What is the "point" of any sport? Not rationally justifiable.
Soccer is simple and requires almost no equipment. We have all seen people in primitive cultures playing with a ball that has been fashioned from natural materials that just happened to be available. The goal can be anything you want it to be.
Soccer looks like it would be fun to play, but for the unsophisticated observer (most Americans) it is boring as hell to watch. Indeed, it would be possible to create a "highlight film" of an entire World Cup tournament lasting less than ten minutes. It seems to me that the higher the level of competition, the less scoring takes place (like baseball, I suppose).
There can be no denying that it takes amazing skills to play soccer at the highest level. But on the other hand (no play on words intended), it is positively perverse that the world's most popular sport does not seriously include the use of the players' hands. Those are the appendages with which we do our best work.
In my area, the best soccer players are generally good at some other sport, and unless they are "scholarship material" in soccer, they drop soccer and go to the other sport by the time they reach 16 years old.
To me, the best thing about soccer in the U.S. is, unlike most sports, you can continue to play competitive soccer until you are too old to run. There is always a league somewhere that you can join. The same is not true of baseball, basketball, football, or hockey.
What was the news last week?...the U.S. mens' soccer team did not qualify for the Olympics? I'm devastated.
