Nurse the Hate: Hate the World Cup

Almost every media outlet has been working overtime to convince me how great the World Cup is. Seriously, you can't open a magazine without some article on how wonderful this month will be thanks to the World Cup. I have tried to understand and appreciate futball for years. I'm just not getting it. I mean, I have spoken to wire rimmed glasses guys in pubs. I have spoken to convicted soccer hooligans. I just can't get anywhere on it. The problems as I see it are as follows:

1) Games can, and usually do, end in a tie. They way I see it, if you go to the trouble of flying to fucking Africa to play a contest of some kind, there should be a definite winner and loser at the end of it. What is the point of Dudes in ponytails running up and down a field for 90 minutes if there is little scoring and no real outcome. Terrible game design...

2) There appears to be no real strategy of any kind. As far as I can tell game plans are designed like this... "OK, let's see if we can keep the ball on their end of the field early. If we do, maybe we'll get lucky and actually get to take a shot at the goal. If it goes in, we'll stop playing any offense whatsoever, and just kick the ball down the end of the impossibly long field and see if we can win 1-0." Once again, terrible game design...

3) With no real strategy to talk about, the announcers have nothing to comment on. They just sort of blabber on about how some guy should have kicked it somewhere else to actually have let someone take a shot. It's hard to tell for sure what they are talking about because of...

4) ...the sound of those Goddamn horns that sound like buzzing bees. I appreciate the traditions of Africa. As far as I know these include blowing on those stupid fucking horns continuously for 90 minutes, poaching elephants, and giving young pre-teen boys AK-47 machine guns so they can shoot people and use the victims small intestines for road blockades in places like the Congo.

Soccer is a really stupid game that hasn't caught on in the United States for one simple reason. It's not as interesting as football, baseball, basketball or even volleyball. Why do you think the only people that play soccer on a regular basis in the USA are 9 year olds? Because the rules are simple and it's cheap to play. By the time high school hits, all the good athletes play football or basketball because those games are about 100 times more fun, and people in our society actually care about them.

You want to get to sleep in Europe? Turn on a sports channel in a hotel room. The best is listening to British announcers drone on about field conditions, and the upcoming action on the pitch. They have nothing to talk about. (Remember, there is no actual game strategy...) It makes NFL Gameday seem exciting like the first time you saw "Jaws" by comparison. And for those of you wise enough not to have ESPN on at 930a on a Sunday morning in the Fall, those Gameday guys are morons...

The only redeeming quality I can see for this World Cup thing is you can bet on it at work and follow it online. Me? I made a cool hundo today on that Italy v. Paraguay game. You know how? That's right. I bet on a tie. Cha-ching. Fuck soccer.

Update: I had to put Dexter to sleep last Monday night at 3am. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I loved that dog, and he was a big part of my day everyday for 12 years. Now everywhere I look in the house it reminds me of him.