What’s Wrong With Showboating?

In a live report in the Manchester Guardian, the writer condemns a scissor-kick cross from Quaresma in Euro 2008 as ‘an unecessary bit of skill.’ More casual fans tend to love showiness in an athlete, drawn as they are to the spectacle of the sport; but the most hardcore fans can be hostile to it. They perceive a threat in it: although spectacle helps any sport succeed, too much of it and the sport can die, turning into sheer spectacle, something akin to professional wrestling or the Harlem Globetrotters.

Intelligence in Sports Writing

Even in sports writing you can sometimes denote a sign of intelligence. Most English writers assigned to cover the Portugal-Switzerland game in the first round of Euro ‘08 just phoned it in, making no attempt to sound interested. How do you make a good story out of a game that doesn’t mean much to either team? Henry Winter, the writer for the London Telegraph, found a truly smart way: he wrote it as a study of how Scolari, the new Chelsea manager, operates. It created a whole new perspective on the game and was fun to read.

The Science of a Soccer Miracle

By Carlos Cunha

To the uninitiated, it might seem unlikely that a striker could ever miss the goal, so big is it. The reason he so often does miss is, of course, that he is aiming at a space much smaller than the goal – that which is left between the posts and the possible reach of the goalkeeper, a space that can be no larger than a basket in basketball. His shot is also, of course, influenced by various tensions or pressures: those created by onrushing defenders and teammates calling for the ball, by his wish to avoid the goalkeeper’s zone and the area outside the goal, by his own speed and inclination, etc. Considering all that is at work to distort his shot, it does seem something of a miracle that he ever does score. Not surprisingly, soccer is seen as a sport of miracles, in which the miracle is what is awaited. Hence, perhaps, its especial popularity in Catholic countries.