With the World Cup going on hot and heavy, here are a few thoughts on why I hate soccer:
- There is way too much cheating, which offends American sensibilities. No one wants to fail and no one wants to cheat, but when failure is inevitable, different cultures have different responses. Americans tend to accept failure as a learning experience, because cheaters never prosper, right? In some, failure is so shameful that cheating is preferable. Throw in offshore gambling, and you’re looking at a mess of bad officiating and questionable plays. No one wants to watch a game if the outcome seems predetermined. Cleveland Browns fans still show up for games.
- Professional athletes writhing over every wittle boo boo. Oh, please. I’ve had people tell me that flopping is a strategy, but watch some videos of injuries sustained by Dave Dravecky (baseball), Joe Theisman (football), or Kevin Ware (basketball) and then tell me that it is perfectly okay for a highly paid grown-up athlete to throw himself on the ground and cry because someone touched him.
- Too many editors think that the only sports analogies a non-American reader will understand are those involving soccer. Believe it or not, soccer is not the only sport played in other countries. There are lacrosse leagues in England. Kate Middleton played field hockey. And my grandfather, who was English, used to tell us about playing rugby, not soccer. Right there, you have three non-soccer sports played in a nation closely associated with soccer.
- No one cares about Team USA, and they aren’t half bad.
Tomorrow, I’ll make some points in favor of soccer.
