The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Canada's hosting of the U-20 FIFA World Cup came to an end today as Argentina bested the Czech Republic by a score of 2-1. Yawn.

Well, that might be harsh, so let's mention the positives first. No one thought Canada would have any interest in this event, but it ended up setting a record for attendance for the U-20 World Cup.

And Canada got to play, for a change.

Alright, let's move on. Again, the reason why the "beautiful game" isn't embraced as much in Canada & the USA is the diving. And there was so much of it. Just from the one game I saw and from the highlights of every other match.

Chile's 3-0 spanking of Canada in their opening game was a big letdown for Canadian supporters. Aside from the fact it showed Canada cannot compete at a World Class level, it amazed me Chile still felt the need to dive and dive some more even though Canada's first shot on net didn't occur until about 15 minutes in to the second half. There was no need for it. Canada couldn't touch the Chileans in any aspect of the game. Maybe Chile thought it was prudent to show it could also draw the most penalties by taking a dive at any given notice. How many times did we see a stretcher be summoned onto the field, only to have the "injured" player return 2 minutes after reaching the sideline?

So when Chile faced the Argentineans, lost 3-0 and got multiple yellow cards and a couple of red, I had no sympathy when they accused Argentina of theatrics to gain the advantage. There's a penalty for "simulation" that officials can hand out, but for the most part they choose not to. And since every player in FIFA competition, with the exception of maybe Canada, will take a dive any chance they can, there will be days when your team will get the butt end of the calls.

Furthermore, Chile demonstrated their poor sportsmanship by trashing their team bus after the game was finished. They thought trying to swarm the referee was justified for what they thought was poor officiating. No one has any right to put their hands on an official, and a Chilean player ended up being suspended after the incident. I also read the reason why the windows were smashed on the inside of the team bus after the game was the fact that the players inside "couldn't' breathe". Yeah right. Lowering your window is never an option; guess the a/c must have been out of commission, too.

So the Toronto police apparently "rushed" the players without provocation, adding to the lies put forward by Chilean Soccer. Sounds what our men and women of law enforcement are all about: Making an emotional situation even worse by getting teenagers to fight them. I sure they enjoyed getting pelted by objects thrown from the players on the bus as they tried to restore order to an incident they caused.

It's too bad something like that had to happen; I thought overall Soccer Canada did a tremendous job in planning and hosting this event that many thought was doomed to fail being held in a non-soccer market like Canada.