Fans, lovers, scholars, inmates, brothers, haters, stalkers, and anyone else who sends me fan-mail, welcome to another Happy Hour. I hope your week has been most excellent. While I have been slaving away trying to calibrate my new Hydride Generation Atomic Fluorescence Spectroscopy instrument, I trust you have been stuck at your jobs doing something similarly frustrating. Fear not loyal readers! The weekend is only a few hours away. Let’s get to business.
First, I find it shocking that the rest of the mainstream media did not pick up on
my excellent undercover work published last week. With the rest of the soccer loving world believe the meeting actually took place this week, readers of “the greatest blog of all time” are way ahead of the game.
More importantly, I want to get to the real news of the week. UEFA president Michel Platini recently reviled that he is against the use of technology and instant replay, “I go on the basis that if you have an additional referee he can see it just as well as technology.” Oh really jackleg? Apparently it’s just that simple. In my opinion, this is a completely indefensible stance. While I enjoy and appreciate the old traditions of the game: official time being kept on the field, personal red vs. yellow card judgments, etc– at some point we need to be catching up with reality.
Officials make mistakes, and will continue to make them. In a sport where scoring is hard to come by, there needs to be some mechanism for getting the calls correct. Here is a perfect example. During the season, MLB only uses 4 umpires for games, first, second, third, and home plate. However, during the playoffs, they add two more umpires down the right field and left field foul lines to make sure the call is correct. Guess what, there are six umpires all watching the same play, and they still manage to fuck it up every once in a while. Six umpires, and they still mess up occasionally. And remember—these mistakes happen even in a sport that has the most intensive review of its officials of any professional sport, and whose umpires are the best officials in all of sport, according to study after study. It does not matter how many
people are watching the play live. Calls will be blown. If the technology is available, we should be using it.
The previous quote from Platini was not the one that really got my blood boiling. During his statement, he added this gem, “Eyes have always functioned and have always worked, so I am more in favor of testing the experience of whether the referee there has seen whether the ball went in or not.” This is possibly the most horseshit logic I have ever heard come out of a supposedly educated person’s mouth. First of all, Platini obviously does not understand the principles of evolution and adaptation, but that is less important. His logic is similar to a 45 year old dude who won’t admit he might have erectile dysfunction because his Special Guy “has always functioned and has always worked.” Your rod may have worked in the past champ, but I think it’s time for some Viagra. Actually, forget that idea. I just thought of a better example. This logic could also be used by the 18 year old high school QB that has been using the “withdraw method”, (AKA the Pull and Pray Method here at TYAC home offices) on his cheerleader girlfriend. When his future father-in-law confronts him he says with supreme confidence, “Come on dude, it has always worked before.” If some kid said that shit to me, I would pull an Edward Norton Fight Club style beat down on his ass. Essentially Platini is a complete asshole. This post should actually be filled under the jackleg section, but today is Friday and it’s my time to shine!
Any argument against technology is essentially old men living in the past and refusing to look to the future. The technology exists today to place a small chip in the center of the ball. This chip can be programmed so that the goal posts glow red as soon as the ball crossed the goal line. If this technology were in use during last summer’s World Cup, imagine how different some of the results would have been? That’s enough of my rant for now.
Time for PUCK’S FREE ADIVCE.
This advice was
given to me by another nameless TYAC staffer. It’s excellent, so I need to share it with the
world. If a girl makes your wear a condom during sex, you probably don’t need one. On the other hand, if she doesn’t, you probably should wear two. And ladies, if a guy
wont sleep with you without a rubber, he is either stone cold sober, or its time for you to see the doctor.
Time for me to meet the rest of the crew at Shabooms for a few PBRs and shots of whiskey. For your listening enjoyment, I offer this life-changing gem:
Sorry for partying bitches.
Puck is the Pop Culture Guru for The Yanks Are Coming. He can be reached at puck@yanksarecoming.com. One day, he’ll learn how to use Twitter and be a real man.