So the World Cup is upon us. The greatest spectacle on Earth. Period. To get a feel for the emotions I have while watching a game, imagine Christmas minus the gift buying/celebration insanity combined with the Super Bowl minus the endless beer commercials. Then cover it a sauce made up of the BCS Championship and the inevitable Mayweather v. Pacquiao fight. It’s that big. Despite 1 billion people watching the 2006 final ( which wasn’t even in HD! ) , the US still doesn’t get it. Perhaps it’s our overweight population. Perhaps it’s the fact that we’d rather watch a game in which the Lakers are winning by 20 points at the half, therefore making the next two quarters of the game entirely meaningless. Perhaps it’s because movies like Avatar with it’s pretty pictures are more popular than movies like District 9 which is actually good. Perhaps, but I present to you…

10 completely true but utterly meaningless reasons why soccer is king.

1. Remember those ESPN commercials about how soccer momentarily stopped a civil war in the Ivory Coast ? Or the importance of soccer during the apartheid years of South Africa?  Yea.. all true. What has football done? Caused a bunch of idiots to make it rain in a strip club and shoot themselves in the leg because they were wearing terrycloth pants.

2. No physical freaks. The only freak is Peter Crouch and he knows it. When asked what he’d be if he didn’t play soccer, he replied ” A  virgin.”

3.  No commercials during the game. I don’t want to see anything related to Go-Daddy.com. Ever.

4. the Doge Challenger commercial in which a Robin Williams look alike dresses like George Washington and while driving a Challenger and chasing the British. Eat it Robert Green.

5.  No stupid seven game series. No meaningless 162 game season. No obscure “tuck” rule. It’s one game, you lose, you cry… and you will cry. You win, you cry… and you will cry.

6. Beautiful women love soccer players. The uglier you are, the better your WAG can be i.e. the Peter Crouch rule

7.  No lumbering fat people. Serious. I’ve seen the butt cracks of too many professional athletes.

8. While soccer is notorious for floppers, you can actually get a yellow for flopping. Happens all the time. It’s particularly funny when someone who is a notorious flopper gets a card and is actually hurt. When’s the last time you saw Scola/Dirk/Ginobili get thrown out for flopping? Never.

9.  No annoying announcer to tell you to clap your hands, get loud or do the chicken dance. We have our own chants and they’re badass. Look at this one in reference to former England captain John Terry’s affair with his teammates girlfriend

Mrs. Lampard’s going down
going down going down
Mrs. Lampard’s going down
on John Terry

10.  The freekick wall tradition of covering the wedding vegetables. Good, practical, common sense.