Comic: World Cup

Los pensamientos profundos de Luiz Suarez

Posted Jul 3, 2010

Roberto De Vido
politicomix

You're standing on your own goal line. The ball is pinballing around the penalty area and your goalkeeper is hopelessly out of position. Your opponent heads the ball sharply toward your goal, but directly at you. You might be able to head his shot out of the way, but there doesn't seem to be enough time for that.

You – perhaps instinctively – raise your hands and fend off the ball.

Handball.

Unquestionably a serious infraction of the rules. But also, unquestionably saving a goal. You'll get a red card and be expelled from the game and the stadium. But the game was only seconds from being over anyway.

You'll be suspended from the next game as well, but if you hadn't intercepted that ball, there wouldn't have been another game.

You linger near the exit while your opponent takes the penalty kick he was awarded after your infraction. He strikes it firmly, but ... BANG! ... off the crossbar and MISSED!

Your gamble, and it was almost pure instinct, has paid off. You have no idea that there was almost a 25 percent chance it would pay off. You would have guessed closer to five percent.

The final whistle blasts. The game goes to penalty kicks. Your opponents miss again. Your team wins. Your teammates lift you onto their shoulders. You're a hero.

In Uruguay, anyway.

Roberto De Vido is a communications consultant, writer, cartoonist and jack of many trades. The former chief of Tucson Sentinel’s East Asia Bureau, he now lives in California (make of that what you will).