World Cup Talk

Okay, so since my writing is something I do for entertainment (my own and hopefully yours), I actually need to work a 9-5 job to pay the bills. Due to this unfortunate circumstance that I'm trying to remedy, all my World Cup viewing has been done on weekends, through highlights, or by staring at a static scoreboard and waiting for the score to change. (but I did get to see the amazing finish of the Italy-Australia game on my lunch break)

But this happens every 4 years: I get really into soccer for this month, then I forget it ever existed aside from the occasional qualifier match, or if I happen to catch a game on Fox Sports World (does that channel even exist anymore?).

Anyways, like a true American, I don't really know much about soccer outside the World Cup, so I'll give my ignorance a pedestal to shine here and I'll run down some of the things I enjoy, some of the things I don't like, and some of the things I don't know about this sport that I watch so infrequently.

Constant Action
Some find the sport boring, maybe because there isn't a score every 5 seconds like in other sports, and clear shots on goal are often few and far between. But what other sport can you watch for 2 periods of 45 minutes straight without a single break in the action? Shit, they take corner kicks a foot away from felled players on the opposing team. Get a yellow card for stalling. Tap free kicks instantly to get a jump on the opposition. There's no time to waste in these matches, and there's no such thing as a time out.

No Commercials
Related to the constant action, you don't have to sit and watch some asshole telling you why his Hyundai is better than a Toyota, or see some crazy hijinx involving McDonald's french fries in between the shit you actually sat down to watch. You can simply enjoy the game and then choose to acknowledge or ignore the Adidas logo in the corner, or the advertisements on the billboards surrounding the pitch.

Close Matches
It's not often you see a blowout reflected on the scoreboard in soccer. A team can dominate a match, and yet the game can still go down to the final minute with one goal separating the two. Even though the tide of a match will show that the outclassed team will most likely not score, it's not often that the game is so far out of reach that there's no need to keep watching. Soccer keeps your attention from the beginning to the end, because at any time a goal can be scored.

In the interest of the short attention-span of American sports watchers, I'll cut this one short