Soccer is the one sport I can tolerate watching on TV. It’s somewhat interesting and faster paced than American football (which stops every two seconds for no apparent reason), and it captures my attention better than other sports are able to. However, I couldn’t care less about the World Cup this year. Actually, let me rephrase that. I don’t care about the World Cup in a positive way, due to the advantages of other countries and the politics involved.

First off, in Brazil (where the World Cup is hosted this year, for all you readers who live under a rock), the Brazilians are being oppressed. There were “pre-World Cup” raids to clean up the slums, causing stray bullets to injure and kill many innocent people and children (according to http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/). Also, Brazilians want the government putting their money towards the poor and bettering the country rather than building new stadiums. Can’t say I disagree. #NotGoingToBrazil is trending on Twitter, as well as #NoVoyABrasilPorque in a form of protest.

Secondly, if the US wins, that means that everybody else quit. I did catch the second half and overtime of that last US game though, and I vote USA goalkeeper Tim Howard for Secretary of Defense. That guy is simply amazing, with some strong beard game going on. However, there isn’t a chance for America in this tournament. Soccer is literally worshiped in a lot of other countries, but in America it resides in the shadow of baseball, basketball, and football.

Essentially, the World Cup is a long winded match between Brazil and Germany (though Brazil got DESTROYED by Germany in that last one). Brazil has won five times, and they hold the record for number of World Cup wins. Italy has won four times and Germany three, but Germany has been a finalist seven times compared to Italy’s six. Germany was favored to win this year, and lo and behold, they won 1-0 against Argentina in extra time, giving my sister a cause to wear her Germany jersey without feeling guilty to America. I don’t think it’s interesting to watch a tournament where there are two or three teams that are pretty much guaranteed spots in the semi-finals and just see how they duke it out. It’d be much easier to just get those countries together and do a mini-Cup for them and then let all the other countries have their own, so America has a tiny chance of winning.

I realize I’m being unnecessarily negative towards the World Cup, but I’m usually unnecessarily negative. The thing I’ve always hated about soccer is the politics. They dominate the sport. They’re most of the reason why I quit playing (I was a goalkeeper back in the day). I can’t focus on the games in the World Cup when I know that people are being shot outside of the stadium. So forgive me if I’ve shattered your illusions of “pure soccer”, but it’s much more than that, and I refuse to watch.