World Cup

As a matter of cultural sensitivity, I've been trying to follow the World Cup these past five days. I really, really want to like soccer. I see the sold-out stadiums of people on those televised games, most covered from head to toe in their nation's colors, chanting for nearly the entire game, and it just seems like, wow, this must be a really exciting game. Just over the border in Mexico, people love soccer. You turn on Mexican TV on weekends and you can usually find a game, and whenever a team scores the announcer yells GOOOOALLLL for like two minutes straight. So I've been tuning in to a few games trying to see what the excitement is all about, trying to catch the World Cup fever if you will.

But, I am sorry to say, I still just do not get soccer. Call me a crass American who is addicted to instant gratification, but I just can't understand how you can get that excited about a game (such as today's Brazil game) where it's common that one goal is scored the entire game. Or worse, no goals are scored (i.e. today's France-Switzerland game). The rest of the time, players run up and down the field, or they get really close to scoring a goal but miss. Sorry, but the American in me wants a game where real points are scored. Take basketball, now there's a game. One NBA team can score a hundred points on a good night, and I have to confess that I was about a million times more excited about seeing tonight's NBA finals game than I was to see the US play in the World Cup. Football, baseball, basketball, I think any of those sports ranks higher in excitement when compared to soccer. Most Americans are just not raised to like soccer, which is probably not a good thing for world unity, but that's how it is. Despite my effort to be culturally sensitive and cosmopolitan, I think I'm destined to remain out of sync with the rest of the world as far as the World Cup goes.