Blowing the whistle on soccer 揭足球的短 1 A French friend of mine got a big laugh at a dinner party recently with his account of the game of baseball: "Seven guys stand around in a field doing nothing while two of their teammates throw the ball back and forth." 我的一位法国朋友在最近的一次晚宴上说起棒球时哈哈大笑：“当两个队友在场上来回投球时，另外七个小伙子在边上站着无事可做。” 2 I understand – it's hard to get excited about a foreign sport if you didn't grow up with it. Now I'm colliding with this same cultural barrier. The World Cup soccer tournament begins on June 9 and I will have no clue what's going on out there on the "pitch". It seems a good time to blow the whistle on the so-called beautiful game. 我知道，如果一个人不是从小就接触某项外来的运动，他就很难对它感兴趣。现在我正遭遇同样的文化壁垒。6月9号世界杯足球赛就要开始了，而我对球员在“球场”上干些什么却一无所知。看起来这是给这个所谓的精彩赛事揭短的一次大好机会。 3 I have been watching soccer for years and all I can see on the field is 22 grown men in shorts running around madly trying to kick the ball and tripping over each other. I guess the object is to get the ball into the net (also k 本文来源：https://www.wddqw.com/doc/c5a618b558eef8c75fbfc77da26925c52dc5913f.html