Cup Crazy

It's World Cup time, also known as the only time every four years when America seems to care about soccer (or football as everyone else calls it.)

I have to say, every four years, I really do enjoy it. I never really know about how good the teams are supposed to be, other than Brazil's going to be good, England will compete, and the USA has some high-hopes. I've always like Argentina, mainly because I love their colors and they did well for me freshman year when we would play FIFA in my dorm.

I go back and forth on the actual legitimacy on the sport. Mainly because the players are on the diva-level of the NBA. Christiano Ronaldo of Portugal is notorious for taking falls and acting like it was a malicious attempt on his life. The commentator even said "he will fall if the wind blows too hard and look for a yellow card." This is one of the games best players? Yikes.

Seriously though, these players are unbelievable (and terrible) actors. They fall and milk injuries to try to allow their players to catch a breather and also try to draw a penalty in their favor. How is that sportsmanship? NBA players do the same thing, but not as dramatic. At least they typically are right. I watched a World Cup yesterday where the player got kicked in the arm and held his head. It was painfully clear it was not close to his head. The player was on the ground for four minutes.

The sport sometimes takes too long. All the extra time everyone standing around waiting to set up. People talk about football and baseball being slow, sometimes I think this sport is slow. It goes back and forth, the goals seem to be few and far between (we are supposedly en route to the lowest scoring World Cup in quite a while.) At least during baseball and football we have bathroom breaks, and time to watch a replay, which are both good and bad. I'm just not sure if I could watch soccer everyday. I know I could watch baseball everyday. Maybe I'm just boring. I also don't blow horns for 30 consecutive days.

Speaking of those horns - who cares? I feel like whenever I watch there's always a loud noise anyway of fans, just tune it out. It's not that bad. The thundersticks from the Angels were MUCH worse.

There's two things I don't understand about this event:

One thing I don't follow is how the World Cup is the most watched event in the world. It's only 32 countries. Granted, most of them are the largest, most populated countries, but more countries participate in the Winter & Summer Olympics, which should make that the most watched sporting event. Maybe they're playing with the term "most watched," or maybe not.

Other issue: Why did FIFA pick South Africa in June? Game temperature is around 30 degrees FAHRENHEIT during the night game. That's cold for almost every sport - why play that cold in soccer? I'm surprised the players aren't crying about how cold their feet are from the weather.

Something else I just thought of - What would the US do if team USA won? Do we have a parade around the country? Do we care? A curious thing to think of, it'd be interesting to see the outcome.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying this month, and look forward to seeing it's conclusion. !Viva Futbol!