I'm sure this post will go over like a stale fart in packed movie theater, but there's no way around it: I find soccer boring.
I'm trying to enjoy the World Cup. I really am. I even convinced myself that I was excited about it. What I've found, though, is that while I'm excited about the event, I really don't need to watch any of the actual games. In that way, it's kind of like the Olympics. Outside of a few events, I'm perfectly satisfied just watching highlights and reading the results.
I KNOW this boredom with watching soccer primarily stems from the fact that I don't understand the intricate details of the sport. But, the more I watch it, the less I actually like it. I'd much rather watch two hours and 20 minutes of a random women's marathon than 90 minutes of soccer.
Here's what I like about the game: the players are great athletes. You don't see a Carlos Silva rolling around out there. Those guys play as hard as they can for as long as they can. I love that. The sport is competitive as Hell. It seems that even the most mediocre of teams can stay close to the superpowers (I just tweaked this post a bit after Germany's thrashing of Australia).
My final knock on soccer though, is this... play the damn game until someone wins. People are celebrating a TIE vs. England. It was a TIE. Why even play the game? What's the difference between 1-1 and 0-0? Though, that said, I'd rather have dual champions than have the World Cup champion to be decided by a shoot out. Can you imagine if the NBA Finals were decided by a free throw shooting contest or the World Series decided by home run derby?
I'm sure I'll end up watching the Championship match. I'll probably even enjoy it. But, that's sort of the point of this post. As great as the sport is purported to be, I still only want to watch a match once every four years.
Some of the games ARE boring. Slovenia vs Algeria, for example. But I thought the Germany, SK and the South Africa games were a lot of fun.
Posted by: tim | 06/14/2010 at 12:12 AM