Stop taking a dump on soccer

I've got a gripe I need to air out.

Disclaimer: This isn't coming from someone who is a total expert on soccer or would even call myself a "diehard." I enjoy watching Premier League games occasionally and watch the major world tournaments. I don't watch all the MLS games or follow everything soccer religiously.

I do watch as much of the World Cup as I can -- every second I possibly can that I'm not working or tied up with something else. Why? Because it's the top athletes in the game representing their country in a once every four years event.

Yet, some still don't understand the allure. And that's OK. It's fine if you don't get soccer or don't like it or just don't even care. But then there's another group of people -- oh, this group of people -- who refuse to believe that anyone can enjoy this "tedious, slow, mind-numbing" game.

Many of these same folks don't understand how the World Cup works. Here's an example of a conversation:

Guy: "What happened in the U.S. game?
Me: "U.S. lost"
Guy: "Figures."
Me: "But they'll still advance."
Guy: "Oh, I don't get that." 

Some are actually willing to listen to the reasoning behind the goal differential tiebreaker. Others are appalled. A sport where you can lose and advance? Blasphemy.

How could anyone care about this "Cup" played for by the world? Some refuse to believe it's anything more than a byproduct of the media's fascination. It's not like 24 million Americans watched the U.S. match against Portugal on Sunday or anything...

Dan Shaugnessy of The Boston Globe has expressed his lack of interest in the sport on a major platform. That is fine.

It's ignorance that becomes bothersome.

"Soccer takes away our hands. This makes the game incredibly skillful and exhausting, but also robs fans of much of the beauty of sport. Hands and opposable thumbs separate us from creatures of the wild," Shaughnessy writes. "Most of the memorable plays in sports are accomplished with hands. How would we have even known the athletic greatness of Pedro Martinez, Larry Bird, Bobby Orr or Tom Brady if they could not have used their hands? Soccer takes our hands out of the game."

How would we have ever known the athletic greatness of Pele or Maradona or Messi if they could not have used their feet?

Heck, Maradona even once very infamously used his hand. 

Shaughnessy's argument is silly. But people make silly arguments because they don't understand and are unwilling to learn more about the sport of soccer.

As I said earlier, I'm not an expert on the game. I don't fully dissect every tactic or formation or alignment. But I like to learn. I enjoy marveling at a skill I certainly don't have, the athleticism, endurance and drama produced by the tension of the plodding play on the pitch.

A low-scoring soccer match is no indication of its excitement level. In fact, those are often those most heart-wrenching, full of goals missed by inches, opportunistic defensive plays or great saves. 

Futbol is not football. They are completely different stylistically and in their scoring, so comparing them on that basis is futile. 

Again, apathy is no crime. Blind ignorance coupled with bold assertions are obnoxious, to say the least.

Despite being 3-0, Stanley Cup Final isn't as one-sided as some say

The New York Rangers are in trouble - big trouble, in fact, in this 2014 Stanley Cup Final.

Down 3-0 after a game they really needed to win at home, a first championship since 1994 is looking improbable. While the Rangers find themselves in a massive hole, the narrative of this series has taken a turn toward the inaccurate following the Kings' 3-0 Game 3 victory.


“I would be shocked if the Rangers could win Game 4,” NBC analyst Keith Jones said in an interview on The Jim Rome Show. “The LA Kings have shown great dominance for many parts of this series against the Rangers."

Many?

For the majority of this series, the Rangers have been ahead or tied with the Kings. In each of the first two games in L.A., the Kings only took the lead once and for all on game-winning goals.

In Game 3, the Rangers squandered opportunities in the first period then the Kings pounced with a final-second goal from Jeff Carter before the intermission.

The Blueshirts had double the shots of the Kings, but not one goal to their name, Monday night. More than the Kings displaying dominance, one player, goalie Jonathan Quick, did.

Quick was simply magnificent shutting the Rangers out in the Garden, sprawling and lunging to form an impenetrable wall in front of his net. The American goalie took his play to a world-class level, unlike the first two games in which he let in eight goals.

Look at it this way. The Rangers have had two-goal leads three times in this series - and blown them all three times. Sure, the Kings are "resilient," as just about every hockey writer and analyst has called them since the Final's first game.

But more than that, they're ruthlessly opportunistic. Kings goals have come at every which angle, deflected off sticks and skates, so elusive that Henrik Lundqvist's had little shot of keeping them out. Game 2's comeback was catapulted by a third-period goal in which Kings forward Dwight King stymied any form of movement for Lundqvist in the crease. Yet the play went on - no stoppage, no penalty, just the sound of the goal horn.


It's been that kind of series for the Rangers - one where the Kings have seized their opportunities to suck the life out of their opponent.

But on the whole, despite what it says on the ledger, the Cup Final has not been some kind of epic domination. Even time after time in Game 3 when the Rangers couldn't convert, they were still peppering Quick with quality chances. Each of the first two games had to be decided in overtime.

To completely rule the Rangers out in Game 4 would be ignoring the Rangers' own resilience (the 3-1 deficient they improbably emerged from against Pittsburgh) and misinterpreting how the Kings have gotten out to a commanding series lead.