Soccer and Sensibility
Yewterday's World Cup match between Switzerland and the Ukraine proved, to Base10 at least, that soccer will never appeal to American sensibilities like baseball or football (the real kind). The two teams played to a draw to end regulation then played the overtime round. Still tied 0-0, the game was decided by "kicks"--similar to the NHL shootout system with the Ukraine winning. How lame is that? This is the World Cup! It's as if the Superbowl were played to a tie, and the teams decided, "Let's not play anymore. We'll decide the game by PAT's."

Of course, I won't go as far as this author who suggests that soccer is representative of European nihilism:

Mostly soccer is just guys in shorts running around aimlessly, a metaphor for the meaninglessness of life. Whole blocks of game time transpire during which absolutely nothing happens. Fortunately, this permits fans to slip out for a bratwurst and a beer without missing anything important. It's little wonder fans at times resort to brawling amongst themselves in the grandstands, as there is so little transpiring on the field of play to occupy their wandering attention. Watching men in shorts scampering around has its limitations. It's like gazing too long at a painting by de Kooning or Jackson Pollock. The more you look, the less there is to see.

Despite heroic efforts of soccer moms, suburban liberals, and World Cup hype, soccer will never catch on as a big time sport in America. No game in which actually scoring goals is of such little importance could possibly occupy the attention of average Americans. Our country has yet to succumb to the nihilism, existentialism, and anomie that have overtaken Europe. A game about nothing, in which scoring is purely incidental, holds scant interest for Americans who still believe the world makes sense, that life has a larger meaning and structure, that being is not an end in itself, being qua being.

Then again...
- posted by Base10 @ 10:05 AM