ON THE BEAUTIFUL GAME: FUTBOL

I am an American. More precisely, I am from the United States. Therefore, I know nothing of what Pele once called, "The Beautiful Game."

However, like most of the world, I am watching the 2014 World Cup, now finishing the quarter finals and heading to the semifinals.

I watched last weekend from Miami Beach, where Brazilians, Argentinians, Colombianos, Costa Ricans, Netherlanders, and more filled every restaurant and bar to watch their teams play. As you can see, at my hotel there were many beautiful people rooting for the home team.

Having now told you I know little of the game of Futbol, I would like to offer some advice to FIFA regarding future rules for World Cup play.

First, no one man can see all the action on the field. Perhaps when Pele was playing one man could view a vast soccer field; this when players occasionally walked down the field during play.

Now players are exceptionally quick and everyone runs for the 90-plus minutes of a typical match. I watched fouls not called and legitimate attempts at the ball called foul. I lost count of the number of free kicks  given that should not have been called such.

In the Colombia vs. Brazil match, the play in which Neymar was hurt badly was not called a foul. In fact, the Colombian player, Juan Zuniga, should have been given a red card. In my view, even though I was rooting mightily for Colombia to win,  Zuniga's knee in the back was a foul most flagrant (sorry all my Colombian friends).

Second, and I think, most important, the use of a penalty-kick shootout, after 30 minutes of overtime play, is not a way to end a match that is tied. It is an abomination. It is awful. It is a, "Who thought of this?" moment.

Let the players play the two 15-minute periods. If still tied, then play a series of additional 15-minute sudden-death periods until someone scores.

Since many worry about physically exhausting players, allow two additional substitutions over the usual three. Let fans see players play the game. Do not mar it by putting the entire burden on the directional guess of the goalie!

Though an opinion rendered by a man who lives in a land where football is played with both hands, I grant it freely to the minders of The Beautiful Game.