Wasif's World

President Obama's health plan seems to have worked. America has been completely vaccinated, protected from that global scourge known as "soccer fever." We're breathing the same air as soccer fans, sometimes high-fiving them without washing our hands afterward, maybe even blowing the same vuvuzela (sounds like something out of the free-spirited 70's, doesn't it?), but we can't seem to catch the disease.

What is it about soccer fever that we're immune to? If it were but one issue, it would be obvious, but there are just so many. The sport has something for everyone to dislike.

For men, soccer is the only sport that, barring overtime and sudden death, plays true to its time. If the clock reads ten minutes left, chances are the game will be over in ten minutes (maybe twelve with the random "stoppage" time). Men need a game where they can tell their spouses or significant betters, (Ladies, I know you're fans of the blog and I'm looking out for you ... wink) "Just five more minutes, sweetheart" knowing they'll be on the couch for at least an hour and a half longer while each coach calls timeout after timeout or has his team foul endlessly.

In soccer, when a guy says "five minutes," he's bound by that. He has no out. It really goes against the guy's code, when you think of it.

Don't think that means that women like it, however. While the men are watching, women are looking for a can of insect killer because they think there's a swarm of bees in the TV room. That sound, that feeling stays with you long after the game's over too. You begin to hear those vuvuzelas in your sleep, and then swat violently in the air, connecting on your husband once or twice.

Advertisers certainly cannot like this game. There are NO commercials during playing time. How can they like this? Sure, they put signs on the walls, but we're too busy dozing off to notice them.

Even basketball, which has decided it'd rather make money than produce a just and decent product, has given us the "TV timeout." This is when a few minutes have gone by without a stoppage of play, they're going to give us one, usually like a sitcom where one character looks at the ref with bug-eyes and says, "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Joey Crawford?"

Casual fans do not enjoy the soccer for several points. Not knowing all the rules is one major point, but mainly it's the melodramatic flops taken anytime a player's legs are cut out from underneath him. They're like Nancy Kerrigan out there, on their backs clutching their knees crying, "No! No! Why me, Lord? Why? Why?!" (Even Kerrigan sees this and thinks, "C'mon, can the Oscar performance and take your kick.") Then the ref awards them a kick and the injured player suddenly jumps up, ready to go, miraculously healed.

It's an indirect kick, by the way, unless it happened inside the ... ah, forget it.

Even hockey fans don't like soccer. They can't get into it. It's too boring for them. For them!

In all fairness, although the scoring is similarly scarce, hockey mixes in MMA-style fisticuffs to break up the monotony. [Note to FIFA: Hire Chuck Lidell as a consultant.]

Yep, scoring and fighting, that's the part of sports that are contagious to Americans. And damned if we can't get that from soccer because we've been vaccinated. Thanks a lot, President Obama!