Why (as a sports fanatic) I can’t get interested in soccer

I’m a sports fanatic. I love almost every sport.

I’ve tried to get interested in soccer. I just can’t.

Soccer is about as exciting as watching pain dry.

There’s almost no scoring in soccer. Too many games end 0-0 and 1-0.

Hours can go buy with barely a shot on goal – when no one even comes close to scoring.

I think there’s too much scoring in NBA basketball. But I’d rather have too much scoring than no scoring.

If this sport is ever to catch on in America, soccer needs to make adjustments to make the game more exciting to watch.

Adjustment #1: Dramatically shrink the size of the field.

Make the field about half the size it is now.

This will help increase the action in front of the goal.

Adjustment #2: Increase the size of the goal.

An increase in the width of six inches or so would probably be enough.

Adjustment #3: Put sideboards up around the field so the ball doesn’t go out of bounds so much.

Indoor soccer has this feature. Indoor soccer is much more fun to watch than outdoor soccer.

Passes that carom the walls make the passing more complicated and interesting, like hockey.

Soccer need not make all these changes at once.

Try one change at a time and see what happens.

People want to see goals.

The National Football League is constantly tweaking the rules to make the game more exciting.

If the NFL never changed the rules, there would be no scoring because defense always catches up to the offense. Almost all the rule changes favor the offense.

Even the football itself has changed shape over the years to enhance the passing game.

Baseball created more homeruns by bringing in the fences. Basketball created more scoring by adding a shot clock. Boxing created more action by making the ring smaller.

But boxing is being overtaken in popularity by martial arts caging fight because there’s a lot more action, a lot more actual fighting.

All other sports that I can think of constantly review and change the rules – to make their sports more exciting to watch.

Why can’t soccer make adjustments?
There is no sport that I can think of that is more boring than soccer.

Even golf is more exciting.

There are tense moments in golf, such as when Phil Mickelson is trying to sink a five-foot putt to win the Masters.

Baseball is slow. But it gets tense when the bases are loaded in a close playoff game if your team is involved. The tension in golf and baseball is created by the situation.

But there are few situations in soccer that create any tension because so much of the action takes place so far from the goal.

Hockey is exciting. Hockey is basically the same game as soccer. But it’s fast. It’s on skates. The rink is small compared to a soccer field.

There are lots of shots on goal in hockey, lots of action in front of the net. There are fights. Many hockey players have missing teeth. They look cool. They look rugged. They are rugged. The puck is hard as a rock. It caroms off the boards. There is checking in hockey, where the player gets to slam the other player into the boards. You hear a loud thud when that happens.

Hockey is more like a gang fight on skates. The players are carrying a weapon – their hockey stick. Their skates are razor sharp.

Hockey is a truly dangerous game.

Hockey is much more of a man’s sport than soccer. In soccer, the players fall on the ground if they are barely touched. They then writhe around on the field screaming in hopes of drawing a penalty.

When the penalty comes or doesn’t come, that player that was writhing around on the field crying suddenly jumps to his feet and resumes playing, perfectly healthy.

Hockey players don’t act like this. They would be laughed off their teams as sissies if they did.

And what’s up with the obsession with the hair of certain World Cup soccer stars.

The star player from Portugal (I forget his name) has a completely different hairdo and hair color every game. How much time is this guy spending in the hair salon?

Shouldn’t he be spending that time watching film or practicing.

Something else I’ve noticed.

Recent immigrants to America learn to love NFL football.

There’s a Mexican restaurant that I go to a lot in Chicago that doubles as a sports bar.

Mexico is known for soccer. It’s their national sport.

But at this Chicago Mexican sports bar I go to, the preferred sport there is NFL football.

Mexicans who move to America quickly become NFL football fanatics. So do Asians and Africans who move here. American football is just a whole lot more fun to watch.

Something else that bugs me about soccer is that it’s a sport that I feel is being forced on me by liberals who hate American football, who hate violent, dangerous sports.

Liberals are doing everything they can to feminize the NFL. There’s Breast Cancer Awareness month when all the NFL players are expected to wear pink. Kick-off returns are being phased out because they are so dangerous. Defensive players can no longer hit the quarterback, for some reason.

Former NFL great Terry Bradshaw suggests putting a skirt on the quarterback so the defensive player understands more clearly who he can’t hit.

During Super Bowl Week, there’s always the obligatory article in The New York Times on how violence against women (husbands beating their wives) always rises during Super Bowl week.

Turns out this is a myth – a complete canard.

Violence against women actually seems to decline during Super Bowl week – probably because husbands are wrapped up in the game. The wife beating seems to resume after the Super Bowl is over.

There’s the obsession with concussions now in the NFL – as if concussions never occurred before now.

So now the NFL has banned leading with your head.

If we want to reduce concussions, maybe football should be played without a helmet, like in the old days. That would discourage players from engaging in head-on collisions with each other.

Some liberal writers have proposed banning football, banning boxing, banning caging fighting, banning car racing, banning all dangerous sports.

But liberals love soccer.

Soccer’s not the least bit dangerous. About the worst injury you see in soccer is a pulled hamstring.

Do you remember when liberals tried to force the metric system on Americans?

I feel they are trying to do this to us with soccer.

Liberals told us we needed to adopt the metric system because that’s what the rest of the world uses.

They told us the metric system makes more sense and is easier to understand.

Not sure that’s true.

A foot is about the length of my foot.

A yard is about the length of one stride forward.

If I’m measuring the distance between my golf ball and the flag, I’ll simply step it off.

If I take 96 steps to the flag from my ball, I know its 96 yards, almost exactly.

The width of my hand is four inches. The length of my thumb is two inches.

I have now idea what 2.34 centimeters is.

I think our measuring system is a lot easier.

But liberals continue to try to push the metric system on America, just like they are desperate to get America to love soccer – so we can be just like the rest of the world.

I don’t want to be like the rest of the world.

Frankly, I was also turned off by the big celebration in the media over USA’s soccer victory over Ghana.

Where the heck is Ghana?

I had to look it up on a map. What’s their population? Do they have enough people in Ghana to field a soccer team?

If America is this excited about its World Cup victory over a dinky little country like Ghana, that’s pathetic. What was the score? 2-1.

So we barely beat Ghana. Then we went on to tie Portugal. This was also hailed as great news for the USA.

If this is great news, America really is in decline.