Some of my friends are watching the world cup. And some of them, unlike me, do not have tragic decades of obsessively watching and reading about soccer. So it's interesting to see their reaction to the sport, and particularly to the refereeing.
A lot of soccer comes down to the refereeing.
This is because there are a ton of calls that can go either way. Most of them don't matter much. Some of them can decide the entire game. And there's everything inbetween. So naturally I want to help these friends with my wisdom. Maybe if I can find some it will help me too.
I came up with this:
Reality doesn't always necessarily determine the call, but the call always determines reality.
And if that's not clear, I am saying referees get it wrong sometimes. They might be unfair, misguided, too strict, too permissive, corrupt, or petty. A referee can be unfair by sticking ridiculously to a rule at the expense of the spirit of the rule, and they can be unfair by not enforcing the rules strictly and to the letter. And this I strongly believe is not like life; but once the referee has ruled and it's done, it is what happened.
The call determines reality.
One can be, for instance, to one's dying day, bitter about a clearly wrong call allowing a goal that cost their favorite team ever the world cup.
But it was a goal.
And that person's team lost the world cup.
Reality doesn't always necessarily determine the call, but the call always determines reality.
This is great!
This is true!
This is wise!
Alas that I won't really be sharing this with anyone.
It's not going to make anyone happy.
And it will leave us all with nothing to talk about.
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