Money For Nothing And Your Chicks For Free

I played soccer a few times, and it is a fun game to play.

I watched soccer once-during last years World Cup-for about the longest five minutes of my life. It was boring as hell.

That's why I can't imagine anybody paying any soccer player, even one of the talent and popularity of David Beckham, such an amount as he was recently awarded by the Los Angeles Galaxy-250,000,000 dollars for a five year contract. That is a sum of money that is beyond my comprehension for any one person. No person is worth that. Certainly, no soccer player is worth that, with the possible exception of Pele' The Zombie.

Soccer is popular in the rest of the world for a reason. What else do the rest of those schmucks have? Falconry? Fox hunting? Kite flying? Trying to beat a big fucking wheel of cheese rolling down a hill?

Even at that, this fucking sport is so obviously frustrating to the average soccer fans, who are looking for some kind of excitement in their lives, and the sense of community that comes with rooting for the "home team", or national team, that this frustration boils over and more often than not erupts into serious violence and rioting due to lack of a proper outlet. How can you get any real satisfaction out of a bunch of grown men in shorts jogging up and down a grass field maneuvering a ball with their feet and legs? The average point score after all of this mind-numbing boredom is 2.8 points per game.

Soccer is unpopular in the US for a reason. We have football-real, American football, with quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers, and bone crushing, fast paced action and intense, agonizing suspense, drama, and strategy.

We also have basketball, and hockey. Even baseball is still more popular than soccer will ever be here. Shit, a good game of bowling, or tennis, or golf, is more fun to watch on television than soccer.

So why are people constantly trying to promote it here? It has never caught on. The only reason it does as minimally good as it has is due to the steady influx of immigrants, for which soccer is the only team sport that is well known.

Read a history of this sorry ass sport as played here in America and you will see what I mean. If you can stand it, this is as good a place as any. No one even seems to know who the hell this thing is for. In one era, it will be considered a sport for the lowlifes and low brows. In another era, you will see it described as a sport for the upper classes, the privileged elites.

But no soccer leaque ever seems to last very long, or attain any degree of success, most of them more often than not simply drowning in a sea of red ink. Still, they keep pushing it.

Look how long now soccer has been promoted in schools. We are always being told about the concerns of what is described as the "soccer moms", usually in a political context, as though this is Mrs. Susie Average American Bitch. Still, after more than a decade now, at least, of soccer being promoted in high schools, the World Cup had one of the lowest ratings of any major televised sports broadcast.

Still, they promote it in part for several reasons. Some are good reasons. As I said, it is a fun sport to play. And it is good exercise. It teaches a degree of self-discipline and control, and all-around skill. Believe me, it does take a degree of adaptability and control to maneuver that fucking soccer ball with nothing but your feet and legs, and in some cases, your head. Especially in the context of a team competition. It is actually a rush when you have the ball come your way and you are struggling against an opposing player to gain control of the ball without kicking the opponent, or getting kicked yourself. A careless player, or an overexcited one, can give and receive quite a few bruised shins. Still, serious injuries are highly unlikely.

Another reason is probably to provide an acceptable sports outlet for children of immigrants in which they will feel comfortable participating. This says more about the kind of people that run our schools than it does about the average American. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about when I say, I have been an American citizen all my life, and Americans are just not that nice and tolerant, regardless of claims to the contrary about our supposed generosity. In reality, we are no more or less generous and kind hearted and tolerant than any other group of people. We just like to think we are, and more importantly, we just like other people to think we are. No one else really gives a shit, nor do they care to pretend. The average person is just not that accommodating, here or anywhere else.

Move to Italy and send your kid to school there and see how your average Italian will go out of their way to make your kid feel comfortable and accepted. An Italian teacher will slap your kid on top of the head and say, "Here, kid, eat your salami and shut up."

Our educational system is enlightened though. In many cases, they are so enlightened they deny kids the right to play any sport that involves the possibility of loosing, as they don't want the poor loosing kids to feel bad about themselves. The soccer proponents are at least a couple of notches above them. Directly in between the two are pedophile teachers.

That is because the promotion of soccer in schools is in part just another attempt to encourage so-called international brotherhood and cooperation, by encouraging our kids to become a part of the international community by way of it's most popular sport. Even the politicians aren't buying it. I have yet to hear of an American politician attending or participating in a soccer game. You know a sport is pretty low down on the totem pole when you don't see John "Windsurfer" Kerry in attendance.

It is also being promoted of course by people who want to put America on the map as a consistently winning soccer nation. Their reasons for this are more financial and business related than anything. Naturally, they hope to put soccer on a par, in terms of finances and popularity, with the NFL and professional basketball.

The David Beckham contract is an act of desperation that seems to be similar to what is referred to in the NFL as a "Hail Mary" pass. If it works, it would be spectacular, but if it crashes and burns, soccer as a professional sport will have suffered a setback that it will take years to overcome, if it ever does. It will doubtless destroy the Los Angeles Galaxy, even given the caveat that a good deal of this unheard of amount will come from advertising promotions and endorsements.

250,000,000 dollars is one hell of a hole to dig. But these fools have already dug themselves into it, if they can't pull themselves out of it, they have no one to blame but themselves.