Why They Don't

WHY THEY DONT LIKE SOCCER
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html
I've held off on writing about soccer for a decade -- or about the length of the average
soccer game -- so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough. Any growing interest
in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.
(1) Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer. In a real sport, players fumble
passes, throw bricks and drop fly balls -- all in front of a crowd. When baseball players
strike out, they're standing alone at the plate. But there's also individual glory in home
runs, touchdowns and slam-dunks.
In soccer, the blame is dispersed and almost no one scores anyway. There are no
heroes, no losers, no accountability, and no child's fragile self-esteem is bruised.
There's a reason perpetually alarmed women are called "soccer moms," not "football
moms."
Do they even have MVPs in soccer? Everyone just runs up and down the field and,
every once in a while, a ball accidentally goes in. That's when we're supposed to go
wild. I'm already asleep.
(2) Liberal moms like soccer because it's a sport in which athletic talent finds so little
expression that girls can play with boys. No serious sport is co-ed, even at the
kindergarten level.
(3) No other "sport" ends in as many scoreless ties as soccer. This was an actual
marquee sign by the freeway in Long Beach, California, about a World Cup game last
week: "2nd period, 11 minutes left, score: 0:0." Two hours later, another World Cup
game was on the same screen: "1st period, 8 minutes left, score: 0:0." If Michael
Jackson had treated his chronic insomnia with a tape of Argentina vs. Brazil instead of
Propofol, he'd still be alive, although bored.
Even in football, by which I mean football, there are very few scoreless ties -- and it's a
lot harder to score when a half-dozen 300-pound bruisers are trying to crush you.
(4) The prospect of either personal humiliation or major injury is required to count as a
sport. Most sports are sublimated warfare. As Lady Thatcher reportedly said after
Germany had beaten England in some major soccer game: Don't worry. After all, twice
in this century we beat them at their national game.
Baseball and basketball present a constant threat of personal disgrace. In hockey, there
are three or four fights a game -- and it's not a stroll on beach to be on ice with a puck
flying around at 100 miles per hour. After a football game, ambulances carry off the
wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box.
(5) You can't use your hands in soccer. (Thus eliminating the danger of having to catch
a fly ball.) What sets man apart from the lesser beasts, besides a soul, is that we have
opposable thumbs. Our hands can hold things. Here's a great idea: Let's create a game
where you're not allowed to use them!
(6) I resent the force-fed aspect of soccer. The same people trying to push soccer on
Americans are the ones demanding that we love HBO's "Girls," light-rail, Beyonce and
Hillary Clinton. The number of New York Times articles claiming soccer is "catching on"
is exceeded only by the ones pretending women's basketball is fascinating.
I note that we don't have to be endlessly told how exciting football is.
(7) It's foreign. In fact, that's the precise reason the Times is constantly hectoring
Americans to love soccer. One group of sports fans with whom soccer is not "catching
on" at all, is African-Americans. They remain distinctly unimpressed by the fact that the
French like it.
(8) Soccer is like the metric system, which liberals also adore because it's European.
Naturally, the metric system emerged from the French Revolution, during the brief
intervals when they weren't committing mass murder by guillotine.
Despite being subjected to Chinese-style brainwashing in the public schools to use
centimeters and Celsius, ask any American for the temperature, and he'll say something
like "70 degrees." Ask how far Boston is from New York City, he'll say it's about 200
miles.
Liberals get angry and tell us that the metric system is more "rational" than the
measurements everyone understands. This is ridiculous. An inch is the width of a man's
thumb, a foot the length of his foot, a yard the length of his belt. That's easy to visualize.
How do you visualize 147.2 centimeters?
(9) Soccer is not "catching on." Headlines this week proclaimed "Record U.S. ratings for
World Cup," and we had to hear -- again -- about the "growing popularity of soccer in
the United States."
The USA-Portugal game was the blockbuster match, garnering 18.2 million viewers on
ESPN. This beat the second-most watched soccer game ever: The 1999 Women's
World Cup final (USA vs. China) on ABC. (In soccer, the women's games are as thrilling
as the men's.)
Run-of-the-mill, regular-season Sunday Night Football games average more than 20
million viewers; NFL playoff games get 30 to 40 million viewers; and this year's Super
Bowl had 111.5 million viewers.
Remember when the media tried to foist British soccer star David Beckham and his
permanently camera-ready wife on us a few years ago? Their arrival in America was
heralded with 24-7 news coverage. That lasted about two days. Ratings tanked. No one
cared.
If more "Americans" are watching soccer today, it's only because of the demographic
switch effected by Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration law. I promise you: No American
whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in
addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.

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WHY THEY DONT LIKE SOCCER

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