Thursday, April 28, 2005
Warning: Contains Football
Why the best result of a tournament is the one that occurred – See you later Dutch ‘78ers, Brazilian ‘82ers, Czech ‘04ers…
It is common for fans to complain that the best team of a tournament went uncrowned, unfairly beaten by some less glamorous upstarts.
Balls.
The point of tournaments (of sport, even) is their “unfairness”. It’s about who won at a particular time, under particular conditions, within the rules – not who is “best”. Apart from corrupt officials, there is no such thing as an unfair result. The game is won by the team that scores the most goals, not the one with the prettiest passes. There would be no point holding a competition if this was otherwise – just award the trophy to the top ranked team. Or have a series of easily measured tests – passing accuracy, speed etc, add them up and give the award to the winner – no need to play each other. If tournaments are not there as exhibitions, rubber stamping a preordained order, then “better” teams will be taken out by “lesser” ones. And thank God for that.
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Why the best result of a tournament is the one that occurred – See you later Dutch ‘78ers, Brazilian ‘82ers, Czech ‘04ers…
It is common for fans to complain that the best team of a tournament went uncrowned, unfairly beaten by some less glamorous upstarts.
Balls.
The point of tournaments (of sport, even) is their “unfairness”. It’s about who won at a particular time, under particular conditions, within the rules – not who is “best”. Apart from corrupt officials, there is no such thing as an unfair result. The game is won by the team that scores the most goals, not the one with the prettiest passes. There would be no point holding a competition if this was otherwise – just award the trophy to the top ranked team. Or have a series of easily measured tests – passing accuracy, speed etc, add them up and give the award to the winner – no need to play each other. If tournaments are not there as exhibitions, rubber stamping a preordained order, then “better” teams will be taken out by “lesser” ones. And thank God for that.
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