As someone who didn't play soccer growing up, but had a dad who did and whose own kids played as well, I can say unquestionably that it is the sport in which the team that dominates loses more often than any other major sport I know of. Or, to put it more bluntly, the team that deserves to win doesn't. For some soccer-loving friends, this is perfectly okay. Indeed, they will argue that it's a healthy, conservative reminder of how justice does not always prevail in life.
The great thing about being a Conservative Republican, I suppose, is possessing the conviction that your sensible ideology gives you an insight into aspects of life that other lesser mortals lack. How else could you possibly explain the American Enterprise Institute's Gary Schmitt and his screed on soccer. No, Schmitt never played the game, nor does he even appear to understand it, but that certainly isn't about to stop him from using it to demonstrate the infallibility and utility of Conservative philosophy and ideology.
Hey, come on now.... If soccer was a "real" sport, the players would be wearing helmets, pads, and beating the snot out of one another. And they can't use their hands? What's up with that??
We like, as good small "d" democrats, our underdogs for sure but we also still expect folks in the end to get their just desert. And, in sports, that means excellence should prevail. Of course, the fact that is often not the case when it comes to soccer may be precisely the reason the sport is so popular in the countries of Latin America and Europe.
Right; if only more of the rest of the world watched the National Football League, things would work so much better. Economies would flourish, democracy would rule, and Conservatism would be the dominant ideology. People would get what they put in, they'd pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, and socialized health care would be left to wussy countries like Canada and Sweden.
Then again, there is something really rather amusing about Schmitt, whose athleticism probably begins and ends with cutting his steak into bite-sized pieces, discourse expansively on a game he knows nothing about. Like that ever stops most Conservatives....
Soccer is a game. Period. Not a metaphor for the injustices and inequities of our mortal existence. It's a game...and it should be enjoyed and appreciated as such. If you don't understand it, well...there's still four months of baseball left and two months until the NFL season kicks off. Try and hold on, 'kay?
