who calls this football?

The entire world apparently. Not to make this into a soccer blog or anything, but the topic came up so here goes. Soccer is mildly intriguing to me, in the same way that car accidents are intriguing to passersby. I know abit about soccer, most of the rules, some of the players(the best player in the world is KaKa, for real that's his name) some of the teams, etc. I even watched an MLS game when Becks played for the Galaxy once. With all that said I don't like soccer. I gave it a shot and still found it mind numbingly boring. I'm not gonna say its not a sport, it is, but it is a boring sport. Maybe I just don't get the intricacies of the game. Maybe its because I wasn't brought up watching it. (Have you ever sat with an adult who is watching their first baseball game? Its probably excruciatingly boring for them.)

Here's what I find lacking with the sport. (Not that it matters, but what does). The action is sparse, most of the game is a back and forth that occurs in the middle third of the pitch (field for you Americans). Its not like hockey where there is constant pressure on the goalie (compare shots on goal in each sport). Unless the Brazilians are playing there is hardly ever constant attacks on the keeper.

Wait there's how many leagues? Excluding the MLS, which is kinda like women's football in comparison, there are maybe dozens of top flight professional soccer leagues. There's the English Premier League with recognizable clubs like Chelsea, Manchester United and Aston Villa (owned by Randy Lerner). There's the Spanish league with Barcelona and Real Madrid. There's the Italian leagues with Inter Milan and AC Milan. And I'm sure there's more leagues in Germany and some of the Baltic countries.

Here's where the problem lies, how do we know which team is best. We kinda do but we don't. Each league crowns its own champ but teams from different leagues do play each other. Now, I don't know what the difference is between the UEFA Cup and the Champions League is but the best teams from the major leagues do play each other and name a champ. I guess that kinda works.

Now if I wanted to know who was the best basketball team in the world was all I had to do was watch the Spurs dismantle the Cavs. There is, without question, no better basketball team in the world right now than the Spurs. Not in Canada, not in the U.S. and not in any of the Euro Leagues. All the best players play in one league I'm not sure you can say that about soccer.

Finally some of the rules are absurd. Well I guess some of the rules in every league are absurd.(fumble that goes out the endzone, belongs to the other team and counts as a touchback. What!?) What's the deal with the clock in a soccer match? Why doesn't it stop? We time sprinters to the hundredth of a second and we can't stop the clock in a soccer match. This in turns leads to "injury time". Imagine if a football game didn't end when the buzzer sounded but after the official added an amount of time that only he knew about. That's INSANE! Not only does this not make any sense, it sucks the drama out of the waning minutes of a game and its ripe for fixing. So Stop the clock!

I'm sure there's more. I tried to watch it, it didn't work I'm sorry. It still intrigues me just not enough to really care. Go USA women's world cup team!