Players Being Asked to “Not Hug” After a Goal Is Plain Stupid

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Another wave of COVID cases has pushed spectators out of the sport again in England. The hope after seeing the crowd come back to stadiums has been diminished again due to the rise in COVID cases not just in the general public but also among players. Due to this stadiums have again become deserted and TV watchers have to make do with fake crowd noise. All this is done so that the coronavirus could be eliminated now that vaccination has been started.

An actual newspaper heading

There have been many games that needed to be postponed given the number of players infected by the virus. Of course, this should have been expected considering football is a contact sport and this virus spreads throughout contact and air. Some ex-players and pundits, however, have called for players to “not hug” after the goal and I must tell you, that is among the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a while. Let me tell you why.

What about the corners

People who are against hugging or celebrating goals together seem to forget one major part of football. Corners! They seem to forget that while a corner is being taken more than 15 players are confined into the small box near one of the goals posts. In the case of a corner, all the players are near each other, even hugging to gain a physical advantage.

A corner is when players of opposing teams hug each other

The players who are tasked with marking players from another team would have to just let go of that player and see a goal scored in front of them because they could not touch or get near the opponent. Players are often very close to each other while shielding the ball. Players being asked to “not hug” but do all the other things that are the same as hugging in terms of the contact is quite honestly, stupid.

Pitch isn’t the only place where players are together

Proponents of “no hugging” gang also seem to forget the fact that players of one team train, eat, take shower, travel and sit together before the game. In order for the no hugging rule to be successful, each player would need to train separately, eat separately, travel separately and play the game from a safe distance to each other. It basically means they cannot play the game of football as it is supposed to play.

Mourinho’s Chelsea in practice

So it’s either football or no football, there is no in-between as businessmen and some pundits like to think.

Football without contact would be FIFA21 where all the players are sitting at their home with a controller in their hands and a screen in front. Do we really want that kind of inevitable future to arrive even sooner?

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