Derby games are incredibly significant. Pronounced as "darby," these games go beyond simple rivalries between top teams. These are games based on local pride. In soccer, there are top matches like Spain’s El Classico between La Liga giants Real Madrid and Barcelona FC. These two teams not only represent the best of their league but also their political dichotomies. However, this rivalry is not a derby since Barcelona and Madrid are essentially a whole country apart from each other. Derbies are white-hot local battles between two teams that usually occupy the same city or general area. In America, you can consider the MLB matchup of the Chicago White Sox and Cubs as a derby. The same could have been said about the NFL games between the San Francisco 49ers and the then Oakland Raiders before the Raiders packed up for Las Vegas. But in soccer, these games manifest into something grander than a regular game. Whoever wins a derby gets to have bragging rights over their in-town inferiors.
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March Madness is the second best time to be a sports fan while the top spot belongs to the World Cup. I will gladly admit bias in making this sweeping, authoritative statement; however, I do have some solid reasoning for my ranking. While the top college hoops tournament is a grand event, it's still an intrinsically American product. Soccer, on the other hand, is a world-wide sport. While America as a whole is fickle about its interest in the World Cup, the immigrants and international visitors will still pack our bars and go wild for their home countries. The nature of one's support for their country is level with one's support for their alma mater. For this small school South Dakota boy, I don't exhibit such a fervor during this time as I do when the US Men's and Women's National Teams compete for gold. But I do recognize and appreciate the similarities. Anyway this blog post has nothing to do with any of those topics. Or does it? Like college grads who preserve artifacts and mementos from their years of studying and extracurriculars of official and unofficial merit, soccer fans do likewise. They sport the colors of their favorite team. They memorize the songs and chants that have been passed down through generations. And, a most curious fact, they collect an uncomfortable amount of scarves even if they live in tropical climates or in my case, a swamp which has yet to be drained and actually has become far worse for wear in recent times. But before I lose myself deeper into an unrelated tangent, let's discuss...
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It’s easy to think that when you watch a soccer game that all the players on the field sort of slot themselves into various positions and just go after the ball when it gets near them. That’s not the case at all, because these players are trained adults and not grade school children. When you understand the positions, you can better see the field of play and how all the players fit in on it. At the end of the day, once you realize how all 11 players work in tandem as they move the ball up and down the pitch, it becomes easy to follow the game. It’s akin to entering the Matrix and seeing it in its pure form. You’ll know Kung Fu in no time.
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While the weather here in Washington, DC is getting nasty, it makes my decision to just hole up in my home with some coffee and soccer justifiable. One aspect that I like about soccer is that it is a year-round sport. With so many leagues around the world and here in America, I can sometimes feel a little spoiled. Different leagues and different countries will kick-off and finish at different points in the year. When the titans in Europe finish up their championships, I'm already in full swing with Major League Soccer over here. Then there are various tournaments and international competitions, which are the cherries on top of a rich, decadent cake. But it took me a while to figure out when and where to catch these competitions. So in this issue of Soccer Made Simple, I will answer the question...
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It's tough to talk about time without bringing up tired cliches and tropes. But it's such a universal, ubiquitous concept that is hard to grasp without the use of idioms to help frame it. When it comes to soccer, time is both always moving forward and relative to the discretion of the referee. There are two halves to a game of soccer, but teams also have to account for stoppage time and extra time. For newcomers, the way time is managed during a soccer match may seem random. I used to think it was solely up to the ref to call the end of the half or the game. While that's not too far off, there are a few factors that impact the passage of time during a game. This is why soccer is...
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