Look, don’t talk to me about the art of appreciating boring sports. I LOVE the granddaddy of boring sports: baseball. Nothing appeals to me more than slow-as-molasses, 5 hour, 17 inning extra inning pitcher’s duel or a 37 pitch at-bat where Johnny Damon fouls off 15 consecutive pitches because… well, I guess he has no where else to go.
But soccer. Soccer. Soccer. How I’ve longed to understand you. Soccer, “football”, whatever you’re calling yourself these days, you and I go way back to my childhood. I vividly recall spending 2-3 hours every Saturday morning in the cold fall New York weather running up and down the field with two dozen other indifferent pre-teens, all pondering the same thing: “When does Little League start?”
Now, if I’m really going to trash soccer as a spectator sport I might as well take down basketball and hockey with it. Because frankly — soccer, hockey, basketball, you don’t fool me. You’re the same sport! Four quarters. Two goals on opposing sides of a rectangular field. Two teams running themselves ragged, back and forth, up and down, to and fro. Penalty, penalty, time out, time out. He shoots, he misses. Other team shoots. Misses. Scores. Sigh…
Yes, there are subtle differences. In soccer nobody ever scores. In basketball, they score so much you can’t possibly get excited until the 4th quarter. In hockey you’re on skates, and instead toweling yourself off during time outs you just beat the snot out of the opposing team with your fists.
Now, recently the U.S. was swept up in World Cup fever. For 2 days or so Soccer was trendy. Hip. That’s all people talked about: “Hey, did you see our goal against England? Take that, Sir Elton John!”
(Note to soccer: when the entire highlights of your game can be boiled down to a 15 second YouTube clip it may be time to figure out how to step up the excitement)
Anyway, all that soon passed. We lost. And to be perfectly honest, I’m glad it’s over with. We can all put away our vavuzelas, our spellings of “color” with a “u”, and our fake love of “football” for another year and go back to doing what we American’s do best: ignoring the rest of the world. **
**except the countries with oil
You are so right… except, soccer does not have four quarters, but two halfs (like college basketball). Hockey on the other hand has 3 quarters (like 75 cents w/o the use of dimes, nickels or pennies). Oh and there are no timeouts in soccer.
BUT the part about the two teams and the to and fro, now that’s dead on.
I suspect you may be a fan of three way chess. Game on next time you are in DC!
PS. I love the photo of the Ukrainian knocking over the Spaniard. Take that Franco, courtesy of Verka Serducha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verka_Serduchka
A call foul, kind sir.
Could you at least edit my comment by replacing the first paragraph with this mini dialog between Big Bird and Snuffy?
Big Bird: Oh, the cat stopped. But where is the temple of Dender?
Aloysius Snuffleupagus: I wouldn’t know, Bird. The only temple I’ve ever seen is Shirley Temple
Thank you.