Two quick points:
1) The McLaughlin Group is lazy. Of course, nobody from the forum read my post Friday, but they all more or less answered the question of “Why aren’t American’s nutty over soccer?” with the obvious: the scores are too low to interest Americans.
Lame. Americans can tolerate low scores and a lot of running around. It’s called ice hockey. (Of course, hockey players are encouraged to smack each other around. But then, both sports feature belligerent francophones.) Many Americans, indeed, thrive on the sport, although the sport has a considerably smaller market share than baseball, football, basketball or NASCAR (debate however you like whether NASCAR is a sport). Hell, the typical baseball game takes longer than 90 minutes and frequently consists of long stretches of scorelessness.
Low scores is the lazy answer, but I guess the McLaughlin Group — for all its PBS loftiness — is no better than a cable news shoutfest. McLaughlin’s round-the-table bulletpoinspeak leaves no room for thoughtful discussion. Cram that in your totebag, John.
2) A world championship game should not end on a shootout. AGAIN: A world championship game should not end on a shootout. Nothing supposedly so momentous should end on luck. The players should keep going in sudden-death overtime until somebody scores or there are no players left standing on the field.
One argument for why American’s don’t follow soccer that I didn’t mention Friday was the use of faking injury as a strategy. Yes, I find it tacky. But no American sport is free of whining. It just isn’t as institutionalized as it seems to be in FIFA play.