A while back, HamSlam wrote a blog post in which he described the pure and almost childish elation that he and so many other red-blooded Americans experiences when the man at bat smashes a home run clear out of the park, and this got me thinking.. Are there any other sports in which, at any given point during the game, one man's individual class and effort can cause the entire stadium to simply go nuts like baseball and it's home run do? Sure, football has its last-play-of-the-game hail marys and basketball has its buzzer beaters and whatnot, but the satisfaction these sports give their fans lies mainly in the result of the game, not in the actual play of the game.
Baseball's home run is only topped in awesomeness by soccer and it's wonder-goal. While home runs are always cool, even when you're like me and don't follow baseball, it's not THAT uncommon for even the most mediocre of batters to hit one or two every now and then. In soccer though, where games are often decided after 90 minutes by a solitary goal, the satisfaction of witnessing a career-making 40 yard screamer rocket into the upper 90 is indescribable. While good batters can hit hundreds of home runs in their careers, even the best soccer players might only score one or two of these dream goals in their careers. Seeing a grown man fall to his knees with tears of joy pouring down his face because of his own awesomeness makes the game seem so much more personal; it makes me want to jump into my tv and join the celebrations on the field.
I know this is an over-simplification, but as a baseball player, if you swing the bat hard and at the right time, you can hit a home run. But, in soccer, there's no pitcher, no bat, and no 3-strike rule: just a man and a ball. Wonder-goals only occur, however, when a player's set-up and execution are perfect, and even then, a decent amount of luck is involved. That's why these goals are one of, if not the single most awesome things to witness in the wide world of sports. And that's why I leave you with these videos. Are you happy, PeePee? I finally wrote and published a soccer blog...
24 year old Fredy Guarin scoring what will surely be the goal of his career
Arjen Robben is a machine and has a whole compilation of dream goals
Robben's international teammate Wesley Sneijder with an exemplary wonder-goal
Many of you probably saw Wayne Rooney's upper-90 overhead game-winner against Manchester City the other week, but, just a few days later, French striker Jimmy Briand decided to how Rooney how he prefers to take his bicycle kicks; blasting a shot through the keeper > upper 90
EDIT:
One of the most awesome wonder-goals ever: 17 year old Julian Draxler marks his professional debut with this absolute dream goal (1min 37sec) after coming as a sub late into extra time in this German Cup game with the game tied, securing a place in the quarterfinals just minutes from the game going to a penalty shootout. Unreal.
I love soccer, and I follow the Bundesliga very closely (because I am a super-German). However, I disagree fundamentally with the premise of this article. These goals were all spectacular, there is no question about it (although I would posit that all of them had some degree of luck, especially the strikes from far away. I am not saying that the players are untalented because they clearly are, but there are chances like these in every game and even the world class players often miss them), but one of the reasons they were so spectacular is because soccer is a game that exhibits very few scores. If you rank the impressiveness of each sports primary ways to score you will see that the more frequent it is, the less spectacular it is. High degree of difficulty dunks require spectacular athleticism, but count for 2 points in a game when both teams exceed 100 quite often. In the NFL, a league with some of the most freakish athletes in the entire world, Herculean efforts are given by 11 gigantic men simultaneously for a team to score a touchdown, but again, it takes much more than a single score to win almost all games. In hockey and baseball, runs/goals are at more of premium, so the highlights of home runs and twisted wristers have a little more added importance from the fans. These sports, however, usually exceed soccer scores as well. Soccer scores are made more exciting by their irregularity...this irregularity is the very essence of why the game isn't popular in America. If soccer was a higher scoring game there would be much less ado about these tallies. I remember the first time I saw Lebron throwdown in someone's grill. As much as I hate him, I was in awe. Now that I have seen him do the exact same thing to 10,000 people I no longer care. He does it every game. It doesn't make the individual feat less impressive, it's just does not have the novelty factor of someone scoring a soccer goal.
ReplyDeleteI would say soccer goals should be judged on an excitement scale with walk off home runs or home run robbing catches over the wall. Those are things you do not see often, and I ensure it provides the same elation and devastation to the fanbases involved in the game.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely about soccer goals being more spectacular in general because of the relative lack of goals/points scored, but I definitely wouldn't say that that takes away from the awesomeness of the wonder-goal. Of the goal videos I attached, Robben's and Sneijder's were both great goals but yes, of course chances like these occur relatively frequently and, more often than not, even the best don't put them away. But that's what makes it great when they do! But goals like Draxler's late winner in the Pokal truly are career-defining moments, and to me no other sport has the potential for one player's individual moment of brilliance to propel him to near super-stardom. When a player is able to find some space, give the ball a little knock forward and then blast it past the keeper, it's one of the most raw types of goal in any sport; there's no stick for him to wrap super-sticky tape around to get more grip, there's no bat for him to cork to get more distance, it's just the player and the ball. I feel like I'm just ranting, so I'll cut this short; I completely agree with your point about judging goals on the same scale as walk off homers or over-the-wall catches, but to me, even those don't quite compare (but as I said before, I don't have any interest in baseball). Switching the topic slightly, I can't say I didn't pee my pants a little when you said you follow the Bundesliga, I'll have to tell the one other person in America who does that I found a third. So which club do you support??
ReplyDeleteFC Koln even though they are no good. My dad was born in Koln and lived there until his 20's. He is a hardcore fan and it rubbed off on me. As far as the big clubs go I'll root for pretty much anybody except Bayern Munich.
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