Meanwhile, just to stir the pot while people are obsessing about the World Cup, here's a piece that begins thus:
IN ITS RECENT WORLD CUP CONTEST WITH ITALY, the U.S. team played what was widely regarded by the sport's connoisseurs as one of the best games ever played by an American soccer squad on foreign soil.
The historic game with Italy ended in an epic 1-1 tie. But in what was ballyhooed as one of the greatest games ever played by an American team, the United States failed to score. The goal credited to the Americans was scored by an opposing player who--oops!--accidentally kicked the ball into his own goal.
Think about this about this for a moment. It just about sums up everything you need to know about soccer, or football, as it is known elsewhere.
It goes on to argue that soccer is a game for nihilists (though let's not forget they weren't the first ). I dunno, I enjoyed playing it when I was in high school. Not so much in grammar school, though, when the opening move was usually for one team's center to kick the other's in the shins (out of spastic incompetence).
