>On the other hand, some probing may be so subtle that it takes an expert to see it.
But it underwhelms the fans, and bores the team-neutral audience, because unless they read the game at that level of nuance - that the team is just passing it around the box.
I think maybe Cruyff had a point when the article mentions:
Unfortunately, I abandoned the book after a long paragraph on page 89 in which Cruyff explains why, in his opinion, the most important thing in football is not victory, but entertaining the crowd.
My personal opinion that the refereeing has been woefully inadequate and getting worse, and VAR which was an attempt to improve things has actually made things worse. Does the sport even matter when one mistake by an official drastically changes the outcome. High scoring sports like basketball mitigate this issue most of the time because the better team is likely to win by more than 1 or 2 points.
I'm boycotting football until after the next World Cup, but it was nice to hear that the Euro finals was one of the best refereed matches in a long time. Pity the ref. himself retired afterwards.
I think the goal of any sport should more be engagement than entertainment. For entertainment, go to a circus, movie, or theater.
Also, any sport at top level suffers from common people not being able to see what’s happening. That’s unavoidable. For example, at Olympic level, a hurdler having to shorten a pace by a few cm at one hurdle can make a decisive difference. In gymnastics, I doubt any layman can, given a video stream, rank the top competitors the way the jury does (would be an interesting experiment to do)
Also IMO, rules that more reliably let the better team win work against engaging the crowd.
Nothing better for user engagement than that ‘goal’ in the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley.
Thanks for the response. I'm more troubled by sport now because I understand it better.
I totally agree with you on the inability to comprehend something, it also means you can shout at the TV because of the commentator rather than the referee.
It applies in all fields of expertise. There are/were perhaps only a few people who can perceive the nuance between a gold plated flute note and a silver plated one.
On the flip side even though there may be somewhat contrived bits, the "Faking It" TV series was also interesting coming from the 'opposite' approach.
It comes down to what you want out of sport/football - some opt for the technicalities and prowess of the game and its players, some opt for the associated drama and emotion.
One of the things that troubles me the most is - why did I entangle my emotional wellbeing with the outcome of a result enabled by a whole bunch of people I have never and am never likely to meet? We outsource our emotional state and join in a group experience of exhileration and despair often based on non-local events.
As someone not entirely suceeding in ignoring football until 2023, I am glad I came across this:
But it underwhelms the fans, and bores the team-neutral audience, because unless they read the game at that level of nuance - that the team is just passing it around the box.
I think maybe Cruyff had a point when the article mentions:
Unfortunately, I abandoned the book after a long paragraph on page 89 in which Cruyff explains why, in his opinion, the most important thing in football is not victory, but entertaining the crowd.
My personal opinion that the refereeing has been woefully inadequate and getting worse, and VAR which was an attempt to improve things has actually made things worse. Does the sport even matter when one mistake by an official drastically changes the outcome. High scoring sports like basketball mitigate this issue most of the time because the better team is likely to win by more than 1 or 2 points.
I'm boycotting football until after the next World Cup, but it was nice to hear that the Euro finals was one of the best refereed matches in a long time. Pity the ref. himself retired afterwards.