Welcome to Your Everyday Fan's blog.

This blog is made to give a voice to a regular Joe, um Frank, in a Sports World of analysts and "experts" to show that the real knowledgeable one is the guy sitting in those nose bleeds, and not the one sitting in the studio. The blog will give you insight on New York sports news that I find relevant, with some national news sprinkled in from time to time.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Soccer?


So every four years the World Cup strikes the world with excitement, and I'm force fed reasons why soccer is going to be interesting this time of year. I'm told that the competition is fierce, that the US team finally has a chance to win this year, that kicking a ball is a lot more efficient than picking it up, throwing it, and catching it. I try to give it a shot, but with every time I watch, the old cliches about why I despise it so come about.

First, is the low scoring. It has been every Americans complaint for as long as this great country existed. That's right, the Revolutionary War was fought not only for independence, but to make sure soccer never ever crossed the pond. How can I enjoy a sport when I read the "box score," and every single player has a zero in the goal column next to their name. What do they keep track of? Passes, how many times they run from one line to another (you know Ronaldinho is an all-star line runner)? I'm not arguing that all sports are about statistics. Well actually, they are about statistics. Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, Wayne Gretzky, Peyton Manning, David Beckham. One of these things is not like the others. From what I'm told, there is a sort of elegance in the skill it takes to put one in the net in soccer. Since I've been watching sports, elegance has never once been a word I've used to describe it. I'll solve soccer's problems in a few easy steps. Step one: pick up ball. Step two: that's it. This way, then you can throw it into the monstrosity they call a net.

My least favorite part about the sport. Injuries and injury time. It seems every single minute of the excruciating time some guy is falling down because the wind accidentally brushed "elegantly" by him. I swear, these guys fake more injuries, than David Hasselhoff fakes sanity. In America, when a player is even thought of faking an injury, they are not only looked down upon, but their career is tainted to the point where his toughness is constantly brought into question. In the rest of the world, it is not only tolerated, but expected. How can I like a sport that I can't even respect the players in. Which brings me to injury time. From what I've gathered, this is time added to the game at the end, because it was stopped due to injury. That's right, this clock doesn't stop, ever. Yet, when Johnny falls over because he hurt his little toe, we have to add 12.3 more seconds to what is already an eternity. So to soccer fans, injuries are strategic. Ha, what a joke.

These are two reasons of what could be a list of annoyances about this sport, and yet for the next few weeks, my head will be bashed and beaten by analysts explaining why I should watch this dreadful sport. Give it time before I find a way to make my television lose the ability to go to ESPN for the next few weeks. Just the thought gives me a headache. I now understand why Houligans are the way they are. To watch this sport day in and day out, I'd have to get liquored up just to make it past pregame (do they have pregame?). Then I'd have to punch the guy in the head next to me just to see any semblance of action. So soccer, no thank you, and stay out of my country. It's what my fore fathers would have wanted.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo.com

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