Dammit, the soccer thing is perfectly understandable.

Ace and Allah and Stacy* to the contrary.  The real reason why Americans don’t watch or particularly want the damned game is simple:

You can’t use your damned hands to play it unless you’re the damned goalie.

Remember that movie Victory? Yes, the supremely silly one* about the WWII Allied prisoners of war that had a match with the Germans?  Remember how they had to give Sylvester Stallone the goalie position?  And do you know why they did that ?  Because Stallone was an American action hero at the time, and the audience would not accept an American action hero that did not have the use of his hands.

This is just the way that it is.  Soccer is a perfectly fine sport.  For other people.

Moe Lane

*Look, I’m sorry, but shoehorning Pele into that plot was an egregious assault on historical accuracy in a WWII film that was only approached by… well, pretty much everything in U-571… twenty years later.

#rsrh Depressing World Cup statistical news.

From Rasmussen:

A new Rasmussen Reports nationwide telephone survey finds that 66% of Adults correctly identify soccer, or football as it’s known outside the United States, as the sport played in the World Cup competition. However, three percent (3%) say it’s all about baseball, and one percent (1%) each think the international teams will be playing tennis, hockey or golf. Twenty-eight percent (28%) are not sure what sport will be played.

66% is far too high – and we really need to get that percentage of the population who think that it’s a golf competition up. It’s absolutely critical for our long-term national security needs; the more people in this country who don’t have a clue what the World Cup is, the fewer people who will get upset when we get our rears kicked by countries like Costa Rica or Ghana.  Dammit, just because it’s a slightly absurd geopolitical safety valve doesn’t mean that it’s not a real one…

Soccer Hero.

I refuse to call it ‘football,’ since I am a cultural chauvinist. And I am a little skeptical of encouraging such goings-on among Americans, given that I firmly believe that world geopolitical security is enhanced by there being at least one sport out there where quite tiny nations can beat the USA like a drum*. Still: this is an impressive enough stunt:

Well done, guys.

Moe Lane

*There is no contradiction between the two statements.
THERE IS NO CONTRADICTION! I AM NOT LISTENING! LALALA… Continue reading Soccer Hero.

Apparently, the USA is ahead in its soccer game with Brazil. [UPDATED]

[UPDATE] Crisis averted. Whew!

By two points or dots, or whatever the terminology would be. This is unfortunate, not to mention a violation of the secret provisions of several international treaties: the sport of soccer exists of course for the sole purpose of giving the rest of the world something to feel superior to when it comes to the United States. Beating Brazil at the Worl…

What do you mean, the “Confederation Cup”? They have other competitions besides the World Cup? And we’re stuck with going to them? Who ordered that?

…anyway, obviously this is dangerously close to being a problem at the level of ‘diplomatic incident’ – so I apologize in advance if we win.

Moe Lane