Still Gotta Come Through Chicago

Good Riddance World Cup

HAPPY FRIDAY CHICAGO!

It’s good to be back after a little holiday break. You made it through family time if you dread it, and more importantly, you made it through the sports media drafting/deciding what the best and worst side dishes are at Thanksgiving. Perhaps the least funny or original bit running annually.

But most importantly, you made it through the World Cup. Well, I guess some of you may be still watching. But effectively, now that the U.S. is eliminated, I am finally able to refocus my sacred time and energy on things that could ultimately end in a championship, like the Bulls season.

I don’t want to be the outsider coming in and telling a sport how to conduct business, but here are a few tips. The flopping is absolutely absurd, there’s no doubt about that. But what’s worse is the clock running as the game is stopped and a guy lays on the ground grabbing his leg, crying, and rocking back and forth.

“That’s what extra time is for!”

Using “extra time” instead of just stopping the clock is like climbing down a fire escape to get out of your apartment when there is no fire. Sure, I guess you could argue you end up in the same place you would if you walked out the front door, but that doesn’t stop you from looking like a moron.

Secondly, and this is the biggest structural issue with soccer, is penalty kicks.

Imagine deciding the fate of a game through a subjective ruling that then leads to a 75% chance of score where the goalie is literally guessing which way to jump. In a game where maybe — maybe — three goals are scored, by the way. In essence, that’s like calling a technical foul in basketball, rewarding a free throw, and then that free throw is worth 50 points. But also, it’s Steph Curry shooting the free throw and there’s three baskets. A player on the other team has to jump in front of one if he wants to block it, but he doesn’t know which one to jump in front of.

Even if it’s in a PK-only period, winning on essentially 85% luck and 15% skill is a ridiculously dumb way to decide things.

That’s the game itself, which I have many more gripes with, but I will let sleeping dogs lie for now.

What else needs to improve though, is Americans’ chants. You can’t be a world-class soccer team without world-class support first. And despite my qualms with soccer, I am happy to help.

U-S-A, U-S-A! needs to be retired. Unfortunately, the freshman college student-frat boy killed this one. When I hear that, I basically turn into Viktor Bout. Get me out of there before I cringe long enough that my head pops off my neck or I arm terrorist groups with high-grade weaponry.

When you chant USA in a bar for no apparent reason, and everyone that begins to chant it with you is someone I personally would love to leave the bar, the chant loses its luster in moments that matter, like in the World Cup.

We can work on a replacement.

Secondly, singing Born In The USA by Bruce Springsteen in support of any U.S. team is perhaps the best way to make Green Day happy and prove yourself to be an American Idiot. Celebrating American teams and culture by boisterously singing a song that is very obviously criticizing the country is just about as dumb as deciding a game by having a goalie jump to one corner and trying to kick the ball into the other.

Now, what can we do as a country to not look dumb? Well, here’s a start. We can just not be that obsessed with soccer.

A lot of people believe in American exceptionalism. Let me help those people out.

The best case for American exceptionalism is that soccer is not that popular here. ‘How can we grow the game?’ No! Don’t grow the game. There are three sports that we created that are far superior to “The Beautiful Game.” “The Beautiful Game” is what they call soccer, which is a lot like the coffee spot down the street from me saying it has the “World’s Best Coffee.”

Rather than saying the U.S. reigns supreme because of freedom — something I didn’t realize was not unique to our country until like high school — we should be pounding our chests about the most popular sports here.

Lots of Soccer Stans are saying that the best American athletes would actually not dominate the soccer scene if they chose the sport. That, I can accept. It’s also another reason why soccer seems pretty fucking stupid. If Ja Morant, LeBron James, Derrick Henry, and Justin Jefferson wouldn’t be all that good in soccer, then why the hell am I watching?

The other thing I can accept from soccer purists is that football is a better name for soccer and that football is a bad name for American football. Totally agree. Great point. But there’s no confusion here, because American football is so much more entertaining, sensical and athletically appealing than soccer that we just called the latter, well, soccer.

The only time I’ve ever had fun watching soccer is when I was in Barcelona — abroad, studying abroad, being the man, you know — and Messi had 2 goals and 2 assists. I was three sheets to the wind, though, so much so that I was willingly chugging non-alcoholic beer (they didn’t sell alcoholic beer in the stadiums) and wearing a BarTHHelona scarf around my neck.

The final gripe I have with soccer, particularly in the U.S., is this bullshit coddling we do. The U.S. draws to fucking WALES, draws to England (and we’re supposed to clap after?), and beats Iran. Then we lose.

Next thing you know we’re all brown-nosing, screaming WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU BOYS! No disrespect to Christian Pulisic and the boys, but what exactly are we proud of them for?

They didn’t go to war. Anyone that was good enough at a sport to represent their country in the World Cup or the Olympics would go. That’s not extraordinary. They also didn’t win shit. Won a game, drew two, and lost one. What are we celebrating?

I know it’s tough, but that doesn’t mean we have to hand out participation trophies. Are we celebrating them for trying hard at their jobs?

Well, whoopdeefuckingdoo, hey President Biden, where the hell is my tweet? I’ve been working my ass off. Should the whole nation be proud of me?

Take a note from President Lincoln: Whatever you are, be a good one. While Pulisic and the boys are good soccer players relative to me, the U.S. Soccer Team is still not good.

Wake me up when they are. For now, it’s Bowl Season! Thank fucking God. Good riddance to “The Beautiful Game.”

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Now, there’s a lot going on in Chicago sports. Unfortunately, after I’m done writing this, I have to scramble to a Christmas Bar to meet my father or I will be pronounced dead to him. As I’m writing, my phone is literally being filled up with threats against my life. If you don’t hear from me next week, it was either a tough week or six old Irish guys beat the shit out of me and threw me into Lake Michigan.

Oh, so me getting wasted with the boys on UV Blue at 14 years old was a groundable offense, but 12 years later I’m getting harassed to meet the old man for a beer? How the tides have turned. Fucking hypocrite.

Anyway, I’ve got to run. We’ll talk Bellinger, Clevinger, Taillon, (hopefully something else), Justin Fields best game, Bulls, and everything else next week.

Thanks for bearing with me in a busy part of the year. I’ll deliver next week, that’s a promise. I appreciate you reading!

For my soccer fans, I’m just playing, you know I love you.