Who Else Is Ready For The Women's World Cup?!?! *Crowd Cheers In Agreement*

The Women's World Cup is under way, and for the next month I'm all about it.

The Stanley Cup Final has a maximum of two games remaining, so I'm looking for that next thing to whet my sports whistle.

The World Cup is so great because it's one month every few years where we all put aside our differences and collectively forget about what a wildly corrupt organization FIFA is.

As an American, the Women's World Cup is more exciting than the Men's because we not only qualified for this one, we even have a chance to win it!

Do you know how mad that has to make all of the soccer crazed countries when we win soccer tournaments? Soccer is so unpopular here in our country, compared to everywhere else in the world that we call it soccer.

Why not call it "football" like everyone else? 

Because we came up with a better sport and we're going to use the name just to bug everyone else on the planet.

Say it with me ladies and gentlemen: U.S.A., U.S.A.!

Honestly, I really do enjoy watching soccer, especially international competitions. I find that when you have even a basic understanding of the rules, it makes it that much more enjoyable.

But even though I've found myself enjoying soccer over the years, it's obvious to me why soccer hasn't been entirely embraced here in the states.

Reason numero uno: the flopping.

I understand the need to occasionally do a little acting to sell a call, but we all know that things have gotten out of hand out on the pitch.

The way some guys react to being bumped into you'd think that they had been shot by the sniper their home country planted in the catwalks of the stadium, just in case, god forbid, they're about to score an own goal.

In hockey, guys get ridiculed if they get caught diving, but for whatever reason in soccer it has become as much a part of the game as throwing Molotov cocktails at the other team's fans after a tie game.

In the US we love toughness. I don't even think it's that soccer players aren't tough; it's a dangerous sport. Go head a soccer ball one time without feeling like you have to lay down and take some Advil.

The other thing that I think drives Americans insane is the way that soccer is timed.

The running clock is something that I think bothers people, but they can deal with it.

Extra time is where you start to lose some Yankees.

It's kind of frustrating to not know precisely when the game is going to end, plus it removes the thrill of a buzzer beater because 1.) the buzzer has been replaced by a guy in short-shorts blowing a whistle and 2.) no one knows exactly when that whistle will be.

You can usually count on the Europeans to do things in a logical way (read: metric system), but for some reason they're cool with soccer's timing method.

I think it may come from how little scoring there is. They need as much time as possible to get a score of 2-1.

Which would be like 8-7 in hockey terms.

***

I know he's the men's coach and this is a bit of a tangent, but I'd be remiss if I didn't;t take every opportunity to link to my blog about everyone's favorite crotch-sniffing German soccer coach, Joachim Löw.


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