah. If the defender kicks it out,
then you get what's called a corner kick, and a
corner kick is what you call a set piece, and
that's when you you put the ball in the corner
and you kick it in front of the goal. And
(38:33):
the set of it is is you there are many
different formations, um you'll use for a corner kick, and
the object is to get it up in the air
and try and head it in or get it in
however you can. But um, there's just different formations in
front of the goal. Uh, you're marking your opponent if
you're a defender, you're trying to get free from being
marked if you're an attacker, and when the ball's in
(38:55):
the air, it's kind of every man for himself. That's
where it gets a little rough. That's the and that's
the basic strategy is is so you've got the fullbacks
back protecting the goal virtually at all times. The midfielders
are doing a little bit of that. They run a lot,
but they're also the ones who are like driving the
ball down the field and then trying to kick it
towards the goal so that the forwards who are closer
(39:16):
to the opponent's goal can head it in or kick
it in. And that's the basic strategy. Of moving the
ball back and forth through soccer. Right. Yeah, you'll typically
see an offensive attacker shoot down the wing on the
on the side of the field with the ball and
essentially do what a corner kick is, which is just
get it in the air towards the center of you know,
(39:37):
the field, in front of the goal. Because once it's
in the air, you can head it. Yeah, you can
head it, you can kick it, you can chest it. Yeah,
you probably wouldn't chest the goal in that's generally to uh,
to get the ball back down on the ground. Yeah, yeah,
for you to to you absorb its momentum exactly. Um,
(39:57):
if you if the ball is in the air and
somebody's going to head it and you kick, try to
kick the ball, you might get what's called a yellow card, yeah,
which is a penalty card. So you've got your one
referee running around, right and uh, if he sees you
do that and he decides to give you a yellow card,
he will pull literally a yellow card from his pocket,
(40:18):
hold it up. I'm showing it to everybody, right, and
then he puts it back and he pulls out a
little notebook and he writes down the number, which is
so cute. That you know, it's just not kept up
by someone else, right, exactly thousands of people and and
a huge computer network. But he writes it on a
little bit um, and he doesn't like the way that
(40:41):
never came out, so he'll erase it sometime and try
it again. And um, so that you've got a yellow card,
it doesn't really do anything. It's basically it amounts to
a warning. You've been tagged by the rest. Yeah, and
you can get a yellow card for any um penalty
they deemed severe enough, like any hard foul. They can
give you a yellow card on or uh yeah, or
(41:04):
they can just say it was a regular foul, no
yellow card needed. Uh. And you get a free kick
from that spot. And it's either indirect or direct, meaning
if it's indirect, another player has to touch it before
you can take a shot on goal, before you can
take a shot on goal. But if it's a direct,
the person kicking it can try to kick it into
the goal. Yeah. And that's another set piece. That's when um,
(41:25):
you see someone you know goes to take a free
kick and you see if it's close enough, you know,
if it's down the field, you just kind of restart
immediately and get the game going again. But if it's
close enough to the goal, we can get a shot.
That's when you see the players lined up in a
row ten yards. You can't get closer than ten yards
to the ball, and that's you know, they're covering their
private parts and uh, trying to position themselves. And it
(41:49):
looks weird if you're not used to it, Like why
would you line up in a wall in front of
the guy kicking it. Well, it's because you want a
big wall in front of the guy kicking it and
the goal there is to not even just I mean
you want it. You can't block the ball, which would
be great, but um, it's to mask the getting the
goalkeeper's way. Can they jump at all? Oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, okay,
(42:14):
yeah you can jump at that ball. I mean I
took one to the face one time. It's not fun. Yeah,
you know, I can't even tolerate like a dodgeball or
anything like that. Yeah, you'll see you'll see players jump
and kind of turn their body away from contact so
they don't get mauled. But like I said, it wasn't.
One thing you're trying to do is to shield the
(42:36):
the goalkeeper. So they like a lot of times they
don't even see the kick coming because of the wall,
and then it's in the net behind him and boom,
and then they roll around the ground and say, my eyes,
I'm flopping all right, So chuck um. If you have
a yellow card and uh, you do something else, yeah,
you're probably gonna get a red card. And a red
(42:58):
card means that you're a jet from the games. Red
in a single game or in a tournament, even in
some tournaments. Yeah, or you can go straight to red
if you do something really really bad. That's what happened
to Peppe. Yeah, you can go Pepe mia Ham. And
those are the three soccer players you know? And uh,
(43:21):
can you name one American? Um Americana to know he's
Argentinian American men like the guys on the team right now?
Can you name one? You know? It's sad Is. I
keep wanting to say carch Karai and I know he's
like volleyball. Yeah, I don't know why my brain keeps
going there. Well, you're not a fan. I wasn't trying
to make you seem dumb for not knowing. You're definitively
(43:45):
proving that. I just wondered how little you followed it. No,
I don't know any of the guy's names. The answer
is not at all into it. Landon Donovan is probably
the most famous American soccer player, right yeah, Landon Donovan,
but he was not even named to the team due
to some controversy. Are not due to some but causing
controversy because he's old. Okay, he's like early thirties. Yeah,
(44:10):
it's crazy, that's old, but it is. But America's you know,
the coach came out, you're in Klinsman, the former German star,
and said, we're not gonna win anyway, so we're just
trying to get better. Americans is not there loser attitude? Well,
it is, but it's realistic. You know the Germans, they
they throw down the realism and he's uh, he's you know,
(44:32):
anything can happen. But America is not on the same
level because chances are the kids out there their dad
didn't play, and their grandfather and their great grandfather. It's uh.
When it's ingrained in your society over generations and generations,
you're gonna get better. And it's not a national sport.
It's like fifth. Well, let's talk about England and it's
(44:55):
it's probably the best prime example of having soccer as
a national sport. Yeah, one of I should say, but
it's the one that has kind of set the stage
for how you have a national functioning sport of soccer.
So England and you're talking about their Premier League. Yes, yeah,
the Barclays Premier League is the top soccer league in
(45:18):
the world. Every not every nation, but almost every nation
has their own own professional league. Um. You've got the
Premier League, which is numerous Uno, uh, Spanish Premira, the
Italian league, it's probably the second best right now, Spanish
(45:39):
is probably third. You've got the Bundesliga in Germany, France
has one, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Japan, we've got our own MLS. Um.
But the best players in the world generally played for
the Premier League. Yeah, around the world, not just you
don't have to just be yeah British, you can from
wherever and play for for these teams. Yeah. In the
(46:01):
MLS in the United States is getting better, but it's
generally like where old players go to play. Well, I
have a question for you, did did um? And that's
an old tradition. Apparently Pale finished out his his career
with the New York Cosmos. Yeah, there's a great documentary
on that team. The Beckham played for the Galaxy in
(46:21):
Los Angeles. Um Landon Donovan plays MLS, But that's twice
that you've called him old. I'm sorry, Mr Donovan. If
you're listening to this, well, I mean it's it's up
and comers who aren't good enough to play in the
other world leagues. And it's older guys who used to
play for the Premier League and you know, want to
come to the US and live in l A and
make a little scratch. So I have a question about that,
(46:43):
because it was more than a little scratch, Like they
paid Beckham like quarter of a billion dollars to come play.
Do you know if like they recoup that in any way,
shape or form, Like did it pan out to be
a good investment or was it all for him? Um?
I mean they obviously signed a David Beckham for I mean,
he was good, but he wasn't like England's best player
or anything knows name recognition. They were trying to get seats.
(47:08):
But I'm wondering, like that's a lot of cash. Could
they don't really have made that back because he wasn't
their only player. I mean, I'm still he saw to
feel the team around him. Well, Donovan plays for l
A too, I think, is that right? Yeah? Um, did
you see that the ad of Beckham's from a couple
of years back, the Pepsi ad where he kicks like
three balls into three different trash cans on the beach,
(47:31):
and like, was it real? If it's not, it's the
most amazing, editing job you've ever seen in your life.
It was probably real. Usually don't fake that stuff. It's
crazy what he did. Then, Yeah, and these I mean
the men and women of the international on if you're
playing for your country, the talent is unbelievable. Yeah, because um,
(47:52):
like there's all there's professional leagues and then each FIFA team,
which by the way, has more member nations than the
u n which is really saying that. I think it's
like two. Oh, that's pretty cool. Um, But each fiefa
member team also as a national team that you play for.
So you were saying that, like for the English Premier
League players for the best players from around the world
(48:15):
typically go play there, but when it's World Cup time
they go back to their home countries and like you
were saying teammates will play against one another for their
their nations and yeah, and then when they go back
to their club, teams are just like, hey, good to
see again. Um. So, the Premier League, the prem as
they call it, has other sub leagues, and you, uh,
(48:38):
if you finish in the bottom three in your division,
you were relegated and sent down to another league's you know,
it's sort of like a minor league baseball. Um, but
not a player. The whole team gets sent down. The
whole team gets sent down, which is pretty neat, makes sense. Yeah,
so you're you know, if you have any friends that
follow the prem there, unless they're like, man, you fans
(49:03):
are arsenal fans who are like the big hot teams.
It's like the Yankees, although people certainly take issue with that.
I hate the Yankees. Um. Yeah, you're fighting to not
get relegated. And then if you are in the top
three of the lower division, then you get sent up,
and if you're the top two, you automatically get sent up.
If you're for the third place, the next four the
(49:28):
highest ranked teams playoff. And that's a big deal because
more money, more advertising revenues. Yeah, it's just it's you
don't want to get sent back and relegated. It's bad, bad, bad,
And I didn't really have I I had no idea
about this until researching this article. Um, I didn't really have,
um a sense of like just how bad it is.
(49:50):
I can imagine, like the difference in revenue for a
team between you know, being in the Premier League and
being in the first division the one below. It year
over year just nuts. So I mean like depressing I
think is a team. Yeah, I can imagine how often
does that happen? Well, it depends on your team. So
but every year, every year they go down and three
(50:11):
teams go up. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Yeah. And so
if you're an American prim fan, you pick out just
a team. I don't based on like anyone picks out
a sports team when they're not from that country, UM,
based on players you like or whatever, and then you
follow them, and um all all of my American friends
that follow have picked out different teams. It's kind of fun.
(50:32):
But then I'll watch a few, uh, like I watched
the finals and stuff, but generally I just follow like
the international play. It's just the style of game. I
don't have time for all the sports. You know, I
know you're a busy man, busy guy. So Chuck, you
want to talk about the dark side of soccer hooliganism. Yeah, yeah,
(50:53):
it's gotten a lot better. Um. Yeah, apparently really bad though,
like who soccer hooligans or sometimes fighting for their team's
honor and sometimes they're just drunk Englishmen who like the
scrap and use as an excuse. But it got bad
for a while, but they've cracked down on. I think
when they started cracking down on teams and penalizing the
(51:16):
clubs themselves for acts of hooliganism. I think think that
might have caused some changes. Yeah, that's that's crazy. They
the UM, I don't know if it was FIFA who
did it. Maybe it was the was it the Premier
League itself was saying like if your team is associated
with hooliganism, will sanction your team and you guys have
(51:37):
to play in an empty stadium and we'll totally miss
out on ticket sales. That's huge. Um. The hooligans themselves
could be banned from even traveling to where a match
was like, you can't get into this city, Yeah, not
the stadium, the city. Um, and yeah, like you said,
(51:59):
apparently it worked pretty well, but in the interim, a
lot of people died, Like a lot of people have
died because of soccer. Um, well, not only hooliganism, but
uh stampedes and being crushed and yeah, that's gotten a
lot better too. But um, you know, I remember growing
up hearing a couple of times where there was some
(52:19):
like awful smashing of people. Yeah, in hundreds of people
f a Cup match there was um in Britain, fans
were crushed. And remember in the Black Friday episode that
we did, we talked about crushing death and what that's like.
I think in the article that I cited, there's a
(52:39):
picture of somebody being crushed to death, like up against
the fence at that game. It's a pretty famous picture.
It's awful. I can't imagine, yeah, being crushed to death
the worst. Uh. So, I guess we should explain the
off sides rule just because that is a confusing thing
for some Americans who don't follow soccer. Um is it? Yeah,
(53:03):
because it's it's changed some over the years, and uh,
we'll just go ahead and explain it. UM easily stated,
you're off side if an offensive attacking player is UM
in front of all of the defenders. They say, behind
the line of defenders. But if you're watching as if
they're an attacker, then I just call it in front
(53:25):
of um before the ball is kicked to you. So
it originated in the early days basically to keep the
lazy kid from just hanging out in front of the
goal and waiting for the ball to come down there.
They called it um. In the forties they called it
sneaking and sneaker yeah, like you're a big fat sneaker
(53:47):
because you're just waiting there like a lazy get So,
in greater detail, the attacking player you have to be
on the opponent's half of the field. Okay, so you
know the field split down the middle. You gotta be
on the off pens of half of the field. For
it to be called off sides, the attacking player is
closer to the goal line than the last defensive player.
(54:08):
Goalie doesn't count and the ball, so that's important the ball.
You can be off sides, you can be in front
as long as the ball isn't isn't coming your way. Basically,
if you play the ball or interfere or with a defender,
that's when it When it's off sides. As soon as
that players kick the ball and the balls in the air,
(54:29):
you can run in front of that defender or behind
the defender. I know that sounds so confusing. Yeah, I
wasn't confused by it before, but I am now. Uh yeah,
well that's my best way of describing. That's what off
sides is. If you if you want to just watch
the game, simply just remember you can't just be hanging
(54:49):
out in front of the goal. Yes, that was my understanding. Yeah,
that's the clear up. That's the real, basic, most basic
version of the rule without any of the subtleties. And
you can't be all sides. Uh. If it's a throw
in or a corner kick or a goal kick, then
it's you know, every man for himself. You can do
whatever you want. It's only when it's in regular play,
(55:11):
not a restart. Does that makes sense? Yeah, okay, yeah
it does. He explained it pretty well. I think so.
And I know that people are gonna say I butchered it,
but whatever, bring it. Well, I'm sure somebody will explain
it very eloquently. We can read it for listener mail
exactly nothing else. Go USA, we play um and this
is one of the rare shows that we turn around
really quick because it's Newsy. Thanks to Jerry for that
(55:34):
way to go, Jerry. Um, but the US plays a
Portugal Sunday, and if we win that we're looking really good.
But um, yeah, I don't know Portugal, because even if
we played Germany, we'll still have accrued enough points from
beating Ghana and Portugal to go to the final two. Yeah,
it will lose to Germany. I think everyone's kind of
(55:54):
accepted that, apparently the coach, especially who is a German.
I gotta figured it out. Okay, I understand soccer now,
but our our striker, Josie Altador went down, which is
not good strikers are Um. We forgot to mention that
defensive fullbacks you can be a sweeper as well, where
you're just like going back and forth in front of
(56:16):
the goal. Yeah, kind of sweeping. And then there's uh,
some of the offensive Fords can play the striker position,
which is just like a pure offense. You're attacking all
the time, attacking all the time. Attack, attack, But we
lost our striker, which is a big deal. Sure doesn't
bode well. Uh well, thanks for all this, chuck, I
got nothing else, I understand soccer to a t. Yeah,
(56:37):
I mean I wish I was a super expert because
I know it probably wouldn't be nearly as fine. I'm
sure we got some stuff wrong and we'll hear about it. Oh,
we'll hear about it. Yeah. But yeah, go go World Cup.
Here's go World Cup. Here's my prediction. We're all winners.
Actually have no prediction. Maybe everyone will tie from here
on out. Jerry, who do you go for besides the US?
(56:58):
She likes chili, Chili in Germany. Nice going, Jerry, Chili
is a dark horse. Well, we'll see what happens. Huh. Yes,
if you want to know more about soccer, watch the
World Cup. Now that you've listened to this episode, you'll
know what's going on if you didn't before, and possibly
it made it more enjoyable for you. You can also
type soccer soccer, not football. It's gonna bring up a
(57:21):
totally different article in the search bar at how stuff
works dot Com. Don't type in footie. No, no one
knows what that is. Um and uh, since I said
search bars, time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this
props to nurses and our continuing effort to not slight people.
I'm gonna read this one. I couldn't help but notice, guys,
(57:44):
when I was listening to how placebos worked and stood
out to me when you gave Dr Beecher credit for
first noticing the placebo effect in World War Two, but
you completely overlooked the obvious fact that it was the
nurses who had recognized it, and we're putting the placebo
effect you could use before Dr Beacher realized that was
what was happening. They were making keen clinical observations at
the bedside and applying those principles in the field to
(58:07):
the benefit of their patients research and action. Of course,
credit is due to Dr b for formalizing and publishing
the study. Also, I know you guys are sticklers for
accurate language, Please remember that doctors aren't the only ones
who prescribed meds. Nurse practitioners and physicians assistants do as well.
It would be more accurate refer to prescribers in the
context of this podcast as healthcare provider or clinician when
(58:31):
talking generally about the person who determines the patient's plan
of care. What would you guys do? And Jerry uh
s y s k is my favorite keep it up.
And that's from Amy nurse, US Air Force. If this
makes it the reader mail, she says, please give a
shout out to my fellow nurses in uniform, so men
and women around the world and uniform and nurses nurse
(58:53):
it up. Hats off, nurse, hats off. Thanks for that, Amy, Um,
and thank you Chuck. That was a good one. Uh.
If you want to get in touch with us, you
can tweet to s y s K podcast. You can
join us on Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
how stuff Works dot com and check us out at
(59:16):
our home on the web, the Luxurious Stuff you Should
Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is it how stuff Works dot com.
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