Thursday, June 26, 2014

Love of the Game

Today's blog was written by Natalie Schmid, a Play Like a Champion summer intern.  Natalie is a rising high school junior and a soccer player on her local team.

Every team that enters the World Cup Tournament wants to win, but at what cost? Is it in the spirit of the game to come to an agreement with an opponent, so that you both get to the next round? That is exactly the question that faces both Germany and the United States right now. Tied in Group G right now with 4 points each, they both just need one more point from a draw to advance to the next round. So this brings up the question, will both teams just play for the tie and save their legs for later in the tournament? No evidence of any sort of deal between the Germans and Americans has been found, and they both deny that they will play for a draw in this next game.  Based on news coverage, both countries' fans are rooting for a win.  This being said, I believe that both teams will play “smart” in order to save their legs a little bit for later in the tournament. One way of doing this is to play a little bit of a slower game and just to play smart about the runs they makes and situations in the game they get themselves into. The situations that they are going to want to avoid will be getting any sort of cards, as well as plays that have high risk of injury. As much as players will attempt to avoid these situations, all involved in the game know that injuries and fouls are inevitable in any game. So is it worth it to agree on a draw to try and avoid these situations and advance to the next round?

Maybe it is, maybe it is not. Either way the competition aspect of the World Cup and love of the game will most likely bring fans a good hard fought game, with the two teams playing to win, instead of just agreeing to tie. The World Cup seems to do many things, but one of them is to bring to life the spirit of soccer in players', coaches' and fans' hearts alike. At the end of the day world cup games are ultimately unpredictable, and we can only watch as the Germans and Americans fight on the field for 90 minutes for the win, because agreeing to draw just wouldn’t be in the World Cup spirit.

As a High School varsity soccer player I know that the idea of an easy game sounds really good, so that you don’t have to play very hard. If faced with this decision in a High School Match it would be tempting to just play for a draw, but at the end of the day, I've noticed that everyone who plays past grade school has some competitiveness inside of them. With this competitiveness comes the will and want to win, and if given the option my team as well as most others I know, would play for a win not a tie. No one just plays soccer, or any sport for that matter, without some love of the game. That love of the game is what would fuel my team to play for the win, just as I believe Germany and America will play for the win. And I believe that we will win!