Die Hard Three

North Americans are often times perplexed by soccer. I’ve done some analysis and I think there are three main areas of confusion:

1. We know soccer is popular but we find it dull (I know this is pretty rich originating from a continent full of baseball fans – more on that later).
2. There seems to be an incredible amount of unfairness surrounding the game.
3. The fervor of some soccer fans at almost every match reaches an intensity that in North America we save mostly for the playoffs. Combined with point number one, this only increases our bewilderment.

Before I start on this, I should say I’m not going to even attempt to explain why soccer became popular and some other sport didn’t. It’s not important. It is number one, let’s go from there.

Popular but Dull?

Soccer’s popularity with respect to its perceived dullness is not a huge mystery to me. It’s actually pretty simple – people tend to like the things they grew up around. Sports, language, food, religion, politics – the intensity of ones affinity for all of these things is likely more related to geography than anything else. Why else would people from Ottawa cheer for the Senators? Because they’re the best? Riiiight.

If you don’t believe me, grab an atlas and look up the section on world languages and religion. You should see a distinct geographical pattern related to their distribution. If you can find a similar map for sports, I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that you’ll see an almost identical pattern (sports popularity relating to geopolitical boundaries). This also kind of explains baseball and maybe cricket.

So there you have it, the first mystery solved in two paragraphs: most of the world loves soccer because it’s the popular sport in the countries where it is a popular sport.

But I don’t think many Canadians and Americans would find this a very satisfying answer for the second or third mysteries.

The Unfairness?

North Americans have an expectation that there will be a level playing field in professional team sports. We know that’s not always the case, but a concerted effort has been made to make sure every team has a fair shot at winning. And some leagues do it better than others: the NFL is probably the best with Major League Baseball the worst. Hockey and basketball are in the middle.

But soccer takes things to a whole new level. Let’s start with payroll.

All of the major team sports in North America have instituted some sort of salary cap. The goal of which is to keep costs down and to ensure parity between the different teams. Nothing like this exists in European soccer.

The NFL has a very elaborate revenue sharing structure. Again the goal is to ensure that smaller markets (Green Bay) can compete with the larger teams (Dallas). And it appears that it kind of works – the Packers won the Super Bowl last season and the Cowboys did not. Contrast that with what you find in the UK Premiership. You have Manchester United with revenues of € 349 000 000 playing in the same league as something called the West Ham United. They had about € 87 600 000 in revenue last year. Hardly seems fair to me.

But don't worry, I read on Wikipedia that West Ham was bought in 2006 by "an Icelandic consortium". I'm sure their financial troubles are behind them.

Next there’s the distribution of new talent between the various teams. NFL-NHL-MLB-NBA all have a draft. Soccer it’s a free-for-all. I originally thought this was a joke, until I watched this. The kid can play.

Back in the “real” world, ESPN reports that Real Madrid signed a seven-year-old. I have a feeling this trend is going to get worse before it gets better.

Sign that kid!

I could go on for days about the diving that takes place in soccer. Don’t worry, I won’t. I will say that diving used to be a problem in ice hockey but the league really clamped down on the practice. Also, in the NHL you can get a penalty for diving, said penalty can actually affect the result of the game, and the officiators actually enforce the rule. Seems fair to me.

Related to diving, video replay is used in the National Hockey League, National Football League, Canadian Football League, National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball. It helps correct inaccurate officiating decisions. The technology has been around for decades and if any sport could benefit from it, it’s soccer – which has only one referee, twenty-two players and a playing surface that’s the size of a soccer field.

And… I think now is a good time to come clean: North Americans really only pay attention to soccer every four years during the World Cup.

This is relevant because I think we have this naive expectation that in the four years between tournaments they will have fixed all the problems that were encountered previous time. As we’re picking our teams for the pool, we go online and look up the rules. We’re surprised to find that ties are decided by a coin toss (I’m not making this up) and there’s still only one referee with no video replay.

People tend to focus on the obvious unfairness (the poor officiating, the cheating, the lack of video replay), but what I think is probably more frustrating for North American sports fans, is the inability (or unwillingness) of the governing bodies to fix the problems. Soccer remains broken in spite of the fact that there are simple solutions that have been successfully implemented elsewhere.

In North America, conscious (albeit imperfect) efforts have been made to improve our sports to make them better and more fair. It’s something the fans have come to expect but there is little indication that soccer has any desire to improve. I think if this were to change, it would go a long way towards increasing acceptance of the sport in Canada and the United States.

I think I have to write this part with soccer as the reference point, otherwise it’s just too messy. I’ll explain the differences with North American sports in part three. Aside: while writing this, it occurred to me that the Europeans have put way more thought into “soccer” than how they run their economy. The soccer system is not without its problems, but let’s save that revolution for part three.

There are city teams and national teams.

The city teams are made up of players from all over the place while the national teams are almost exclusively composed of players with citizenship or citizenship eligibility of that country.

There are league games and tournament games.

Most countries have national leagues and the teams in these leagues are from cities within that county. In league games they play against each other (i.e. Berlin FC vs. Munich FC). Each country can have many different leagues (also called divisions). The individual nations have their own nomenclature but basically its first division with the best teams then, second division, third division, etc. Some of the crazier soccer-crazy countries have almost fifteen divisions.

The big European soccer tournament is the UEFA Champions League where the best city teams from the different national leagues play against each other (i.e. Berlin FC vs. Paris FC).

There are continental tournaments (Asia, Africa, South America, Europe, Oceanland, North America) for the national teams from each region. These are all held every two three or four years. They don’t just let every team in, each country has to qualify.

And of course there is the World Cup held every four years just a couple of months after the Winter Olympics.

Who are the winners and how is it decided who are the winners?

• There are no playoffs in the national leagues – the team with the most points at the end of the season is the champion. This is boring.
• The teams at the bottom of the standings get demoted to the next lower division. This is the opposite of boring.
• The top teams in each league get promoted to the next higher division, also not boring
• except in the first division where the top teams get invited to play in the UEFA Champions League tournament

The Champions League is decided by a round-robin group stage followed by a playoff. International tournaments are the same. Teams are placed into groups and the top two teams in each group move on to the elimination round.

The fall, winter, and summer

• The national league city team games are played on Sunday in afternoon time slots (similar to NFL Football).
• UEFA games are played midweek approximately every three weeks.
• Qualifying games for international tournaments are also played midweek every couple of months or so.

The summer

The summer is reserved for the big international tournaments.

Number of games in a season

The national leagues play once a week from September until about May. I hope they get Christmas off.

The games

Soccer has ties, unless it’s an elimination game where they go into overtime (not sudden-death) and then penalty kicks if it’s still tied.

Sometimes they have these home / away two-game mini-tournaments where any ties are decided by which team had more away goals. This is kinda cool.

Game Duration

The games are always of a fixed length 45 min. – 15 min. intermission – 45 min.

• 105 – 115 minutes for a regulation game
• 145 – 155 minutes for an overtime game – two 15-minute overtime halves
• You can add another 15 minutes on if penally kicks are required.
• At the end of each half the referee will add some “penalty time” if there were any stoppages

Player selection

There’s no draft. Teams can pretty much sign whomever they want.

Where they make their money

The teams make their money from TV broadcasts and at the gate (tickets sold at the stadium).

The rules

The rules appear to be difficult to change. It’s unclear to me how they would be able to do this with so many different leagues and association. There is no video replay.

The visiting team’s supporters

In some stadiums these guys are given a dedicated section as well as their own entrance, concession stands and washrooms. This is to reduce the likelihood of violence between the fans.

Apologies

My apologies for all that, but it’s needed for the second and third parts to make any sense.

Photo Caption

So I promised you guys a post on soccer and I think this is probably the best time to write it. I’ve got a four-hour train ride ahead of me, I’m totally wired, and my belly has recently been filled with yummy McDonald’s breakfast (the packaging say “Official Restaurant of the Olympics” – I assume that’s Special, not Regular).

I’ve decided to break this one up into four distinct parts. As I was doing the first draft I realized that it’s going to be well over eight thousand words. It’s fine to have a single post of that length if discussing toilets or sidewalks, but soccer is something else completely. Like a fine meal it needs to be cooked, served, chewed, swallowed, digested, and expelled over many hours; the leftovers packed into reusable plastic containers and consumed over many lunch hours in the days following. Here’s how it’s going to go:

• Part zero is what you are reading “now”. This is the introduction.
• Part one will focus on the differences in structure between the soccer and other sports.
• Part two will attempt to demystify for North Americans the allure of soccer.
• In the third and final part I will rant about everything that is wrong with all sports. I might also talk about what is good. But no promises – I have not written that part yet.

But before we get going, a bit of ground work.

For this blog I have I decided to use “soccer” when referring to European football and for NFL and CFL I will use “American football”. I have no idea what Aussie Rules or League Football is. I think they might be some sort of rugby. Because I’m writing about my views on soccer as a North American, these Australian aberrations are considered unimportant.

I myself, am from North America (Canada). I grew up on hockey (playing and watching), I’ve always enjoyed baseball, and recently I have found myself watching soccer. I find basketball incredibly uninteresting (too many points) and while I understand the rules of American football I never really put the energy into learning the strategy.

I hope this post doesn’t ruffle too many feathers. In some circles, sports is right up there with religion and politics – the supporters can get passionate about their belief / choice of team, sport, favorite player, whatever. And criticism by an outsider can come across badly. My goal with all this is to discover a greater understanding – if I’m in error, by all means, let me know. It’s saves me from having to google stuff.

And finally, in the interests of full disclosure I will let you know now which teams I support.

• Hockey – when I was a kid Montreal Canadians. Now I cheer for whomever is playing against the Ottawa Senators – think of it like having 29 favourite teams. I also like Edmonton and Calgary. Boston is pretty good too. After the 2010 finals Vancouver ranks just above Ottawa for me.
• Baseball – Montreal (RIP), Toronto and Philadelphia.
• Basketball – I don’t think I’ve ever watched a complete game
• NFL Football – No team
• CFL Football – Ottawa, when they have a team
• Soccer – I used to be torn between the Dutch and the Germans but after their horrible display in the 2010 WC final, I don’t think I can support the Netherlands anymore. This might change after the Euro 2012 if they can go the whole tournament and still behave like adults, but right now I’m going to have to say Deutschland is my team. I of course cheer for Canada, but unless we end up hosting it’s unlikely we will be playing in anything but qualifying matches – for my lifetime anyway. And I like the United States because it’s fun to watch the most powerful nation in the world as an underdog.

Enjoy.

Berlin, WC 2010 semi-final Germany vs. Spain - at this point I was still undecided between supporting Germany or Holland.

Sometimes I wake up and I don’t know where I am. Often this happens in the middle of the day when I’m already awake. Take right now, for instance. I’m in Germany playing cards (eucher) with a friend who I know from Ottawa and the hockey game playing in the background. There’s nothing about the situation that says, “hey man, you’re in Germany”. All interaction is in English. The snack food is peanuts (lightly salted). Bob Cole is telling us what’s happening on the ice and the beer is cold.

At this point in time, right now, I think you can understand why I’m unsure about where exactly I am.

Confused, would we?

All of this makes me wonder if globalization might actually be a good thing. If my brain can be tricked into thinking that Germany is Canada then it can’t all be bad. But the real challenge would be to make Canadians think they are somewhere else. I wonder what would have to be changed in Canada to make its citizens feel like they are in another country. I wonder what we’d have to change…

• England – change the accent of our English-speaking citizens to cockney, soccer on the telly twenty-four/seven
• France – change the accent of our french-speaking citizens to France accent, eliminate breakfast and supper – at the remaining meal only serve cheese.
• Sweden – install disco balls in all public locations, make Glögg the national drink.
• Germany – eliminate our archaic public drinking and nudity laws, trains everywhere.
• Finland – cover the RIM logos on our mobile phones with little Nokia stickers, release billions of mosquitoes into the atmosphere
• Switzerland – make sure all business are closed everyday by 15:00, be neutral about everything.
• United States – change the default language on our Internet browsers to “American English”, continue as normal.

And it does not have to be like this all the time. We could make these changes for a fixed period – say, ten days. I think this is much easier than giving Canadian workers two weeks vacation each year.

I know what you’re thinking:

Jason, that’s not possible. Everyone knows that the happiest person in the world lives in a fishing village in South America where he fishes a bit in the morning to support his family and then spends the rest of the day relaxing with his family and friends playing the guitar, and laughing, and talking of memories past.

Well I’m sorry to inform you, that’s not true. The happiest person in the world actually lives right here in Berlin and he does not like to fish. Well, maybe he does. We didn’t talk about that.

“What?” you say. “The happiest person in the world is German?!?!”

I can see you now, sitting there with that puzzled look on your face, furrowing your brow in a vain attempt to try and understand the situation. Oh yes, it’s true: he’s German. Gather around, everyone, and I shall tell you a tale.

So this morning when I woke up I decided to do some shopping. Some non-Ikea, non-toilet shopping. This weekend I’m going to visit some friends over in the west of Germany and I need to pick up a couple of gifts. Luckily for me it’s the season of the Christmas Markt. On my way back from the Iittaala store on Friedrichstrasse I stumbled upon an extra-large Weihnachtsmarkt located in the exact same place as that red carpet event I covered a few weeks ago.

No Teri Hatcher this time.

Now in some of my previous posts I’ve talked about the markets here in Germany and I think this is a good time to talk about them a little more. But before we begin, a little background. Some of the markets here in Berlin are what we would call back home “flea markets” (selling used goods and trinkets). For this post I’m going to exclude those and only talk about the ones that are more like proper stores selling new and high-quality items and foods. Everyone got that? Good, let’s get to it.

There are so many things I find fascinating about this market system here in Berlin, I don’t know where to begin.

One – In these markets you will find people selling arts, crafts, jewelry, clothing, purses, posters, food, Glühwein, precious Glühwein, crepes, wursts, gloves, wallets, hats, picture frames, roasted nuts, bangers, kippers, and almost anything else you can think of.

The grill is made in the south of Germany

Two – There are two types of markets: Christmas (set up for the five weeks before Dec 25) and weekly (set up once or twice a week, usually Thursdays and/or Saturdays).

Three – The markets are located in the many large squares and piazzas all around Berlin. The Christmas ones are semi-permanent – the structures are designed to be in place for five weeks and then removed. The weekly stands can be set up and taken down in a matter of minutes (some of the more elaborate ones take longer). They are usually active between 10:00 and 16:00.

Four – As previously mentioned, one is free to enjoy alcohol anywhere in Germany and these markets are no exception. A nice glass of German spiced wine (Glühwein) will set you back about about 2.50 euros. There’s a deposit but you get that back when you return the glass. The food stands all sell beer.

The best part of Christmas!

Five – Many of the items being sold are all made in Germany. Today I got a mushroom brush and a box – both made here in Berlin.

Does this even require a caption?

Six – Sometimes the artisan is right there working away on whatever it is she’s selling. This is so cool. Also, if they were not able to work on it right there, they had a video running of someone building it.

This guy actually knows how to build stuff... out of silver.

Seven – These structures have to be set up to accommodate the diverse weather that Berlin experiences – the markets run all year round.

Looks like a regular resturant?

Wrong! Temporary structure!

Let me explain why I think this whole system is amazing, but this time using a slightly different numbering system.

First – It promotes manufacturing by providing a low-cost way for people to sell their own goods. This is accomplished by regulating the selling phase to specific times. This makes it much easier for a single individual to make and sell a products. One can build Monday to Friday and sell on Saturday.

These guys are making belts - and hopefully resting on the seventh day.

Second – The Thursday-and-Saturday and five-weeks-before-Christmas market periods are a brilliant idea. All of the customers know that these are the times to go shopping. Essentially both parties, the customer and the vendor, (normally adversaries) have come to an agreement on when buying and selling will take place. They each benefit by having more control over scheduling their respective activities (i.e. free time).

Third – It provides the benefits of a physical store without the overhead of having one at a fixed location.

A thought experiment: the day after American Thanksgiving is called Black Friday because it’s a huge Christmas shopping day and it’s the first day of the calendar year where most traditional business go “in the black” (turn a profit). As a business owner would you be comfortable waiting until four weeks before Christmas to find out if your business is going to survive until the following year? (Black Friday is the last Friday in November).

It also provides a better medium for selling certain items. I imagine it is difficult to sell high-quality hand-made items over the internet. If a piece of jewellery costs fifty dollars in a virtual store, the customer is going to want to try it on before buying it. If it’s being sold at a traditional store, this same piece of jewellery is going to have to cost ten times the price because of the increased overhead.

Fourth – It gives the owner more control over the business. For example, it can be run with less employees. You could hire one person to work Thursday-and-Saturday but if you had a fixed store you would need at least five employees to cover ten hours per day, six days a week (at a minimum).

This guy is making business cards. By hand. Using a machine.

Fifth – It provides more opportunities because you’re also able to set up shop anywhere. If you’re selling food you could easily do so at festivals because you’re already mobile.

Sixth – It gives an entrepreneur the opportunity to try out an idea while still maintaining a day job. She can work on her idea in the evenings with Saturday reserved for selling. If it fails to take off, then she still has her regular job to fall back on.

I've been told that Shakira bought one of these 1100 euro, limited edition, only ten per year, made in Dusseldorf purses.

Seventh – There’s something about this whole setup, especially with the Berlin-made items, where you can see the profits from whatever it is you’re buying, going directly to the workers. There’s no middleman, shipping, outsourcing, or any of that nonsense. The fact that half the time you can physically see someone building the thing you’re buying, helps remove any doubt about where the item was made.

Working away.

Many of the items I saw today were made in Germany and most of those were made right here in Berlin. Another thought experiment – close your eyes, and think of the something (not food) that was made in your city. The only thing I can come up with (for Ottawa) is me – and, I guess, my twin sister.

The Miracle Twins

Eighth – It promotes innovation by allowing the manufacturer to easily a) interact *directly* with the customer (no purple monkey dishwasher) and b) view what the competition is doing. I’ve been to a ton of markets like these all the way from Tunisia to Beijing and I can safely say that the ones in Berlin have the nicest stuff.

Ninth – you can actually sell high-end, hand-made items because there are others doing the same. If you were in an area where everyone was selling used CDs your $75 jewelry would seem very out of place and you would have the wrong clientele browsing your merchandise.

Alright then. All done with the numbered lists for this post.

So, hands down my favourite booth of the day was Holz Auge (Wooden Eye). I will try and explain to you now why the owner, Mr. David Köbele, is the happiest person on earth.

David in his store.

David makes objects, art, and mosaics. His medium is wood – exclusively. His works are all hand made, high-quality, one-of-a-kind, pleasant to the touch, and mesmerizing to the eye. He does not use any dies or stains or paint – each piece is its natural colour. He uses over forty different types of wood to some very dramatic results. The boxes have no metal hinges or felt interiors. The mosaics feel like they came from a single block. Truly remarkable.

That yellow stripe was just incredible.

He has a workshop here in Berlin where he does standard hours during the week (08:00 to 17:00) and on Saturdays he sets up his vendor booth at the Kollwitzplatz Markt in Prenzlauer Berg from 10:00 to 16:00. He’s got a mini-workshop with him so he can still do some woodworking between customers. He does not sell online because one really has to handle the items to appreciate them.

Not built by a robot.

So why is David the happiest person in the world? I talked with him for about forty-five minutes and here is what I was able to determine:

• It’s obvious that he’s doing what he loves – he was smiling the whole time we were talking about his work.
• He told me he’s been interested in wood and woodworking since he was five years old. If this were me I’d be cloning dinosaurs right now (I’m not cloning anything).
• He has no downtime at work – there is always something to do. If it’s a slow sales day, just keep on building.
• You know when you get into a project, like really into it, and you’re working away and you look up at the clock and it’s the end of the day and you wonder where the time went (but not in a negative, where-did-my-twenties-go sort of way). I’m under the impression that this is David’s standard workday. I imagine it’s the opposite for most people.
• He’s able to support himself and his family with his business while working a regular eight-hour day
• He’s the only employee – think how much you could get done in a day with no interruptions.
• He’s got a workshop; his own space to concentrate on his craft. And I imagine that it’s optimized so that he spends most of his time doing the fun stuff instead of writing documentation.
• He’s able to be creative, make beautiful things, and see the finished product.
• And it goes with out saying but I will say it anyway, he does not have to worry about access to healthcare, beer getting too expensive, where his next meal is going to come from, insurgency, malaria, or bad weather destroying his livelihood.

These ones were super awesome too.

I’m sure there’s a few more reasons but I can’t think of them right now. If you are having difficulty understanding how David could be the happiest person in the world, simply reread this post and each time you encounter the words “wood” or “woodworking”, simply replace them with one of these words:

• sailing
• fishing
• writing
• viola playing
• writing and researching about international political science, governmental treaties, and foreign trade policy
• vegetarian cooking
• Jesus
• mountain biking
• hockey playing
• Perl programming
• frenetic dancing
• Star Wars

It might make more sense.