There's good news about World Cup fever -- if it's caught early enough, a full recovery is possible

U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard was understandably dejected after the deciding goal scored by Belgium's Romelu Lukaku in the 2-1 U.S. loss. Poor Tim had himself quite a game, with 18 saves on 27 shots on goal (three times as many shots on goal as the U.S. team managed).

by Ken

What a game!

No, no, I'm just kidding. Not only didn't I see the game -- meaning the U.S.'s 2-1 World Cup elimination loss to Belgium today -- I didn't give a good gosh darn about it. I'm just thinking that now, given the result, and while I understand that we're not fully out of the World Cup woods yet, maybe we Americans can cut the crap and go back to our time-honored (and utterly appropriate) grinding apathy toward the entire excruciatingly uninteresting sport.

I know we're always reminded how nuts the rest of the world is for soccer, but could we focus for a moment on that strategic word "nuts"? Is it really so hard to believe that all those people are, at least in this regard, nuts?

There's more than one way to excruciate a crowd. The Brits -- and their imperial and Commonwealth legatess -- love to do it with cricket, which as far as I can tell isn't even a sport, just a bunch of guys standing around with one guy holding a bat and another guy hurling a ball and everything else made up on the spot. I know that Cricket World claims that there actually are rules to the whole imbroglio, but come on, let's cut the kidding.

Soccer does have rules, I appreciate, but who cares? The biting guy seems to have some original thoughts about the "game," but it doesn't look as if that's going to take this misbegotten excuse for sport anywhere. Mostly it seems to serve as an occasion for fan riots, which are perhaps to be admired as an extremely primitive form of population control, but again doesn't really make for a riveting spectator experience.

The good news: At least within the borders of these here United States, however, the World Cup has come and gone -- done, over, kaput, finito, terminé. The bad news: In four years (it is four years, isn't it?), it starts all over again. Unless if, when it knocks next time, we're all really, really quite and pretend nobody's home, and maybe eventually it'll just give up and go away and bother some other people.

If by chance anyone feels impelled to invade the comments section to provide incisive, withering commentary on my anti-soccer worthlessness, just stop and consider: Do you really think I -- or any sensible person -- care?

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