World Cup - not my cup o' tea

*** Apologies to all soccer fans!! ***

I am not, nor have ever been, a soccer fan. It was not a sport I played in high school nor had any interest in playing.

I'm not a big fan of running for the sake of running and do so only for the exercise it provides; I'd much rather get exercise playing frisbee or basketball, or "chasing objects" as I might say, with lots of scoring on the other end. I love high-scoring and high-action sports. While I am game to watch any high-scoring sport including football (American football, that is), basketball [except when Lakers win], and tennis, I have a hard time with golf, hockey, baseball, and ... soccer.

Soccer includes both very minimal scoring, and, in my opinion, lots of low-yield and extremely boring running.

I watched the World Cup Final today at Kimie's house. It was not only the first World Cup match I watched this year but actually the first soccer game I have ever watched.

I can always find an arbitrary reason to root for one team over another (regardless of the sport), and since I loved Amsterdam when I was there after college with Laura, I rooted for the Dutch team, which, as you know, lost. So it was kind of a bummer that I even got invested in teams.

But more of a bummer was just watching the game.

I spent 115 minutes watching a bunch of guys run up and down the field, with no result.

There were some good shots at goal by both teams, but no fruit came of them.

There were some really bad calls (in my opinion-- even though I, in my total lack-of-soccer knowledge, had to have someone explain to me what a "yellow card" actually was), lots of "flopping" by players who weren't really fouled, and lots of trash-talking.

And then a lucky goal by a Spaniard in the second overtime (or whatever soccer people call overtime), which basically ended the game.

It seems to me that one goal is a little too few to qualify one country as soccer World Champions, and that it is a shame that the hard work of the other 90-120 minutes of fruitless, low-yield running, may not pay off in any way. Is it fair that one moment of weakness of a goalie can decide the World Cup?

While I suppose it was good to be introduced to world soccer, and since my sister is dating an Italian, I have to pretend to be interested in this "global" sport. However, I must say that I can think of about 120 other, far more interesting things I could spend 90- 120 minutes doing and that, in the absence of some serious persuasion by soccer aficionados, today's World Cup Final might be both the first and last soccer game I watch.