In honor of my loathing of World Cup and all forms of aimless scurrying — an excerpt from a Chuck Klosterman essay on soccer:
“The truth is that most children don’t love soccer; they simply hate the alternative more. For 60 percent of the adolescents in any fourth-grade classroom, sports are a humiliation waiting to happen. These are the kids who play baseball and strike out four times a game. These are the kids who are afraid to get fouled in basketball, because it only means they’re now required to shoot two free throws, which equates to two air balls. Basketball games actually STOP to recognize their failure. And football is nothing more than an ironical death sentence; somehow, outcasts find themselves in a situation where the people normally penalized for teasing them are suddenly urged to annihilate them.
“This is why soccer seems like such a respite from all that mortification; it’s the one aerobic activity where nothingness is expected. Even at the highest levels, every soccer match seems to end 1-0 or 2-1. A normal 11 year old can play an entire season without placing toe to sphere and nobody would even notice, assuming he or she does a proper job of running about and avoiding major collisions.â€
Happy World Cup, everybody!
Brilliant.
Spot on!
GOOOAAAALLLLL!!!
I love Chuck Klosterman.
Any game involving shorts that show only the thigh, and in which the player can’t use his or her hands, is not worthy of being embraced even by those who are good at it. And speaking of humilitation, all eyes naturally are on the goalie just after the rare moments when someone scores a goal. (Hall of Fame hockey goalie Glenn Hall described it as “like having your pants taken down in public.”)
That’s probably why Hall threw up before every game. (I don’t, myself, but 15,000 people don’t jeer at me if I flub one.) To me, the real damning thing about soccer is the tendency of a player to crumple like a wet cardboard box at the slightest hint of contact – and then to spring up to take the free kick as if they’d landed in the very waters of Lourdes. Pathetic.
This is the only footy worth mentioning. “Ninjas and lasers and gold.” Heheheheh.
I was made to take field hockey when I was a youngster. To add it to your list: give the “mean girls” in the class hard wooden implements and turn them loose on a field full of potential victims wearing either shorts or short skirts.
And I was a terribly uncoordinated kid so I often hit the ball very short distances, or failed to “take” it from the opposing team’s player. Which gave the mean girls justification in “testing” the quality of my shinguards with their sticks.
I never enjoyed any sport; the only way I can stay fit these days is by doing “solo” exercise like walking, biking, cross-country skiing. Any activity where I could potentially be ridiculed and/or injured for my lack of coordination on the field is still something that I avoid.
Even volleyball scares me – that ball, coming from on high! People have broken their wrists!
My daughter played in Kindergarten. “Play” is equal to talking to her friends and picking the flowers. In first grade we decided that we had enough watching her run away from the ball at 8:00 in the morning, on a Saturday, in the rain. Oh how I don’t like soccer! I really hope that my son won’t want to play!
Kathi — hahahaha!
/watching her run away from the ball at 8:00 in the morning, on a Saturday, in the rain./
Yes, my nephews played for several years. Soccer games literally consumed entire weekends.
Note to soccer: You suck.
I love soccer **cough** because it is the only sport you can turn on then go mow your lawn and wash your car and pick up your dry cleaning and call your mom and then clean the thing at the bottom of your sink and then return to the couch and still have the same score as when you left.
“Note to soccer: You suck.” So true!
ricki — Sorry! Your comment went into moderation, but I’m dying:
/Even volleyball scares me – that ball, coming from on high! People have broken their wrists!/
HAHAHAHAHAHAA!
I know I’m late to the game on this one, but I laughed quite heartily!
I do like most sports, but I can’t stand soccer…and this was the perfect explanation of why many kids I know like it. I finally get it!
Thanks for the help!
“Note to soccer: you suck.” BWAHAHAHAHAHA!