No, I’m saying they don’t.
I, in my soccer playing days, would quite often accidentally trip up fancy-dan showboats who annoyed me by whirling the ball past me.
Genuinely accidental or at least due to incompetence rather than malice.
Their showoffy skills were such that I genuinely had no idea where the ball was or what they were doing it with it so I’d just vaguely stab a leg out in the general direction I guessed they were going and hope.
Sometimes I’d get the ball, sometimes I’d get the man, often I’d get neither.
Either of the first two would do for me but only the first would be a legal tackle.
For a country that claims to love soccer as much as the UK does, it is remarkable how little coaching it is possible to receive while still playing a lot of football.
I think that’s one of the reasons England football fans always seem so bewildered and disappointed when the national team doesn’t magically win every game.
