The Daily Bee: Mahmoud Dahoud Extends Another Year

Good morning, everyone.

Mahmoud Dahoud Extends Contract

Mahmoud Dahoud, BVB’s rising star midfielder, has extended his contract another year to 2023.

Because of the pandemic eroding BVB’s finances, Mahmoud Dahoud’s wages actually decreased slightly. He shouldn’t worry though. Because the extension is only one year, if he continues to play as well as he did last season, he’ll earn a well-deserved pay raise in the following years.

In Which Sean Complains About Reffing

Normally I like to keep my personal life out of Fear the Wall, but because this is soccer-related, I feel like I’m allowed to put this here. A few weeks ago I joined a recreational soccer league in Washington DC. We had our second game of the season last night, and I was in goal. We kept a clean sheet for the first 35 minutes of the 40 minute match, and were winning 1-0, until somebody played in an opposition forward one-on-one.

I did what any goalkeeper would have done: I closed in on the forward to cut down the angle and went to the ground to make sure the ball wouldn’t roll under my body. It was NOT a slide tackle. The forward either dribbled the ball into me or tried to shoot and I blocked it, it was too fast for me to tell, but the point is that I won the ball. One of my teammates cleared the ball away, and I thought we were in the clear, but then the ref pointed to the spot. My entire team reacted like I did, with incredulity. I won the ball fair and square, and in response the ref said, and I swear this is true, “There’s no sliding allowed.”

Now first of all, as I said above, it was not a “slide tackle” at all, and the only reason I did technically “slide” was that I was one-on-one with the forward. What else was I supposed to do? Stand with my legs together and hope the guy shoots it into my feet? Try to go in there with my hands and get a cleat to the face? Rip every muscle below the belt trying to attempt a split save, in which case the forward could just dribble around me? I didn’t go into the slide with my feet in front of me. The guy did collide with me after I cleared the ball, but it was with my THIGH, because my legs were angled off to the side. For what it’s worth, the other team seemed to recognize that it was a BS penalty, but that didn’t stop the PK taker from promptly roofing a shot (total tryhard). We went on to draw 1-1.

Listen, I get the need for a rule like “no sliding” in a rec league, because you don’t want people flying into two-footed tackles left and right, but people had been sliding ALL NIGHT and they were never called on either side. And if there’s any position where that rule should get some leeway, it should be for the goalkeeper. It was a perfectly safe play and the only real option I had, and we lost the opportunity to win because of it.

The Daily Buzz

What’s the most ridiculous reffing call you’ve ever been on the receiving end of?