The Out Route

We've gotten a few questions on The Out Route's noticeable lack of World Cup coverage. The truth is, we're not soccer-haters. And we're not the type of arrogant pricks who only care about international competition when the U.S. is involved. Actually, quite the opposite -- we detest American arrogance and the natural assumption that they're effortlessly better than the world at all sports, therefore we celebrate when (whether it be the World Cup, the Olympics, the World Baseball Classic, or the Hot Dog Eating Competition), Americans get their come-uppance and are proven inferior. Serves us right.

Really, we're just not soccer people. Much respect to the athletes, it's definitely not an easy game, but we don't spend our non-World Cup lives caring about soccer (like most Americans). Unlike most Americans, we feel that pretending we suddenly care about soccer once every four years is wrong. So we don't bother. We know just which countries are stereotypically good at soccer and a few of the stars, and we know we're DEFINITELY attracted to Posh Beckham. That's as far as it goes. We did watch a few of the games this year though, including today's Italy/France final, and were surprisingly entertained. Although we do have some complaints -- namely, the terrible exagerrating of injuries which at times was so severe even Dwyane Wade was ashamed. But we were able to watch the first half-hour of today's game, go outside in the middle of a 1-1 tie to enjoy that thing called the sun, and come back inside about 90 minutes later knowing nothing had changed. So at least there's that.

In the end, Italy won in shootout (5-3), and greasy pizzamen around the world rejoice (we're just kidding, seriously! We're part Italian ourselves). The game ended in controversy, as French star Zinedine Zidane (in probably his last World Cup) was ejected towards the end of regulation after head-butting an Italian in the chest (insert your own joke here). His presence in the shootout probably would have, you know, helped the French possibly not lose, but there's nothing he can do about it now. Way to let your country down, Ziney. We're just sort of glad this whole thing is done. Though it provided a mild sporting distraction during an otherwise uneventful summer, we're glad there'll be no more phony American interest and more time for things that matter, like the MLB All-Star Game. Hey, it counts this time! No, really!