The Zidane Incident

[BDBohnzie]

Zidane's best play of the World Cup wasn't any of his three goals (2 of which were on PKs), but the beautiful cross he hit to Thierry Henry to beat Brazil 1-0.

There is an arrogance from Americans when it comes to soccer. Not sure why, but the casual fan will never embrace it the way they embrace other sports. I'm a fan of sports in general, so watching soccer is just another reason to sit for a few hours and watch a highly competitive match.

Schneed, your point is taken, but I do think that a big part of why Americans do not like soccer is because of the low scoring. In order to get fans back, it was rumored that baseball "juiced" the balls so that they would fly further, increasing Home Runs and scoring. The NFL have all but outlawed any contact downfield between receivers and corners. The NHL, to bring back fans, have increased scoring chances with smaller creases, smaller goalie pads, and other rule changes. The NBA has become very lax about travelling and other things that slow the game down. These things would haven't happened if Americans didn't care one way or another about low scoring. It's a shame that soccer gets a bad rap because of low scoring...I don't expect it to compete with the big boys, but that's no reason to totally write it off.

But what's funny is, take any rivalry in the US (Yanks/BoSox, Skins/Cowboys, etc), and it will nowhere near match the intensity of the rivalries in Europe.