Many years ago, there was once a time when I was an economist, and believe it or not, over the years I've realized that economics and soccer have many things in common.
Hold on, wait a minute ... WHAT??!!
Dan Blank, the author of the SoccerIQ Series, remarks in all of his books that if you want to coach and play soccer, you have to believe details matter.
He’s absolutely right.
I have to go back to these subjects; I can’t help it. Soccer is a conservative sport in comparison to many others, based on beliefs and myths that might sound accurate but (most) have never been proven to be the most effective. Soccer is an old-school guy that hates change and does a lot of stuff simply because “it's always been done like that.”
Pep Guardiola frequently says he considers himself “a great thief” as everything that he does he’s seen it somewhere and took it for himself and his teams. Well Pep, if that’s the case bud, keep going because it’s working pretty darn good.
“Come on Pablo! You can’t touch that speech! It’s glorious; have some respect!”
Please don't hate me; I know we all love Al Pacino's speech from "Any Given Sunday." I do too. In fact, it still gives me the goosebumps every time I see it.
Juan Román Riquelme, el legendario centrocampista argentino, respondió una vez en la televisión cuando se le preguntó sobre Leo Messi: “No estoy completamente seguro de que Messi sea humano. Nunca he visto a una persona que corra más rápido con el balón en los pies que sin él. Messi lo hace. Como puedes hacer eso? Piénselo, no tiene sentido ".
¿Cuántas veces hemos escuchado cosas como esta?
Failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup was hard to digest, very hard, so our hot soccer-blooded hearts make us feel that everything is wrong, and our soccer is the worst. That’s just the heat of the moment; truth is that U.S. soccer is pretty good, and it has gotten better and better over the last couple of decades.
If you’re one of the thousands that’s typed “How does ref decide when to end soccer match” into Google, don’t worry, you’re in fine company. One former manager who's probably completed that inquiry himself is the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson. His famous quip regarding how refs decide to end the match is that the refs have absolutely no clue.
Soccer has a pretty extensive history, dating back to the original rules cobbled together in 1863. One would expect the basics to have always been the same, but the rule on how many players on a soccer field at any given time hasn’t always been set in stone.
Los jugadores de fútbol brasileños a menudo han tenido un nombre durante más de un siglo. En la Copa del Mundo de 2018, 15 de los 23 jugadores de Brasil normalmente se refieren a ellos por un solo nombre. Para la mayoría de los jugadores, significa simplemente usar su nombre de pila, como Neymar, o un derivado de su nombre de pila, como Marquinhos (Marcos). Esta práctica hace que Brasil se destaque de la mayoría de las selecciones nacionales, y hay algunas explicaciones de por qué los jugadores de fútbol de Brasil tienen un solo nombre.