France-Morocco Game Thread

We finally have a good colonial-postcolonial match. Anytime France is playing an African team, you have to root for France to be annihilated. Morocco hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire in anticolonial glory since its independence with its actions in Western Sahara, but still, this is the French we are talking about. Even by the standards of colonial powers, the French both sucked and also can’t help but trying to remain on the fringes of its former colonies, sending in arms and troops to intervene at any time. It also was even worse than the British at preparing its former colonies for nationhood, so whereas you have some sort of relative stability in places such as Kenya and Nigeria, a lot of the French colonies are the biggest disasters in Africa since the French just walked away. This is all relative and there are counterexamples, OK. But the point is this, the French suck. Most of Morocco was a French colony between 1912 and 1956 (the Spanish held two small parts), with the French slowly leaving but unwillingly and trying to remain more or less in power until the Moroccans allied themselves with the Algerians during that nation’s independent movement. Time for the Moroccans to get revenge for the 1907 bombardment of Casablanca, that’s what I’m saying.

Now, having watched a lot of soccer this month, I have thoughts on how to fix the game. It needs an outside consultant and it might as well be me. I charge contemporary FIFA prices for my services and I expect a house on Lake Como as my downpayment.

First, the running clock is the stupidest thing in sports. Why aren’t the players allowed to know how much time exactly is left in the game? Soccer fans talk about this like it’s some wonderful mystery. It’s fucking dumb is what it is. Every other sport in the world has some method to precisely measure time, whether it’s a clock or something has to happen (3 outs). There’s no reason for this nonsense. And then to keep the clock running during the hydration breaks so now we have 11 minutes of extra time, this is even dumber. I have never heard a decent explanation of this. If the NL can adopt the DH, soccer can adopt a running clock.

Second, the whiny Eurotrash fake injury shit should be ended by giving rampant yellow cards after every match for it. I know there’s a technical way to do this now, but it hardly ever happens. Just start penalizing these idiots for being touched and going down like they are at Ypres. You might not be able to do it in real time, but miss a few games and it will probably go down. Notably, flopping started to become a problem in the NBA as Europeans brought the practice over. That needs to be cracked down on too.

Third, penalty kicks are an idiotic way to end a match. There’s too much riding on the line. Here’s what you do. Play your extra period. Then, every five minutes, one player from each side has to go off until you are 2 on 2, with one player and a goalie. It would never get that far either. End these matches with real competition, not what is essentially luck.

Fourth, if you have a penalty kick during the game, why isn’t the person fouled the one kicking. This is like fouling Mitchell Robinson and Jalen Brunson gets to shoot the free throws. Total nonsense.