1996_09 Insight September 1996

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Playing soccer by different rules
I German fans
confused by
American soccer
By Armin Frey
Staff Writer
1 have played soccer for 19 years
in Germany. When I came to this
country. I realized there is a difference in how Americans play thc
game. In my opinion, the rules are
influenced by the educational system
and American football. The style of
soccer play is totally different.
The first source of confusion came
when I realized the scoreboard
showed 37:00 after the game
couldn't have been played more than
10 minutes. After some confusion, I
realized that the time went backward
from 45:00 minutes to 0:00. In Germany, the referee is the one who decides when the match is over.
In the thirty-third minute, thc clock
was suddenly stopped. At thc same
time, the referee blew his whistle to
signal a foul. According to the Federation Internationale de Football As
sociation (FIFA), who governs soccer
rules worldwide,, the whistle has no
affect on the clock.
Different rules
After 12 minutes, the opposing
team wanted to substitute a third
player. The reason was unclear to me,
because the goalkeeper didn't seem to
be extremely bad nor was he injured.
When the team changed another field
player minutes later, I realized, unlike
the German rule, which allows substitution of only two field players and
one goalkeeper, there is free substitution here.
When Fresno State made its first
goal in the second half, Luis
Hernandez, ;i sports writer for Thc
Daily Collegian explained, "the game
will be finished after 90 minutes."
"If after 90 minutes nobody has
won, the game will go into overtime,"
Hernandez said.
This meant the game could not end
in a draw as it does in Germany.
After a look into the LA Times. I
found one more major difference. According to the German Soccer Association (DFB), the winning team
scores three points for a win. and the
losing team none. If there is a tic, both
teams will receive one point. Here in
America, the winning team will only
score one point toward its win recped.
Power and muscle
Before the game. Hernandez told
me that the U.S. players are playing
soccer with their muscles. In Germany, they do it with power.
In relation to the game, he is right.
Fresno State and the other team were
using their muscles just for running.
Of course, Ihey had a tactic behind
their running. However, they don't
know how to use their body in a dual.
It seemed as if they were playing basketball. In contrast to the 22 fouls of
that game, in Germany, there are generally around 40 a game.
German players also put more
power on the ball instead of using
their muscles for running.
"1 would love to play in thc MLS
(Major League Soccer) which is the
new professional league in the U. S.,"
said junior forward Steve Patterson.
The way to become a player of a leam
in the first league, however, is totally
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different between U. S. and Germany.
Responsible for the difference is
thc educational system. In the U. S.,
(here is an American Youth Soccer
Organization (AYSO) league for
young players between five and fourteen years old. After that, one can
play on a high school team and afterwards on a college team.
Becoming a professional
After having completed college,
if one has become a great player, it
is possible to make a professional
team. As a result, you have to finish
college and are an average of 24
years old by thc time you are a professional player.
In contrast, in Germany, you join
a professional team regularly at the
age of 18 and only around five percent ofthe first division in Germany,
Bundcsliga, has stayed in a college
or university. Since you don't have
to pay tuition al German universi-
lies. you don't have thc scholarship
sports. Thc players at the Bundesliga
all come from private clubs, which
in Germany, are extremely common.
Opinion
Sports Information
Rules of the game vary depending on the country you play in.
The First Lady blues: Despite ambition,
White House women get no respect
by Valerie Gibbons
Staff Writer
Thc bumper sticker has several
variations.
"Impeach Clinton, and her husband
too." or "Don't blame me, I didn't
vote for her."
Political slogans pasted on the back
of cars are common place, but until
the Clinton administration, bumper
stickers haruanging the First Lady
were a rare sight.
The position of First Lady has historically had some pitfalls. Nancy
Reagan was accused of being overbearing and vapid, Eleanor Roosevelt
was considered to be too involved
with politics and nol enough with
being a hostess.
But the backlash against Hillary
Clinton is surprising. After all. this
is the '90s and American women have
come a long way since the days when
Ihey were thought of as nothing more
Ihan ornaments. Haven't Ihey?
Americans like to think they are a
part of a progressive culture. When
the subject of women's rights comes
up, most people point to the rise in
ihe number of women entering the
workforce, or the large percentage of
women who have earned their col lege
degrees. But when it comes to having an American woman in a position of real prominence, wc arc not
ready to take that last step.
Hillary Clinton is an excellent example. She graduated wiih honors
from Wellesley College, attended
Yale Law and worked on the Impeachment Inquiry Staff during the
Watergate Hearings.
Widely considered to be one ofthe
best attorneys in the country, Hillary
Clinton was far from the June
Cleaver-esque image set by the First
Ladies of the past.
Her trouble appeared lo begin during the 1992 Presidential campaign.
When details of her husband's escapades with Gennifer Rowers were
made public. Clinton refused to play
the supportive, adoring wife. Instead,
she admitted that they had been
through some problems in lhc past.
a Tammy Wynetlc song...baking
cookies and standing by my man,"
was the quole that floated through Ihe
media for several months during the
campaign. Thc Republicans used
this line during their convention, even
wiih an appearance by Wynette.
The Republican operatives choice
to spin on Clinton's independence
and career as a problem with "family values" might have left many
successful Republican women with
second thoughts at the voting booth.
After Bill Clinton was inaugurated,
his choice to give the First Lady an
offical office as an adviser caused
further uproar. Some Washington
insiders considered it unseemly that
the President's wife have a role in the
executive decision process, regardless of how qualified she was to be
in an official White House position.
Hillary Clinton's public relations
problems did not end with her office
in the White House. When she was
asked to break convention again early
Opinion
in President Clinton's term, she was
blasted by the media for her ambition.
When President Clinton attempted
to revamp the health care system, he
gave the top position on the
commision to the "person I trust the
most with the job." the First Lady.
When the familiar cries questioning
Hillary Clinton's qualifications
erupted again, the White House
pointed to her background wiih thc
Children's Defense Fund.
As a staff attorney for the children's
organization, the First Lady was well
versed in the problems that face
today's families. If Hillary Clinton
had not been thc President's wife, she
would have been an accepted candidate for the position. Unfortunately,
since she is the First Lady, those
qualifications were glossed over.
The animosity peaked during thc
Whitewater hearings. Clinton was
called to give testimony on her part
in the Whitewater development. She
was later cleared of any wrongdoing,
but the experience left her with se
vere image problems.
It is diffucult to understand the rationale behind thc First Lady's critics. The First Lady traditionally has
held an unofficial advisory role in trie
White House. The women who hold
the office are generally well educated,
ambitious people who have an understanding of Washington politics.
Unfortunately, when it comes time
for these women to make a real contribution to the country, they are attacked for overstepping boundries.
With Bob Dole's candidacy for
president, those who believe the First
Lady should be more concerned with
designer labels than domestic policy
are in for another disappointment. As
a former member of President
Reagan's cabinet, it is doubtful that
Elizabeth Dole will be content with
sitting in thc corner and looking
pretty.
It is the American image of the
First Lady that needs to change, not
the women who enter into the office.
The input of an intelligent woman
shouldn't ever be turned down.
Cosmic enlightenment or tabloid trash?
Philosophy 101 at the check-out line
■ Tabloid newspapers
weak on real news
but full of wacky fun
by Israel Carrasco
Staff Writer
You find yourself in the checkout
line at Wal-Mart. Suddenly, a large.
Pentagon-sized headline reaches out
and gives you a friendly tap on the
shoulder.
You've seen them all: The Star, The
Globe. Weekly World News and of
course the one lhat generates the most
gooscbumps per square yardage. The
National Enquirer. If you read them
religiously say experts, you're guaranteed to encounter nasal hairs the size
of trees trunks and toenails longer than
the Mississippi River.
1
Shock value    .
For those more seriously affected by
the desire to buy them, experts say convulsions begin forming at the base of
your spine, starting the process of temporary body meltdown.
Free from the chain of the optic
nerve your eyeballs begin violently
spinning within their sockets at a frequency of 133.4 MHz per second (a
shocking feat even by sworn UFO
statements). High-pitched screeching
sounds begin resonating from a locale
near the left buttock.
After reincarnating through ihe
bodies of important historical figures
— such as Winston Churchill and
various cast members of Gilligan's Island — you reach thc Doorstep of
Cosmic Enlightenment.
Stop watching
Previous to the invention ofthe tabloid newspaper (pioneered by a support group of Elizabeth Taylor's
ex-husbands) many nervous individuals found themselves downing gallons
of Pinesol each morning just toget to
noon.
Today, these same people arc finding they're able to get through the entire week on a single glance of a
Hmong hand charm, many of which
are featured in tabloid newspaper ads.
We should also be thankful someone had the guts to inform us Evil has
been captured once and for all. It all
happened when a blind homeless family in Chicago found the Devil's Social Security Number in a trash bin
while they were searching for food
scraps.
For centuries, Satan has been listed
in America's Most Wanted crime registry. Now he's looking at doing serious time in soup kitchens and youth
crisis centers across thc nation, making up lor all thc damage he's already
done.
The only advice I give lo those who
disagree with me is to stop watching.
This Week With David Brinkley. I
suggest you break now from this obviously boring reading material and
pick up a Weekly World News.
There is nothing wrong with celebrity gossip, and practical tips on blowing up the solar system.
That's exactly where tabloid
newspapers fill the gap. They touch
us with heart-wrenching stories such
as the following.
Pulling at the heart strings
"Last March the Enquirer told readers about an 8-month old baby who
lost his favorite Power Ranger milk
bottle during a family trip to Magic
Mountain.
Using the family's IBM-compatible computer loaded with just one
megabyte of RAM, the hapless child
logged on to the Internet and maneuvered the Hubble Space Telescope
into position.
He was then able to locate the way
ward bottle, which had found its way
to the East Texas plastic recycling
center just outside of Dallas.
Except for a few minor scratches
on his favorite characters and a curious metal ring attached to the nipple,
the bottle arrived intact.
Later that day. the toddler was also
able to acquire thc state of Alaska
while playing an Internet version of
Jeopardy with an Ethiopian kinder-
gartner.
Valuable information provided
Police say the children won't be
prosecuted because there are currently
no laws against this form of Super
Highway trafficking.
Clearly, tabloids provide insight
into the curious mind and they should
be exploited to Ihe fullesU'xtent ofthe
law.
For example, cannibal Jeffrey
Dahmer never would have been officially recognized as a Guiness World
Record holder had the tabloids decided to shy away from his lifestyle.
But they didn't, God bless them.
In addition, the Enquirer recently
warned its readers about the dangers
of looking directly into the faces of
used car salesmen.
It was shown that a large percent
age of these scam artists use industrial strength Ajax and Brillo pads instead of plain toothpaste to polish the
interior of the mouth cavity to the luminosity of a giant, Hollywood-caliber mirror.
The result is lhat upon smiling, a
flood of light—reflected from the
sun—strikes thc unsuspecting victim
and his family directly in the pupils.
Gripped in a blinding trance and
caught up in the realization of karma,
the defenseless family agrees to be
duped out of thousands of home mortgage loans and various Fresno State
parking fines worth approximately
375x1012 lifetimes of pay.
The moral of the story:
1) wear body-mountable eye protection gear—fortified with Chinese
herbal tea bags under the eyelids—
whenever you find yourself near a
used car salesman.
2) leave your checkbook in a safe
deposit box, such as your pitbull's
mouth..
Despite their unpopularity with
many social outcasts including members of Congress and gangsta rappers,
tabloid newspapers continue providing insight and entertainment for the.
rest of well-bred society like you and