São Paulo, BRAZIL – Mass confusion halted play in a key soccer match yesterday due to a little-known nuance, apparently called a “goal.” During the match, featuring Portugal vs. Brazil, a player kicked the ball as usual. However, it left the field of play and entered the protective netting at the opponents’ end of the field. Unsure how to proceed, officials halted the game awkwardly. The referees looked at each other, uncertain what would happen next. After several hours of deliberation, careful reading of multiple rulebooks, and a conference with senior officials in the league office, the Señor Referee Juan Valdez awarded the team who kicked the ball something called a “point.”
Since nothing else was happening, the referee took a side job parking airplanes.
It is unknown at this time if this “point” is a reward or a penalty, although a check of historical records determined that this happened once before, in 1940, in a match against Germany and France. Germany ultimately invaded and conquered the entire French nation during the two hour deliberation, thus leaving the issue unresolved.
Soccer usually consists of a large number of overly fashion-conscious men milling around aimlessly, occasionally kicking a ball back and forth to each other. It consists of little else. That’s all. Just some guys kicking a ball. While the match technically lasts for 90 minutes, it never does exactly. The referee has the discretion to arbitrarily end the match whenever his whim strikes, preferably somewhere in the general vicinity of 90 minutes. In this case, rather than making up procedures for continuing the match, the referee, Valdez, simply ended the game after awarding the “point.”
Valdez also attempted the unusual step of having the scoreboard adjusted. In an apparent homage to other sports where exciting things happen (and baseball), he indicated that one of the large zeros on the scoreboard should be changed to a one. This dispelled the notion that a soccer scoreboard exists merely as an advertising receptacle and wouldn’t exist at all if other sports weren’t played at the same venues. Alas, a mishap occurred here as well. Though a fixture in other sports, scoreboard operators are not employed in soccer. A nearby janitor attempted to fill in and somehow short-circuited the entire scoreboard, causing 26 blinking advertisements to turn off at a significant loss of revenue.
FIFA, the sports’ nominal governing body, understands that the awarding of a “point” creates several challenges. “We will have to design a training program for this,” FIFA commissioner Tomasz Lipiec indicated. “It requires re-introducing concepts we hoped were obsolete. They called them ‘winning’ and ‘losing.’ I doubt you remember them. Worse, this means that not everybody will get a trophy at the conclusion of the season. I fear some of these sissies might actually cry.”
Soccer fans don't need an acutal reason to riot.
Fortunately, only the United States gets uptight about exposed junk. All three American men watching the game missed the exposure, partly due to Jôãò‘s unfortunate “size issues” and partly due to a sudden preponderance of exposed back hair in the pileup. The three viewers then promptly called the network, demanding both a replay of the indecent exposure, and by-the-way, an explanation as to what happened on the field. This caused the television network to increase their ad-rates, as it meant someone actually watched the program, a first for soccer on American television.
Meanwhile, in the grandstands, not a single person noticed the chaos. With few exceptions, those not actively fighting with each other were preoccupied with criticizing American sports fans for being boorish louts. Those few exceptions had already passed out drunk.
When asked for comment after the match, Jôãò screamed something unintelligible, and then returned to the pileup for further groping.
