Climatic Conditions
So many factors impact a game, but weather is always interesting to take into account.
The upcoming men's world cup in Qatar has called some attention to climate.
In the last month I have watched two games on television where climate played a big role.
One game, a few weeks ago, were Portland Timbers played away against Colorado Rapids. The game was played in -8°C (16°F). At the beginning of the game, the snow hadn't really began falling yet; by the end of the game, so much snow had fallen that they had to shovel it off the lines in order to continue, players' hair and eyebrows were caked in snow, the referee’s mustache was frozen. Needless to say, there was an ejection in the second half.
This weekend, Argentina played a friendly against Morocco in Tangiers. I have never seen a game played in windier conditions, even the goal nets were flapping like the sails of a haunted schooner. The ball hung after a lob like a balloon filled with helium. Most of the passes in the air were like watching some Harry Potter sport in which the ball has a mind of its own.
What was most evident in witnessing all this was how much of what players negotiate is their intuitive understanding of physics: they have a sharp idea of how the ball should roll, bounce, spin, arc. Players know how to manipulate the physics of the ball. They've also fine tuned their understanding of the physics of the human body.
A few years back, I was invited to play in a beach soccer tournament. It felt like I was running inside of a dream. My feet were sluggish and my steps barely moved me along despite putting more force than usual into each. I would watch in dismay after a pass would hit sand and stop instantly not far from were I had kicked it.
This is how these games looked, in the snow and in the wind. The physics were off. And yet, you have to hand it to the players, because despite the conditions, they still play incredibly well.
By the end of the first half in the Argentina/Morocco friendly, there had already been 28 fouls.
Wind does tend to make people mad, but chaos created by unfamiliar and adverse conditions calls for lots of crashing (which makes for ugly, interrupted soccer).
The upcoming men's world cup in Qatar has called some attention to climate.
In the last month I have watched two games on television where climate played a big role.
One game, a few weeks ago, were Portland Timbers played away against Colorado Rapids. The game was played in -8°C (16°F). At the beginning of the game, the snow hadn't really began falling yet; by the end of the game, so much snow had fallen that they had to shovel it off the lines in order to continue, players' hair and eyebrows were caked in snow, the referee’s mustache was frozen. Needless to say, there was an ejection in the second half.
This weekend, Argentina played a friendly against Morocco in Tangiers. I have never seen a game played in windier conditions, even the goal nets were flapping like the sails of a haunted schooner. The ball hung after a lob like a balloon filled with helium. Most of the passes in the air were like watching some Harry Potter sport in which the ball has a mind of its own.
What was most evident in witnessing all this was how much of what players negotiate is their intuitive understanding of physics: they have a sharp idea of how the ball should roll, bounce, spin, arc. Players know how to manipulate the physics of the ball. They've also fine tuned their understanding of the physics of the human body.
A few years back, I was invited to play in a beach soccer tournament. It felt like I was running inside of a dream. My feet were sluggish and my steps barely moved me along despite putting more force than usual into each. I would watch in dismay after a pass would hit sand and stop instantly not far from were I had kicked it.
This is how these games looked, in the snow and in the wind. The physics were off. And yet, you have to hand it to the players, because despite the conditions, they still play incredibly well.
By the end of the first half in the Argentina/Morocco friendly, there had already been 28 fouls.
Wind does tend to make people mad, but chaos created by unfamiliar and adverse conditions calls for lots of crashing (which makes for ugly, interrupted soccer).
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