Drama queens
Even our sporting events are filled with tragedy
Siamack Baniameri
July 27, 2004
iranian.com
I had the misfortune of watching the rerun of Iran vs. Oman soccer
game over the weekend. The game was an amazing combination of irony
and paradox. What a sickening experience. We Iranians are the kings
and queens of drama. Even our sporting events are filled with tragedy. This
was not soccer, it was real life.
From the first minutes of the match you could easily feel the
tension in the air. The Iranian players were tense and up tight.
They reminded me of a bunch
of pissed off employees of a morally bankrupt company who are forced by the
management to play nice together. They embodied a group of teenagers
who were forced out
of their beds in early hours of a Saturday morning to do yard work. None of
them looked as they had any interest in being there.
There were no rooms for error since each player was dealing with
ten coaches on the field. Everybody was a coach and nobody was
present to play. There were
yelling and shouting everywhere accompanied by bitch-slapping and occasional
spiting and stumping which made for an entertaining reality show.
The apparent problem was the fact that we were playing against
an Arab team. There used to be a time when we Iranians blamed all
our problems on Brits
and Americans, but nowadays it's fashionable to blame our own shortcomings
on Arabs.
"Them fucking Arabs, let's show them who the boss is!"
Our players don't seem to be able to perform well against Arab
teams because there is certain emotional leakage that we Iranians
are incapable of controlling.
We have got it in our heads that we are superior to Arabs, and once we
get on the field against an Arab team and realize that "them fucking
Arabs" are
not bad players, all of a sudden we find ourselves hitting a wall of
mental blockage.
We see ourselves standing on a soccer field facing our two worst
imaginary enemies: Arabs and ourselves. We don't seem to be able
to trust each other. We sabotage our own teammates because we find
ourselves more comfortable in a position of
defeat. Glory is out of the ordinary for us while defeat is our comfort zone.
 We tend to bring our personal issues to the soccer filed. Our
players see the national team as a platform to enforce their own
personal agendas. In the game
of soccer all glories go to strikers and many hardly ever remember the names
of defenders who bust their asses for ninety minutes to stop the other team
from scoring.
Ali Daie and Mahdavi-Kia grab all the headlines while
Rahman Rezaei
and Ali Badavi are hardly ever mentioned -- unless they slap
each other like little bitches during a nationally televised game. "So
what the hell, man. Why should I bust my ass and let Mahdavi-Kia
the lucrative contracts?"
But the officiating was by far the worst part of the game. Being
a soccer referee is the public toilet of all professions. No matter
what call you make, there
is always some one on the field that is unhappy with your call. You get pushed
around, insulted, and sometimes even attacked by pissed off players, coaches,
and fans. I found the below headline this morning in a newspaper which made
me extremely happy:
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- A South
African soccer referee pulled a gun and shot dead a coach who
quesioned one of his rulings, police said.
"There was an altercation... and the referee became threatened
when the other team approached him because they were angry," Govender
said. "So
he pulled out a gun and killed the coach of the visiting team." >>>
See
 It's about time a referee took matters in his own hands and took
care of the business the way it should be. Maybe the fruity governing
body that regulates
soccer (FIFA) should adopt this method for future games.
FIFA should arm all referees with a pistol and all linesmen should
get an automatic machine gun instead of those stupid flags. Forget
yellow and
red
cards. If
a player commits intentional foul, the ref should pull out his pistol
and warn the player with a shot in the air. If the player does
not get the
message and
repeat his transgression then the ref should shoot the fucker in the
knee. Nothing
like blowing a fruity soccer player's kneecap to send a clear message
to other players to stop fouling.  As a matter
fact the ref should let the offending player stay on the field
and bleed for a while. Let's see if any of them overpaid
soccer pros will
ever commit a cheap foul to stop the other team from attacking.
If players of the offending team rush the ref or threaten him
bodily harm by getting too close, then the linesmen should pull
out their machine
guns
and
take out the entire team. You will see that the quality of the game
will improve tremendously
and soccer will be more entertaining and a better game for all of us
to watch. .................... Say
goodbye to spam! *
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