It’s the most popular sporting event in the world – World Cup soccer – but you wouldn’t know that by the tepid response soccer continues to get in this country.
We’re smack dab in the middle of the World Cup, and most Americans would rather have eye surgery without anesthesia than sit through an entire soccer match.
This is so for two reasons: 1) This year’s World Cup host is South Korea, and as such, games are broadcast live in this country during hours when only vampires are up, and 2) as a spectator sport, soccer rivals NyQuil in its ability to put people to sleep.
As an American watching soccer, what you see is a bunch of guys running up and down a field the approximate size and shape of Kansas for 90 minutes. This hour-and-a-half of intense boredom usually results in very little scoring, with a great many matches ending with finals of 1-0 and 2-1.
Even more maddeningly, it’s not unusual for soccer matches to end up in a 0-0 tie, a result which could have been accomplished without playing the game in the first place!
You’d be hard pressed to find an American who could even name a pro soccer star. Many soccer players have attained celebrity status in other nations, particularly in Europe and South America, and simply go by one name. Perhaps the most well-known (outside America) soccer player is a Brazilian player who goes by Ronaldo, who most Americans think is one of those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that used to be popular.
Americans also dislike soccer due to the fact the snooty European and South American teams, the real powers in world class soccer, tend to look down on Team USA, because the American public doesn’t worship soccer like the rest of the world.
Actually, Americans find soccer fans much more interesting than the game itself, mainly because of the fans’ penchant for violent rioting. Very often in soccer matches, especially in Europe, matches end in bloody hooliganism.
In fact, just the other day – and sadly, this is true – two people were killed in riots in Russia after that nation’s team lost a game to Japan. (Meanwhile, people in Japan whooped it up over their greatest victory over Russia since the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05.)
In spite of the violence that sometimes surrounds big time soccer, don’t look for it to catch on here for the simple reason that watching a game induces a coma in the average U.S. citizen.