I think I have a new hero: Srecko Katanec

I agree with fbaezer. Good analogy.

Adds, I'll get that it is.

Interesting move, though, re tactics. Not re this particular game.

Germany is a soccer-crazy country, and even a non-fan like myself can't help learning about the game and its culture. I don't think Germans would see anything wrong in this kind of penalty kick. If anything, they would admire the player's nerve. The only exception I can think of is when one team is already leading 10:0, and the penalty-kicker uses the trick to rub the goalie's nose in his teams superiority. But that doesn't seem to have been the case.

Well let me ask you this: why aren't penalty kicks usually taken that way?

D'accord Sir Thomas!

IMHO, that WAS the case.
The game was 6-1. In (real) football that's a huge lead.

It was slightly closer then that. Prior to the goal, it was 5 to 2.

Oh. I interpreted the TV screen as saying "1 <nothing>". I must have made a mistake, then.

In the 78th minute!

Right, so was his playing after the 5-2 mockery or not?

How many of the local players try this in practice, for fun or tactic? In this case, surely not tactic. Was it just fooling around? I'm not clear it was planned mockery, but maybe.

Regardless of the time or lack of time left on the clock, I don't see it as a mockery.

It appears to be some last minute whimsy. Perhaps someone dared him to do a backwards kick. Only in approaching the ball did he decide to actually go ahead and make the goofy trick shot.

I'm thinking about Federer. Y'know, people don't do this in tennis all the time. I'm not sure if these instances were the first or not, certainly early in that level of playing.

He could have let that ball go, as, if I remember, he was both leading and expected to win. But he was engaged and was playing in the sense of not just snoring through a game. I'm a philosophic (who, me?) fan of play, and I don't just take this as awful.

I do see a difference re the present soccer video, so I'm unclear how much it was a taunt. I'm moving toward thinking it was.

Watching the Federer clip reminds me of a little documentary thing we were all watching the other day -- "the 10 greatest throws in baseball".

All of these impossible plays were made in the heat of the moment, when the game was in heavy action. We were dying and crying over how beautiful these throws were. Seriously, we were amazed and delighted at the expertise of the players to be able to do something that seemed so impossible but looked so instinctive and easy. THAT is the beauty of play.

This soccer shot was not like that.

I think I agree.
But it was also a crap shoot, let's do this now..
How much a taunt, or play, I sure don't know.
I presume he practiced.

I'll give it one more try, then I concede.

Scenario:
Patriots-Buccaneers in a meanless game toward the end of the season.
Pats have clinched a playoff spot; Bucs are hopelessly out of it.
Fourth quarter with the clock winding down, Patriots lead 35-10.
The Patriots are lined up for a punt. But wait! It's a trick play!
The punter passes and after a series of brilliant moves, a Patriot player
high-steps it into the end zone laughing all the way.

How well do you think that would go over?

I think that would be a wasted play. These trick plays should be for dire circumstances.

Still don't see them as sinister and overly malicious.

Neither do I.

I don't either. I guess I see them as ego-manical asshattery.

It was straight misconduct, unsporting behavior, for bringing the game into disrepute.
No goal, no retake, indirect free kick form the penalty spot for the defending team.
(Not a violation of Law 14, which regulates how a penalty is being shot.)
Such happens sometimes in minor leagues, but even there the refs know what to do.


Katanec, btw, got a red card during the Yugoslawia vs Spain match at 1990 World Championship .... while sitting on the bench. [It was a German referee .... but Katanec already had got the yellow card in the 7th minute.]

I agree, but I also think ego-maniacal asshattery is disrespectful whether or not it's intended as such. A play doesn't have to be sinister and overly malicious in order to be disrespectful.

I'm reminded of the time the Orlando Magic were up 20 points on the Detroit Pistons with 2.7 seconds left to play. Andrew Bowie, a bench player for the Magic, was one assist shy of his first (and, as it would turn out, only) career triple double. So Bowie calls a time-out, seconds away from the end of the game, in order to set up a play where he is credited with an assist.



Was this intended to taunt the Pistons? Of course not. Was it disrespectful to the losing team (not to mention Bowie's own teammates... even Brian Hill, his own coach, was disgusted) to turn the end of the game into a selfish stat-padding circus show? I think so.