Spain cut down the defending champs with a suffocating performance in the World Cup final yesterday. Argentina was held quiet, not getting a shot on goal until the second half of extra time. The lack of a true striker on the Sky Blue and White squad forced Messi up front, where he was less of a factor, only having 15 touches across the 120 minutes. Messi is at his best when operating from the wing or just behind the striker, using his tactical brilliance to generate scoring opportunities, following up on rebounds, or threading a shot on goal from the top of the box.
As the games played out over the past five weeks, I thought often about how aspects of what I was seeing would never translate to a mainstream American sports audience. And there are two in particular.
Flopping: This can be given a yellow card after VAR review, but players will continue to hit the deck and scream bloody murder anytime they’re grazed by an opponent. The art of drawing the foul and selling the injury is a part of the game, but it’s not enjoyable to look at. If Joe McCarthy were alive he would investigate it, and rightfully so, it’s downright unAmerican. We don’t like when LeBron James and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander do it in basketball either.
Offsides: This is the most egregious issue when watching a game. A beautiful goal plays out, and the offsides flag goes up because a player’s shoelace was a millimeter beyond where his defender was, and the goal is disallowed. This happens often — it feels like at least once a game.
The good news is that, and you’re gonna think this sounds insane when I say it, Canada is doing something about it. Yes, Canada. The country that couldn’t even do basic forest management, leading to the Northeast getting engulfed in wildfire smoke to the point that the Cleveland Indians had to postpone their game against the Pirates — and had the World Cup final’s air quality in question in the days leading up to kickoff at MetLife Stadium.
But the Canadian Premier League — yes, that’s a real thing — is testing out a new “daylight” offsides rule. Right now, as I mentioned, the offensive player being even the slightest bit past his defender the moment his teammate sends a pass negates the play. The daylight rule would require the offensive player to be completely beyond the defensive player, with visible daylight between their bodies. The issue with the current model is that timing your run as an offensive player to be fully behind the defender is a near-impossible task, since players are moving up and down the field constantly. The daylight rule would open up offensive scoring, create more breakaways, and force defenses to be honest with their line positioning.
It would make the game far more enjoyable to watch for an American audience that has just shown it’s willing to tune into the world’s game — with record ratings for Fox and Telemundo during this tournament.