Futbol

(Ronaldo)

There are millions of soccer—all right, futbol—fans around the world, but I'm not one of them. As the World Cup wound down in South Africa two summers ago, I was left to wonder why I never embraced the sport.

I've been thinking long and hard about this question, and I now believe I have the answer(s).

1. The players are bad actors, particularly when one trips and falls and grabs his knee like somebody has taken a club to him (as happens in ice skating). That pathetic piece of equipment that looks like a surplus World War I battlefield stretcher comes out on the field and the faker waves it off and rejoins the action! It's a bad script, a cheap ploy to steal an undeserved rest. Your team is losing 0-0; get up and play the game! And don't be a crybaby.

2. Note the score: 0-0. Goodnight everybody. Thanks for coming to watch nothing!

3. One name? Like Sting? Like Rimbaud? Okay, Yrzuinifekuta, I dig the one name thing; you're an international icon. But can you sing? Can you write a great poem? No, you egomaniacal ass. All you can do is kick a ball and chase it around the field like a dog chasing a stick. And by the way, the futbol field is too damn large.

4. Beckham, you have no soul and your wife is too skinny. Buy her a meal for God's sake! She's your wife! Or are you broke already?

5. The game is for very fleet runners, and I could never run. I would have been lousy at the game; if I have no chance to win I'm going home and I'm taking the ball with me.

6. Hooligans.

7. Translate hooligans into 50 other languages.

8. No time outs? How do you pee out your last beer without missing the nothingness unfolding on the field? And I'm not taking a porta-potty to my seat with me like everyone else.

9. At the end of the game a single time-keeper knows how much time remains in the match, leaving the announcer to exclaim, "It's over! No, wait, apparently I'm wrong again!" And not to open a can of worms, but how do we know the time-keeper is telling the truth? Yeah, think about that one for a second...Makes you wonder, right?

10. Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!!!!!!


TS