If Soccer is the "World's Sport", Consider the U.S. Not Apart of That World

Just a few quick items before I call it a week.

- Even though this movie doesn't come out until July 27, 2007, let's all get very excited that they've simply released this teaser clip. I don't think any of us believed that the movie would come to fruition... until now.

- Bryant asked me to comment on soccer -- "the world's sport". It was a random suggestion, but I can oblige. I was always amazed that every little kid plays soccer. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. You want kids to get involved with something, learn to work with a team, follows the rules of a game, and the best part is that it's simple. "Billy, all you have to do is kick the ball in that goal over there". Then the kids all run around after the ball and everyone has a great time. Whenever I think of soccer, the image I get is every kid on the field chasing after the ball except for the 2 goalies, since they were told to stay put. I was never a huge fan of soccer, but I appreciate the athleticism of the players. Personally, my foot/eye coordination sucks, and I'm impressed that they play two 45 minute halves, each straight through, which takes a lot of stamina.

As for the current state of soccer, I really enjoy The World Cup and genuinely look forward to it this summer. I enjoy any type of international competition, and The World Cup and The Olympics are the main international competitions, and thus I like both. To be quite honest, I really don't care too much about soccer otherwise. I think the Major League Soccer will never be big in the US, and don't think it will last another 10 years in this country. More and more young players will go over to Europe to play, and sooner or later, the MLS won't be left with much in the way of talent. Besides that, the league is having a tough time bringing in revenue, and can't operate with continued monetary losses. There are some things that just cannot be changed, and I believe the fact is that soccer will never be as big as the other professional sports in the US. Turn it around: would football, baseball, or basketball ever have a chance in hell to rival soccer in England or anywhere else in Europe for that matter? Of course not. Just won't happen. Each country is rooted in its pasttimes. As big as soccer is as a participant sports for the youth, after the age of 10, most kids don't care about it anymore. Some will go on to play for the high school team, but after that, there's only a select few that go on to play at a collegiate level. Even at that point, if they were truly gifted in the sport, they would already be playing professionally somewhere.

Bottom line: I appreciate the athleticism of the sport, and find the athletes to be natually talented. Unfortunately, my interest in soccer is minimal, and the world's sport of "football" doesn't hold anything to American football in my book.

- I was super excited today when the NFL Regular Season schedules were announced. Co-worker Matt commented that "baseball season just started. Don't you think you're jumping the gun?" No. Not at all. I love baseball just as much as the next guy, but football is the be all and end all of American sport in my mind (as similarly mentioned in the previously comments). Amazingly, the Eagles received 2 MNF games (3 if you include Christmas game), along with 2 other nationally televised games already scheduled. Are we sure that they were a 6-10 team last year? 6-10 teams don't get this much primetime exposure. Regardless, I'm excited for the season... already. (No mention of a certain #81 that will be visiting Philadelphia with his new team on October 8th. Plenty of time for commentary between now and then)

Alright, I'm calling it a night. Enjoy the weekend and let me know if something cool happens. Cool things make for good blogging.