Why Use Your Hand When Your Feet Will Do

     Soccer has had a hard time catching on in America.  Call the sport football if you must but I'll stick with calling it soccer.  In America we like our sports teams to score and score a lot, soccer is just the opposite.  During a soccer game,  one team or the other pushes the ball to the opposite end of the field while a single player tries his best to stop the ball and throw or kick the ball back to where it started.  Soccer finds success in a 0-0 or 1-0 game, no wonder the game has no fans in America.  Most of the time even a perfect kick does not end in a score and what's with the no time outs rule?  Everyone needs a drink of water every once in awhile and besides how is a coach suppose to earn his money if he can't call a time out and make adjustments to his team.
     World Cup soccer teams remind me of Third World armies.  None of them really have enough weapons to hurt anybody so the fans take it out on each other.  How about throwing a forearm every once in awhile or a few slaps to the team captain's head?  Now that would make Americans become fans of the game.  One does not need to be much of an intellectual to enjoy soccer because there is no game strategy what so ever during a soccer game.  Simply run up and down the field kicking the ball to any team member you please.  All the smart people in the world live in America, no wonder soccer hasn't caught on in here

     I tried my best to understand and enjoy the game of soccer but haven't had much success.  The University of Texas always has a  pretty good team and even offers free admission to some of the game.  But even at the Division 1 university level and free admission I find the games boring, usually leaving before the games are half over.  Since the World Cup soccer tournament only take place once every four years maybe this year I could change my opinion of the game.  Free admission, the game on a big screen and setting with a bunch of crazed fans was my only hope if I was to be converted.  Found the big screen and free admission but no fans showed up.  Could not have ask for a better place to watch the World Cup but after two games totaling five straight hours I was the only one who had entered the room.   Got so bored I looked out the window and what did I see?  A few kids at UT's summer soccer camp which was taking place across the street and a beautiful view of downtown Austin.  Where were all the so called soccer fans?  Where they hiding out in all those tall buildings?  No one in America really considers soccer a real sport.  The only reason any American adult goes to any soccer game is because their ten year old is on the field.  Since I don't have any kids there's little chance of me ever going to or watching another soccer game