Soccer

Before I begin my rant about soccer, I need to address Gonzaga Basketball. After watching them escape with another narrow victory over powerhouse Loyola Marymount, I think we can put to rest rest any talk of them being a legimate college basketball power. They've proved in recent weeks that they deserve no better than a five seed in the big dance. I have my doubts whether they'll even win a game in the big dance. I don't know who that person is who voted in my poll that they'll win three or more games but I sure hope you're in my tournament pool because that's one less person that I have to worry about winning the whole thing.

Now onto soccer. Those who know me well, know that I always plenty to say about a lot of things. In fact that's one of the reasons why I decided to start this blog. One those subjects that I have a lot to say about is Soccer. I'm a huge sports fan, I will watch football, baseball, basketball, cycling, golf, tennis and even an occasional Nascar race but one sport that I won't watch is soccer. Why is that? There are numerous reasons but the bottom line is that I hate soccer.

I haven't always felt this way about soccer. In fact from first through third grade I was an accomplished soccer player. Every Saturday in the Spring and Fall me and my friends would pile into my parents 1972 Chevy Impala and head off to a soccer game, after every game we would enjoy Capri Sun and orange slices. My team was terrible but our goalie kept us in every game. No one could get anything by him, he was a stopper unfortanatly he did not get much help from the offense. Our goalie became so frustrated that he gave up soccer after third grade in order to pursue a football career. That goalie happened to be me.

After college I moved up to Portland and soon I started following soccer. A couple of my friends got me hooked on the sport. I found myself watching English Premier league games on Fox Sports world, I was checking for soccer news on ESPN.COM and I started going to Portland Timbers games. I remember watching the first game of 2002 World Cup between France and Senagal at a friends house at 5:00 AM on a Friday. It only got worse after that, I stayed up until 3:00 AM on a work day to watch the US play South Korea. For much of the World Cup I was in Ecuador, when the US played Germany in the quaterfinals I was listening to it on a radio in Spanish with someone translating all the action for me. I remember being so dissapointed when I was unable to find a Ecuador jersey in a size XXL, apparently there aren't any fat people in Ecuador. After Ecuador my love for soccer didn't die. I found myself going to more Timbers games, Thursday's were always my favorite because they had $1.00 Bud and Bud Light. It couldn't get any better 8 Bud lights and a Soccer game. I started watching more soccer on TV and even purchased a jersey of my Favorite team Manchester united. On a couple occassions I went to an English pub called the Horse's Ass or something like that on a Saturday morning to watch Soccer and enjoy an authentic English Breakfast. On a summer night in 2003 I went up to Seattle with a few friends to see Manchester United take on Glascow Celtic (?). Shortly after that I had an intervention with myself, I realized that if I didn't change my ways soon that there would be no hope for me, I would become a full fledged soccer hoodlum. After much personal reflection I came to the realization that I hated soccer.

Now that you know my background, I'll try to explain to you why I hate this sport. I often hear soccer lovers refer to the sport as the "Beautiful Game". There is nothing beautiful about the sport of soccer. Games are too long and too slow. It's not uncommon to see a soccer game finish in a 0-0 tie. When a goal is scored players act like complete fools often ripping their jerseys off in celebration. There's also the haircuts, you'll see more mullets a soccer field than you'd see at an NRA convention. And these mullets aren't the dry feathery American mullets, they're the oily, drippy Euro Mullets.

In recent years I've read many bizarre stories involving the sport of soccer. These include stories of fan violence, players shooting refs and most recently a player being traded for meat. A Romanian second division team sold their best player to another team for fifteen kilos of meat. However that player decided to retire, so the team lost their best player and lost out on a weeks worth of food for the team. I don't think you'll be reading about an NFL team shipping off a player in exchange for 30 pounds of Prime rib anytime soon.

One thing I've never been able to figure out about soccer is how the clock works. Normal sports have quarters or halves where the clock counts down and stops when the situation dictates. Not soccer, the clock moves up and doesn't stop. At the end of every half the ref arbitrarly adds some time to the games. Wouldn't it be easier if they kept time like a real sport does.

Those are just a few reason I don't like soccer, there are many more that I didn't even go into. Perhaps as we get closer to the world cup I can give you a few more reason. This just in, The Philadelphia Eagles have traded Terrell Owens to the Broncos for three cases of Coors Light.