{"id":2728,"date":"2014-06-11T00:05:33","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T04:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.167.168.176\/~phillips\/kerriansnotebook\/kerriansnotebook\/?p=2728"},"modified":"2025-03-14T16:11:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T20:11:25","slug":"kn-p-110-death-at-the-soccer-pitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pattiphillipsbooks.com\/kerriansnotebook\/2014\/06\/kn-p-110-death-at-the-soccer-pitch\/","title":{"rendered":"KN, p. 110 “Death at the Soccer Pitch”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>(from the 2014 archives)<\/span><\/p>\n

Warning<\/strong>: part of this post may be too intense for some readers.<\/span><\/p>\n

In soccer, the \u2018pitch\u2019 is the field upon which the game is played. The USA, Canada, and Australia call it soccer. To most of the rest of the world, the sport is called football.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. Period. Second place? Cricket.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Over 710 million people worldwide watched the final match held in Germany in 2010. We tried to get tickets for at least one of the weeks of the month-long finals that year, but by the time we could make travel plans, we discovered that they had been sold out for over a year. This year\u2019s finals will be held in Brazil, beginning on June 12th<\/sup> and ending a month later in July.<\/span><\/p>\n


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\nThe World Cup Finals are held every four years, with over 200 teams from around the world competing for more than two years to narrow the field to the 32 teams that reach the Finals. The level of play during the competition is amazing, with headers and kicks and jaw-dropping goals that look physically impossible to make.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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The team and fan rivalry is enthusiastic and can sometimes be intense. Sometimes, fans get so caught up in the moment that they lose all sense of reason if a call goes against their favorite player or team.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nIn 2013, a referee expelled a player from a game, a fight broke out and the referee in Brazil mortally stabbed the player. When friends and family of the player found out that he had died on the way to the hospital, they charged onto the field and stoned the ref to death. Then they quartered his body. They took his head and put it on a pike in the middle of the field. That\u2019s not a typo, folks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just about a month ago, some fans were so annoyed by play at a match that they started tossing toilet bowls at the opposition fans. Yup, ripped out the plumbing and threw it, killing someone in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2014-05-05\/fan-killed-by-toilet-bowl-as-violence-hits-world-cup-host-brazil.html<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Law enforcement agencies and fans of the sport have been working for several years to reduce the number of incidents, occasionally emptying stadiums before a match is finished so that a game can be completed without further harm coming to players or refs or the fans themselves. Serious scrutiny of various underlying causes for the riots, crowd mentality, and sometimes criminal behavior has even caused a change in how the games are played and\/or policed.<\/span><\/p>\n

I love the sport, and even played on the varsity soccer team when I was a kid, so I am not knocking the pure beauty of the game. People just get carried away from time to time, forgetting that it is in fact, just a game we play for exercise, sport and\/or entertainment. Many of the top players in the world, in this pre-World Cup week, have said in interviews that they want to provide great entertainment for the fans. Of course they also want to win, but hooligans are not invited to the show.<\/span><\/p>\n

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We won\u2019t be in Brazil this month, so we\u2019ll have to be happy catching a match or two on TV. Plus, I have my \u201994 World Cup t-shirt to wear whenever the USA plays.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/span><\/p>\n

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If you are lucky enough to watch some of the matches in person, here are some tips to remain safe and happy while you\u2019re there. They work for any large sporting event, not just the World Cup.<\/span><\/p>\n