Dear Soccer,
It was real. It was fun. And I mean it. It was a good time, and I’m glad you were here and enjoyed the ride. We all did.
For starters, your fans are off the charts. They’re the best in the world in any sport. Sure, they drink a lot, but they weren’t hooligans, at least not here.
The chants and songs are awesome, and the spirit of the game created a refreshing celebration of sport.
I love your stars. Messi, Haaland, Harry Kane, Bellingham, Ronaldo and Mbappé. Your sport understands that to attract fans and viewers, you need stars. And soccer has plenty of them.
You even found a way to love us back. You embraced Buc-ee’s, barbecue, Cheesecake Factory and ranch dressing. Heck, Erling Haaland even left with a stuffed raccoon holding a whiskey bottle that he paid $750 for at a Dallas taxidermy shop.
But here’s the thing. The game itself still needs work.
More scoring. I don’t know, maybe double the size of the goal. Maybe have two balls in play at once.
I’m kidding… mostly.
But we’d love to see more games ending 5-4 instead of 1-0. The absolute best moments are when everything comes down to penalty kicks. Maybe we should just skip straight to that and save everyone an hour and a half. Again… kidding.
Can we also stop the flopping?
Change the rules. Penalize the bad acting. If a guy goes down like he was hit by a sniper, then pops right back up and keeps playing, that should be a red card.
And the clock…
I know the sport has been around for centuries, but we’ve invented pretty good clocks since then. Everyone deserves to know exactly how much time is left.
Don’t even get me started on stoppage time.
Just stop the clock when play stops, restart it when the game resumes and play 90 actual minutes.
Not 90 minutes plus mystery time that only one person knows.
Every other major sport has evolved. Even baseball has a pitch clock.
So let’s work on it together. I’ll keep an open mind if you promise to do the same.
Good talk.
Soccer, we’ll see you again in four years.