World Cup, Soccer, Etc.

I joke with people when they talk about how soccer is the most popular sport in the world, especially when that statement leads to something like, "Isn't it awful that Americans don't pay more attention to soccer?"

No, it's not awful. We have a unique culture and we pay attention to sports that the rest of the world doesn't care much about (e.g., American football); their loss.

And it gets my temper up when people make statements about soccer being "the REAL football." Nope, the real football involves helmets and third downs and 300-pound linemen trying to beat each other to death.

So I joke with people; when a former student of mine wrote a post about how excited he was about the World Cup, I pretended to think that he was talking about tennis. Etc., etc.

But I AM excited about the World Cup; I was listening over the 'net when the US won the game against Algeria the other day. And I'm watching this afternoon, cheering for the USA to teach those punks a thing or two about soccer. (It may not be the REAL football, but it's exciting.)