The World Cup ends and we can all stop pretending to care about soccer.
It's okay for us not to like soccer, even if the rest of the world is crazy about (and during) it. And even if the emotions of spectators run higher than the winning country's debt liabilities. Soccer, on its face, has little to recommend itself as a spectator sport. For most of us, the idea of watching a competition for two hours where neither side scores is...unappealing. The fact that those matches frequently, even in the early stages of the world cup, end in ties, does not increase one's desire to watch the match. The poor reffing, subjective nature of calls, and ridiculous antics of players faking injuries, hardly help.
I like the idea of international sports because it is one of the only true forums for meritocracy in so much of the world. Nowhere else does one's performance alone count for more. Maybe that's why soccer doesn't agree with me. With so few points, so much hanging on a ref's judgement, it seems there isn't a close correlation between skill and results. Basically, we don't love soccer because soccer is socialist. The team that plays the best doesn't always (or maybe even usually) win, an autocratic official can interfere however he chooses to skew the results, the biggest whiners get special consideration, and there's often no winner or loser (or point). It goes against everything we learned on the playground.
Proud not to be a fan.