Re: USA vs. Portugal...
I follow it somewhat the rest of the years, but it's about like the Olympics to me. I follow those other sports just sporadically between the games. I've had kids and grandkids in soccer and I almost had to learn the rules and tactics. I'm glad I did. I enjoy the World Cup a great deal more because of it. Understanding the game is important to enjoying watching it. In a way, watching the World Cup or the Olympics is similar to watching just the playoffs in the NFL, MLB or the NBA. That's pretty much what I do. One thing I'll never understand are MLB fans complaining about soccer being boring. My god, in soccer, people run around constantly. They run into each other, draw blood and get injured. In MLB, all people do is stand around 95% of the time, and I'm saying that as a former baseball/softball player. When folks tell me I just don't understand the the strategy and nuances of MLB (I do), I point out that their problem with soccer is similar...
Earle,
As one who spent three years in the UK - and actually was introduced to soccer BEFORE I ever heard of the Crimson Tide - there is a certain level of agreement with you here because there IS a lot of standing around in baseball. I am assuming that the beef comes from the fact that most of the time it seems there's only three scores in soccer: 0-0, 1-0, and 1-1. It's been better this go around (and the stereotype is not "really" true) but it sure seems to be part of it. Yes, there's strategy (and I easily understood what was going on) in soccer, but the lack of scoring in most games is a lot of the beef.
By the same token - I don't really pay much attention to anything outside of football and - much lesser than I used to - baseball. I follow Ipswich Town from a distance in English soccer because they were the local team (and won the FA Cup in 1978 just three months before we left England - in fact, the coach lived next door to a classmate of mine and we got a tour of the stadium). But it's not something that really concerns my time; I pay zero attention to who even makes the Cup until the tournament starts.
The reason I hardly watch baseball is because they made the regular season virtually meaningless. I grew up on pennant races and yes - there were some years (1986 comes to mind) where all the divisions were blowouts. But usually there was at least one division that had a do-or-die race where you had to win. One of my fondest memories is the first weekend in Germany in 1982. We didn't have TV, all we had was Armed Forces radio. But there were two great pennant races going on, and hearing it made me use my imagination of what was going on as Milwaukee blew a three-game lead and then topped Baltimore and the Braves backed in when the Giants beat the Dodgers in the NL West.
But once they added the wildcard that ceased. Oh - and once they added this stupid play-in game (also known as the "Let's make sure Boston-the Yankees-Dodgers or Cardinals get in the playoffs"), my interest pretty much died.
The one thing that irked me (and I had to educate myself) in soccer was the offside rule - however, I did find it has changed since I was a kid to something more "proper." It's sort of like the infield fly rule in baseball - you HAVE to have it for the integrity of the game.
