Is this where I would find a discussion of MLS Cup? Played last Saturday? Anyone watch it?
After two hours of fruitless shooting and "strong defense" enabled by referee playing hold'em (where the primary strategy is don't show anybody your cards), we got a winner of sorts. They could have saved a lot of wear and tear by just going straight to the PK circus, but it would have been had to sell enough TV commercials to pay for the show.
Then on Sunday was the College Cup final. Again no goals until the post-game PKs. Stanford won two games over the weekend (and thus the College Cup - so named even though the NCAA trophy looks nothing like a cup) without scoring a goal. For all their involvement, the referees in this weekend's 3 CC games could have called them from a soccer-mom folding chair 3 yards off the sideline.
Besides both big games ending with shootouts, there was another eerie similarity - both games had 40 fouls called, with only three yellow cards each game. The college game has one advantage over the pros - when a player gets flattened by a shoulder charge to the belly, he can sub out for a time to recover and get back into the game.
After two hours of fruitless shooting and "strong defense" enabled by referee playing hold'em (where the primary strategy is don't show anybody your cards), we got a winner of sorts. They could have saved a lot of wear and tear by just going straight to the PK circus, but it would have been had to sell enough TV commercials to pay for the show.
Then on Sunday was the College Cup final. Again no goals until the post-game PKs. Stanford won two games over the weekend (and thus the College Cup - so named even though the NCAA trophy looks nothing like a cup) without scoring a goal. For all their involvement, the referees in this weekend's 3 CC games could have called them from a soccer-mom folding chair 3 yards off the sideline.
Besides both big games ending with shootouts, there was another eerie similarity - both games had 40 fouls called, with only three yellow cards each game. The college game has one advantage over the pros - when a player gets flattened by a shoulder charge to the belly, he can sub out for a time to recover and get back into the game.